AN UNFAMILIAR CURL OF PANIC GREW IN LORCAN AS HE STEPPED through the portal into the Nine Hells. A dose of fear was normal—a half-devil wouldn’t live long in Malbolge without being wise enough to fear what lay around each corner. But this was different—this was the kind of terror that got a fellow killed. The kind of terror he knew how to prey on, but not how to master, and it thrummed all through him, as if carried by the faint, unending pulse of Malbolge.
Another sign that things had changed. It couldn’t be permanent, he told himself as his feet settled on the bone-tiled floor. Although, he had no proof of that, no understanding of how far this change extended. Only that it wasn’t right.
Damn you, Dahl, he thought, as he glanced around the narrow room, fighting to keep his breath calm. Once more he wished he’d convinced Farideh to share the protection—but he’d had no choice but to return to the Nine Hells, and the very thought of bringing Farideh here for more than a heartbeat made him feel like nothing but prey.
He noticed the erinyes waiting for him—too late—by the time he registered her standing there, blade in hand, he should have been dead. No god of luck would have dropped a die for Lorcan, but he found himself endlessly grateful it was Neferis waiting for him.
“You’re alive.” She sounded surprised, maybe a little relieved. The last he’d seen Neferis, Glasya had tasked her specially with watching over Lorcan—whether that meant she was to guard him or spy on him, neither of them was sure. “Where’s Zela?”
“She didn’t come back?” Lorcan said. He’d left Zela and eight other erinyes in the Underdark as well, facing off with a clearly diminished but still-dangerous Graz’zt, the Dark Prince. The erinyes should have been able to flee … but Lorcan wouldn’t have laid a wager on whether Zela, the most powerful of his sisters, would have let them.
“Not yet,” Neferis said. She sheathed her sword. “I would have chased you. Her Highness said you have to be alive. But with Zela there …” She let the explanation trail away, leaving Lorcan to decide if Zela had been a safeguard or a deterrent.
The walls oozed a stream of marrow. “If she’s not back yet,” Lorcan said, “does Glasya know they left?”
Neferis shook her head. “The oathbreaker curse gives special permissions through the gates and portals.” She drummed her fingers on her sword hilt. “Where’s Little Sister?”
“Out of reach,” Lorcan said. Until Farideh turned twenty-seven, he was bound to protect Sairché from harm, just as she was bound to protect him. A deal that outlived its usefulness the moment it compelled him to open a portal to the Underdark to save a possessed Sairché from Bryseis Kakistos’s reckless—and failed—plan to ally with Graz’zt. Farideh’s birthday couldn’t come soon enough. “For the moment, anyway. Has Shetai sent anyone looking for me?”
Before Lorcan had leaped into Toril and into trouble, he’d made overtures to another collector devil, a paelyrion called Shetai. While his first attempt at gathering information from Shetai had failed and given it far more information about Lorcan than he’d received about the Brimstone Angel, a message had come soon afterward when Shetai had realized Lorcan might have his uses after all.
“No—and be glad,” Neferis said. “Shetai is trouble.”
“Well met and welcome to the shitting Hells. Who isn’t trouble?”
Neferis gave him a dark look. “Shetai’s the one who triggered the fall of Malagarde. Anyone tell you that?”
Malagarde, the Hag Countess, had been the layer’s previous ruler and now her magically twisted body made the layer itself. The ghost of the night hag wailed in the winds, her body seeping fluids still, her heartbeat pulsing in everything.
“So it’s the Vulgar Inquisitor’s fault the walls are constantly ruining my clothes?” He waved toward the door. “Send a messenger to Shetai that I would speak soon. I have warlock business to attend to.”
“Be careful,” Neferis said. “It’s more ruthless than Mother ever was. And I won’t rescue you from the Vulgar Inquisitor either.” She left, and Lorcan sprinted after her, locking the door tight. He fell against it and made himself take several deep breaths.
Find Adastreia, he thought. Then find a way to fix this. He crossed to the iron scrying mirror hanging in the corner beside the portal’s anchor point.
