Amanda's lip curled before she could stop it, a reflexive, unconscious gesture that briefly bared her teeth. Even she could sense the whisper of wrongness coming off of the rod, and she couldn't imagine what her mother, with her stronger blood, might have been able to get off of it. It was hard to tell how much of her reaction was to the rod itself and how much was a response to knowing what it could do.

Her mind caught on something Robert said, near the end. Something more useful than a million questions, even intelligent ones. [i]Locations[/i]. It was probably already on the agenda, but it couldn’t hurt to bring it up...

She glanced up and around the table without quite addressing anyone in particular, one hand fiddling with the sleeve of her cream-colored sweater. "If we could go back to the location, some of us here might be able to get more than just physical evidence.” Not her, probably, but some of them. Mandy’s eyes drifted back to the potential weapon on the table, and she was torn between an urge to scoot further away and an almost overwhelming desire to touch it. To pick it up and turn it over in her hands like just another piece in one of her puzzles.

[i]Curiosity killed the cat[/i], she reminded herself, and suppressed an unhappy smile at the memory of more than one former guardian saying the same thing. She was only half human, after all, and [i]caith sidhe[/i] had a reputation for going out and prodding things that probably shouldn't be prodded.