Five Brimstone Angels walking the world. Farideh was his and Havilar was no one’s. Shetai claimed a man called Lachs the Yellow—Lorcan didn’t relish trying to coax that one away. Nasmos was held by a bone devil called Incus, and Adastreia Tyrianicus was kept by a logokron from the Eighth Layer called Kulaga.
Lorcan called up the image of a fortress deep in a pine forest, atop a tor of granite, and studied it, frowning. A Brimstone Angel was a valuable heir, if you were going to collect warlock pacts, and Kulaga and Adastreia didn’t have the luxury of a mysterious protection spell to keep other, overeager collector devils away. If he showed up with Farideh in tow, there was every chance Adastreia and her patron would assume it was an attack: nothing increased a warlock’s value like ensuring their rarity.
Which meant he needed to arrange for Kulaga to be there as well, with as little information handed over as possible. Neferis could be sent, maybe another two erinyes for show—
Lorcan yawned, suddenly, and dread pooled in him. How quickly would Kulaga realize that Lorcan was weakened, maybe addled? The logokron was wily, a practitioner of old true-name magics, and a spymaster with at least half Shetai’s reach, which was nothing to disregard.
And you are the madman who lied to the archduchess, Lorcan thought. Not a skill to disregard.
And if he didn’t, what would happen to Farideh? No, never mind Farideh—how badly would it fall on him if Asmodeus were displeased? That panic built in his chest, a thick cloud he could hardly breathe around. Trying to predict what Asmodeus would be pleased by in the long run was as impossible as trying to guess what his plans were.
But if you don’t guess, Lorcan thought, considering the scrying mirror, you may wind up dead anyway.
• • •
ILSTAN RAN HIS fingertips over the smooth stone, testing the magic laid into it. On the other side of the table, its twin hummed, alight with magic. The murmurings of Azuth matched the pitch of the magic, and together they hummed in Ilstan’s bones.
One death was a trial … one death was a test … perhaps two shall answer the question once and for all …
You will not die, Ilstan thought. I will not let you die.
Many a wizard forgets to plan for death … many a wizard seeks to evade it … none …
The voice trailed away and dread built in Ilstan’s heart as the silence stretched.
The Moonmaiden will come to regret her meddling, the same voice returned, but stronger, more musical somehow. Asmodeus. Where has she gone, my little hero?
Ilstan crouched down beside the table, laden with more scrolls, more magic items than he should have been able to shape. Don’t listen to the voice when it changes, he told himself. He made himself think of the meshing of spells, the network of magic that would link the stones together over the planes. Don’t listen to the voice when it changes.
Why doesn’t he know? The thought slipped in without Ilstan meaning for it to. But why wouldn’t Asmodeus know where to find Farideh, his reluctant Chosen?
Reluctance does not necessarily forestall action … what actions we take are greater currency than our promises and titles … intent multiplies action but does not absolve action …
She helped you, Ilstan reminded himself, curling his fists into his hair. She saved you. He doesn’t mean Farideh.
And what did she save you from? Against his will, Ilstan found his mind flooded with images of his life before he’d left Cormyr, before he’d become the Chosen of Azuth. Striding through the palace of the Purple Dragon. Given the robes of a full war wizard several years before his peers. Given command over contingents even sooner. He’d had the trust of the Crown. He’d had the affection of Princess Raedra. All of that was gone and he would never regain it.
But those memories felt empty, those prizes not so precious. For all he contended with madness, he would not have traded his nearness to the Lord of Spells for anything. The spells he cast as a war wizard were works of craft and care, but they lacked a spark he could not have gained without the Lord of Spells. Was this the difference between being a wizard without a god and with one? Was it what came of being the Chosen of Azuth?
What would happen if the Brimstone Angel succeeded?
“Where is the staff?” Ilstan whispered. “Can you sense it?”
What is the symbol but a fraction of the thing?… When it is lost, what is lost?… Direction, focus, resilience …
The staff is gone, the other voice said.
Little is truly gone … only forgotten …
Where is she? Asmodeus’s voice rang in Ilstan’s head like the pealing of a great bell. Your master dies if the vessel does not.
Ilstan squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t listen to the voice when it changes.
• • •
YOU SEEM UPSET.
Havilar blinked at Alyona’s voice. How long had they sat silent after returning from the fortress? She would have said it was only a heartbeat ago—had she a pulse to count, anyway—but at the interruption, it suddenly felt as though it might have been hours or days or maybe years. I am upset, she said. How could I possibly be anything else?
Alyona crouched down and put her arms around Havilar, who took the offered comfort, trying to ignore the way the difference between what it felt like to be hugged and what it should have felt like made her want to scream.
I know, Alyona said. I was upset too. I was so angry at my sister for such a long time.
If I were you, Havilar said, I would go right on being angry. You’d be justified.
Alyona’s hand rubbed her back for a moment before she released her. Maybe, she allowed, but anger only poisons us. I cannot change the past. I can only change with the future.
Havilar thought that sounded like a lot of rubbish—some things didn’t deserve forgiveness, and trapping your sister in a karshoji soul prison seemed like the top of the list. You sound like a priest, spouting lines like that.
Alyona laughed. Well I am. I was. A devotee of Selûne.
Oh, Havilar said. Well that’s all right.
I’m glad she meets your approval, Alyona said wryly. She has done so much … She … Do you know, when I was a girl, the town watch would lay the bodies of unclaimed dead out behind the temple of Selûne? Bisera would pick their pockets while I kept watch. That’s where the head priestess first noticed me, where she … I was only pretending at first, you see? Trying to keep her attention, trying to keep Bisera safe, but it made an impression, you could say, when she’d come talk to me. No one else cared for me like that, except my sister.
Coin bought a lot more than kind words and silly sayings, Havilar thought. But she couldn’t imagine Tam Zawad, the Harper priest of Selûne who was Brin’s superior, dispensing Selûne’s wisdom to a starving child and not passing some bread and dried meat along with it, and a place to sleep as well. What did your sister think about your calling?
Alyona shrugged the way a person did when they knew the answer and they didn’t much like it or like to admit it. She didn’t turn my gifts down when we went adventuring. Everyone’s a god-worshiper when their leg’s broken. Even Caisys … She drifted off again, the smirk at some joke Havilar didn’t know relaxing into something sad and a little defeated. She doesn’t venerate the gods the same way. She was always angry at our lot, not that I would blame her. Not that anyone could blame her. She smiled at Havilar. There—that is something you can relate to at least a little. She doesn’t wish for assistance, she wants to do things on her own.
Havilar frowned. How … How much do you know about me? Or about us?
Alyona smiled. Both. I was broken too.
So you just … watched?
Don’t worry, Alyona said. It’s like a dream. You’re just … You’re there and you’re a part of it … You see so much of a person in their dreams …
That didn’t comfort Havilar. It still meant that Alyona had been there for … well, for everything. Brin and the imps and calling down Lorcan, getting possessed and that time she broke her arm, and everything about Arjhani. You’re there and you’re a part of it—she didn’t want someone else to be a part of it, watching and judging and—
Havilar stood. Wait—do you mean you can go into people’s dreams?
Yes, Alyona said. Bisera’s and … She stopped herself this time, looking abashed. Well, Bisera’s are simplest. The closer you are to someone, the simpler.
I could talk to Farideh, Havilar said. That’s what you mean?
Yes, Alyona said slowly. But it’s … I mean, it’s not so simple. It takes some practice. Especially since she is so far away. What do you want to tell her anyway?
She might not be asleep.
Someone will be asleep, Havilar said, pulling Alyona to her feet. Show me how.
• • •
IF FARIDEH HADN’T been warned about Kulaga’s secretive nature, about Adastreia’s reclusiveness, she wouldn’t have been able to spot the small fortress she and Lorcan were walking into. A sheer cliff face, only reached by a narrow path between two hills. The brush was thick and snagged her cloak and the wrappings on her legs as she pushed through it, toward the broken brown rock face. Even though she could see no one watching, she felt eyes on her and kept her rod in her hand.
She won’t kill you, Farideh thought, repeating Lorcan’s assurances. She’s afraid, but she’s curious.
Though, she added as she reached the gates, never curious enough to look for you. Never that. She blew out a slow breath—she didn’t want Adastreia or anyone else to have come to find her, to have claimed her and taken her from Mehen. So why did it sting to know they hadn’t?
She felt the first of the protective circles as she crossed over it, as if pressing through an enormous spiderweb. The reason they couldn’t use a portal to get any closer. Lorcan cursed as he pushed through the same barrier, but it didn’t stop him.
“How many do you expect there are?” Farideh asked.
Lorcan didn’t answer. He passed her, looking tense—and damp with sweat. Farideh stared at him. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m—” He broke off. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look well,” she caught up with him. “You’re sweating.”
“Well this isn’t my usual constitutional, now is it?”
“I have never seen you sweat. Not once.”
Lorcan looked back at her. “You’re remembering wrong. Please, darling, I’m fine. Come on.”
Farideh was not remembering wrong. The way her clammy skin clung to his, the difference between her hand on his bare back and her hand on Dahl’s—there was no mistaking something had changed in Lorcan. She started to ask him—again—what had happened, but she stopped herself. He didn’t need to know she was worried about him.
You should be more worried about him, she thought, and she wished Mehen were with them. While Lorcan had gone to make the necessary preparations to collect Adastreia, Farideh had donned her armor, belted her sword, and gone to find Mehen, to tell him she was going to go after the other heirs. To ask if he would come along—at least that had been her plan. She knew well enough she shouldn’t be alone with Lorcan, that she needed allies, that she needed her father with her.
But then she imagined a tiefling, a Brimstone Angel, with her eyes or hair or nose. Someone wicked enough to collude with Bryseis Kakistos, wicked enough to leave two newborn babies in the snow and never once be sure of their safety. How many horrible things might she say? How many cruelties would she sling at Mehen? And Farideh would have to ask him to stand there, to listen to all of it and say nothing, do nothing.
She couldn’t ask that of Mehen. She left a note instead.
Following Lorcan through another protective barrier and into the crack in the cliff face, Farideh hoped Mehen would understand. There was so little of this she could protect him from—this one moment of unfair restraint seemed a minor gift.
A grinding sound—two humanlike bodies peeled themselves from living rock, falling into step behind Farideh and Lorcan as the crack widened into a cavern, then the cavern smoothed into an entrance hall lit by hanging balls of light. Intricate chiseled patterns laced the polished stonework as they climbed a short flight of stairs, and another stone golem broke away from a column, leading the way down into the hillside.
“Don’t talk unless I say so,” Lorcan told her. “There’s an order to this. Kulaga will need assurances that we’re not threatening him, that I don’t want Adastreia’s pact. A lot of posturing, a lot of sparring. Don’t tell him why we’re really here. And put away your rod before someone thinks you’re getting ideas.”
“What are you going to tell him we’re here for?” Farideh asked as they entered a long rectangular room, its walls dominated by impossible windows of frosted glass. Sunlight, which could not have possibly come from this deep in the ground, lit the space illumining the woman sitting at the far end of the room, and the ebon-skinned devil behind her.
Here was the source of their purplish-black hair—though Adastreia’s was streaked with silver as bright as her eyes. Here were their swept-back horns, dark and neat. She could see Havilar’s mouth and the shape of her chin, but the rest of Adastreia’s face was softer, her nose a tidy line. She was paler, Farideh thought as she came closer, and shorter too—she would have come just to Farideh’s shoulder, slim as a whip in her crimson gown, her necklace of fine stones. In that moment, by the features she lacked, Farideh imagined she could picture what her father looked like.
Mehen, she reminded herself. Mehen is your father. These are the people who abandoned you in the snow.
But a lump built in her throat anyway as the other tiefling regarded her coldly.
“Well met, Lorcan,” a sibilant voice said. “And Farideh, I believe? The secret Brimstone Angel?”
In her study of Adastreia, she’d neglected the devil Kulaga behind her, still as a statue. Two hands folded over his chest as if in contemplation—two more held halberds, long axes on poles. Kulaga’s skin was as dark as Lorcan’s eyes, his eyes as red as Lorcan’s skin, and a tongue tattooed with a sigil dangled from his mouth. Something about the rune made Farideh flinch. “We meet at last.”
“Well met, Kulaga,” Lorcan said, with a sort of half bow that held an equal mix of fear and disdain. “How fares Cania?”
The logokron’s ruby eyes didn’t leave Farideh. “Do you ask for my sake, or for Archduke Mephistopheles’s?”
“I’m not acquainted with His Highness,” Lorcan said. “So consider my question to you.”
Kulaga’s long tongue flicked, and Farideh tried not to gag. How did the devil speak around it? “That’s not quite how I’ve heard it—rumors suggest you’ve made yourself the special confidant of His Majesty. Perhaps even his spy and enforcer in Malbolge.”
“Lords of the Nine,” Lorcan said in a haughty way, “but people will repeat anything, won’t they?”
“You’ve been seen talking to Shetai.”
“And now I’m talking to you,” Lorcan said. Farideh slipped the rod from her sleeve once more, tatters of shadow-smoke building along her skin. Kulaga didn’t move, and neither did Adastreia. She didn’t even blink.
“Lorcan,” she murmured.
“Because you want a proper Kakistos heir,” Kulaga finished. “Don’t deny it. You’ve never said how you found a Brimstone Angel the rest of us missed. How you kept her, and yet lost all the rest of your collection. I find that curious.”
Lorcan smiled. “Have you said how you enticed your Kakistos heir? This isn’t something we talk about, so why begin?”
“Why indeed?” Kulaga said. “I hear another rumor—a rumor that this one isn’t what she seems. She was supposed to be a Chosen of Asmodeus by anyone’s tales. I hear too you’re saying all the Kakistos heirs were invested with such powers. As if mine is the false Brimstone Angel. All curious, very curious.”
Lorcan raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps I had bad information.”
“Perhaps you’re using Asmodeus’s temporary favor to get yourself a collection worth speaking of. Regardless, you have nothing I want.”
The Nine Hells prickled at the base of Farideh’s spine for an incongruous moment, as if she’d begun a spell, without doing any such thing—before the air around Kulaga snapped and three immense devils covered in thorns appeared. The two stone golems behind them moved forward, unarmed but for their massive granite fists.
“Shit and ashes!” Lorcan spat and drew his sword. “Kulaga, wait!”
“Laesurach!” All instinct, Farideh pointed the rod and with it pulled a vent of lava into existence, making a barrier between them and the stone golems. The guardians stepped backward, considering the sudden fountain of molten rock. Farideh turned from them to the barbed devils rushing toward them. Lorcan’s sword met the first of them, slicing deeply into its spiny shoulder. The devil threw itself into the strike though, and the barbs caught Lorcan, piercing his forearm. He cried out.
Farideh turned a blast of flames on the barbed devil. Fire splashed across its thorny skin, and it turned to regard her as if she were flinging pebbles at it.
“This isn’t what you think!” she shouted.
A second barbed devil slashed at her with its claws, catching her armor and throwing her shoulder painfully back. She threw another bolt of fire and yanked hard on the powers of the Malbolge, opening a rent in the planes and stepping back through it to reappear on the other side of the room.
“You have always lacked foresight,” Kulaga chided. “Fire, fire, fire—what would Exalted Invadiah say about her feckless son imbuing his warlocks with such misdirected skills?” The logokron’s forward hands filled with dark shadows. “Oh, I suppose nothing. She’s rotted into the layer by now.”
Fire doesn’t hurt them, Farideh realized. She drew her sword, ducked under a ball of flame hurled from the nearer barbed devil’s hand. The fire bolt, the rain of brimstone, the blast of eldritch energy—only the last wouldn’t count as fire. One of the stone golems had sunk to its knee in the lava. The other made its way around the still-burning patch of stone.
“Adaestuo!” she shouted, flinging a burst of energy toward the golem. Retreating, Lorcan parried his barbed devil’s claws on his silvery sword, both spattered in black blood Farideh didn’t stop to assess the source of. She held the rod parallel to the ground, perfectly still, even as the barbed devils stalked toward her.
I’m sorry, she thought.
“Chaanaris!” she hissed, yanking the rod up. The floor seemed to boil, as spectral hands reached up through the polished stone. The hungry souls of the Nine Hells grasped at the barbed devils, trying to pull them back into the Hells, trying to draw energy out of them, the souls they once possessed. The spirits yanked one of the barbed devils coming for Farideh off its feet, pulling it flat against the ground and screaming. More clutched at the other barbed devils—none touched the golems as they made their stomping way through the lava.
Suddenly Lorcan cried out. Two of the souls had ahold of him. He slashed at their ghostly hands as they pulled, dark red energy flowing out of him and into them. Farideh yanked on the powers of the Hells again, tearing the fabric of the planes again so that she landed lightly beside Lorcan.
A hand brushed her calf, an unholy cold spreading up through her body as it did. But Farideh gritted her teeth, grabbing hold of Lorcan’s arms and tearing the planes once more, to pull him through and land, dizzy and off-balance, out of the reach of the grasping spirits. Lorcan stumbled as she landed, one leg buckling under him as he collapsed to the floor.
“Well, well,” Kulaga said. “The little fraud can fight.” He raised his hands as if to hurl the balls of shadows at her. “So let’s make this a fight worth counting.”
“Stop!” Farideh shouted. “I want to talk to my mother!”
That gave Kulaga pause. Beside him, Adastreia Tyrianicus regarded Farideh, unmoving.
“Your life may be in danger,” Farideh said to her. “So please, it’s not what you think.”
“Clearly.” Kulaga let one of the spells collapse, holding up the other forward hand in a fist. The barbed devils, climbing to their feet as the hungry souls faded back through the planes, held their positions. “When did you get yourself a daughter, my dear?” he called out.
The tiefling beside him wavered like a reflection in a pool, then vanished without so much as a sound.
“I don’t have a daughter,” a woman’s voice said. “She’s lying.”
Farideh glanced at the wall to the left, before one of the panes of frosted glass—now black as a sheet of obsidian. Adastreia’s double stood there in the same crimson gown, the same necklace of coral and topaz and a fat black pearl—no, Adastreia in the flesh. Her eyes were no warmer than the illusion’s had been.
“The young lady seems very insistent,” Kulaga said. “So why is that?”
“Oh, didn’t you know?” Lorcan drawled, despite his wounds. “Twenty-seven years ago, your Kakistos heir decided to dabble in treachery.”
Adastreia blanched. “What sort of treachery?” Kulaga asked.
“Aiding Bryseis Kakistos’s ghost,” Lorcan said, “in an attempt to resurrect her and dethrone Asmodeus. That’s where mine comes from—that little ritual made sure your Brimstone Angel was left in the family way. Did you know?”
“Someone else had my pact then,” Adastreia said.
“But you didn’t mention you had heirs,” Lorcan said. “Otherwise, I assume you’d have a greater collection, Kulaga.”
“So far as I knew, they were dead.” She turned to Farideh. “Did you know about the other one?” Adastreia said, as if she meant to wound Lorcan with the fact.
Farideh swallowed her anger. “My sister. Yes.”
“Two?” Kulaga asked eagerly.
“Twins,” Adastreia said. “And since she was meant to hold the Brimstone Angel’s soul, I’d tread lightly, Kulaga.”
The logokron considered Farideh with new eyes. “Why do you say my Kakistos heir’s life is at stake?”
“Bryseis Kakistos is going to attempt it again,” Farideh said before Lorcan could stop her. “She needs a Kakistos heir to manage it, and we think Adastreia might top her list. Might I have a word in private?” she said to the tiefling.
Adastreia’s eyes darted back to the logokron. “Whatever you say to me—”
“Do you really want him to hear all of it?” Farideh asked quietly.
She fell silent a moment, eyes locked on Farideh. “Very well.” Adastreia turned to her patron. “Kulaga, excuse us, please. I think you’re finished here.”
The logokron’s ruby eyes narrowed. “And risk my Kakistos heir?”
“If you’re going to insist on staying,” Adastreia said, “then I’m going to insist on your binding word that you will not take matters into your own hands with either the cambion or the girl, particularly not before I know what I want to do about this. Which would you prefer?”
The shift of power came so abruptly it left Farideh startled, unsure of where to look. Lorcan moved carefully to his feet behind her, the stillness of his expression so intent, so calculated she knew he was surprised too. Kulaga made a noise deep in his throat and the barbed devils vanished from the plane in three bursts of acrid-smelling smoke.
“I’ll wait for you in the library,” he said, and left the room in a clatter of armor.
“Can you walk?” Farideh murmured to Lorcan.
“Oh no,” Adastreia said, holding up a hand. “If I don’t have my devil beside me, you certainly don’t have yours.” She nodded to the golems. “Keep him comfortable. You, girl, hand him your sword and rod for the moment, and come along.”
Do not take risks here, Lorcan mouthed as she handed him her weapons. Farideh said nothing, but followed Adastreia across the room, toward another pane of the strange glass. She let a little of the Hells flow into her, flexing her hands against the thrumming strength of the magic. Not too risky, she thought.
Fighting at all had been far riskier, she thought. If Kulaga hadn’t held, there was no way they would have survived the battle. A part of her missed the powers of Asmodeus—how much would the fear she’d inspired have evened the field?
The black glass pulsed as they passed through it, as if it were a living membrane, releasing them into another chamber, this one overlooking a waterfall deep underground. Another stone golem took up a place before the entryway, a not-quite-living door. Adastreia stood with her back against another of the panes of glass.
“Thank you,” Farideh said. “I know it’s not—”
“No,” Adastreia interrupted. “First: How do I know you aren’t her? The Brimstone Angel.”
“I don’t know,” Farideh admitted. “I hardly know Bryseis Kakistos. Maybe you could listen to me first and decide that second?”
“I already heard what you told Kulaga. I’m not going anywhere. I’m safe here.”
“Do you really believe that? You know her better than I do, what she was capable of then—”
“I’ve been hiding for twenty-five years,” Adastreia said. “Give or take. She hasn’t found me yet. I think I’ll stay.”
“And you know she wasn’t her whole self—she is now,” Farideh said. “She has a body. She has comrades. She has an opportunity that she won’t have again. If you come with us to Djerad Thymar, we can protect you,” Farideh said. “And perhaps we can draw her out, make sure that she can’t succeed.”
Adastreia cocked her head. “Why in all the planes would you assume I care if she succeeds?”
Farideh began to protest that it would mean the destruction of Azuth, the collapse of any sense of order in the Nine Hells—maybe worse. That if they didn’t intervene, Asmodeus surely would come after Havilar, killing her to forestall Bryseis Kakistos’s plans.
But Adastreia’s eyes were so cold. She wouldn’t care about any of that. She’d said it herself—she was safe enough here. What did everyone else matter? What did her daughters matter? It broke through the armor around Farideh’s heart and lit a fierce anger in her. Maybe she would get no love from her mother, maybe she couldn’t have acceptance, but the bare consideration due another person? No, she wouldn’t get that either.
She imagined knocking Adastreia out and just dragging her back through the portal, where she’d be safe and where she might set a decent trap for Bryseis Kakistos. Adastreia might have more spells than her, but Farideh didn’t doubt she was stronger, quicker—quick enough to get a few well-placed strikes in. It would be easy. It would get through this mess.
It would make you a kidnapper, Farideh thought.
“It’s your decision,” she said instead. “Only I’d hate to find out you’d been obliterated just so Bryseis Kakistos can tweak Asmodeus’s nose. They make pawns of us, the devils.”
“She said that too,” Adastreia pointed out.
“Well, she’s leaped in right alongside them. She took my twin so she’d have a body. She’s not thinking about how this plays out. And she doesn’t care about who gets harmed when she tries to dethrone Asmodeus.”
Adastreia frowned, but she didn’t answer. “If you won’t come,” Farideh said, “then at least tell me what you remember. Did she have the staff of Azuth then?”
Adastreia shook her head. “That wasn’t part of it. Maybe she meant to use it later.”
“Do you know the other heirs? Where they might be, which of them might help her?”
“Not well. And no—I’ve made a point of staying away from them.”
Farideh bit back a curse. “Names? Anything?”
She blew out a breath. “Chiridion, Lachs, Threnody, Nasmos, Livulia, Naria, and Alonzo,” Adastreia recited. “Although I’ll save you a little trouble—I know Alonzo’s dead. And then, Caisys, though obviously he wasn’t an heir.”
“Who’s Caisys?” Farideh asked.
“Caisys the Vicelord. One of the Toril Thirteen,” Adastreia said, as though it were common knowledge. “Bryseis Kakistos’s confederate. He was the one who found us. And he was the one who took you away. Where were you?” she asked. “I’d assumed he was headed for the nearest river.”
Farideh gritted her teeth. “Somewhere safe.”
A fragment of her dreams came back to her out of nothing—You were supposed to be safe, one of the ghosts had said. He gave you that, at least. Be careful. Farideh paused. The way Bryseis Kakistos had talked when she’d taken Havilar, it sounded as if they’d ended up in Arush Vayem by accident, as if Adastreia’s expectation were the outcome she’d been hoping for.
But Caisys had brought them to the village in the mountains. And the ghost in her dreams had said they were supposed to be safe. Maybe he’d had a care after all.
“Are you through?” Adastreia asked.
“No.” Farideh turned back to her. “Does Bryseis Kakistos have a twin?”
Adastreia blinked at her, as though she couldn’t have expected a less sensible question. “I don’t know. She was dead when I knew her. I assume any twin would be more so. Why would you think she had a twin?”
Farideh didn’t answer. It would explain why the ghost in her visions and dreams was sometimes cruel and sometimes kind. It would explain—perhaps—why the resurrection ritual had gone awry, how two souls made two bodies. “Who would know?” she asked. “Any of the heirs?”
Adastreia snorted. “As I said, I don’t exactly keep up with them these days.”
“Caisys?”
“I most certainly don’t know anything about Caisys.”
Farideh rubbed a hand over her face. This was going nowhere. “Fine. I’m through. Thank you for your time.”
Adastreia nodded, but didn’t move toward the door and the portal beyond. “Your devil,” she said after a moment. “Why in the world didn’t he establish clearer terms of parley before you came?”
“He’s distracted,” Farideh said. “He’s got some sort of curse on him or something. He won’t tell me what. Fortunately, I can take care of myself.”
Adastreia’s silvery eyes flicked over her, and she reached up to fiddle with the beads of her necklace. “Perhaps you should stay the night.”
Farideh regarded Adastreia suspiciously. “Aren’t you worried I’ll kill you?”
“Please. You’ve had all the time in the world to try that in here. Kulaga thinks your devil’s simple, you tell me he’s cursed—I’m concerned you or he might be hurt, and there’s every chance that something in my contract will lead from that to my punishment, and there is very little these days that makes such things worth the risk. At the very least, I’ll have to take it up with Kulaga, and he exhausts me these days.”
Farideh peered at Adastreia—it was such an odd line of thought. Was this what other warlock pacts were like? Adastreia fiddled with her rings. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“My father.”
Adastreia let out another snort of laughter. “You did not learn that from Chiridion.”
The name struck another blow to the shell around Farideh’s heart. Again, she could almost see the man—tall and brown-skinned with the same prominent nose. “I mean my father,” Farideh said stiffly. “The man who raised me.”
Adastreia looked away. “My mistake. Go … Go see if your devil wants to stay. I’ll convince Kulaga to accept a proper parley. You can leave in the morning.”
Farideh considered her wounds and Lorcan’s—how long it would take to bandage and brace and salve them. They could leave in a few hours. When she went back out into the larger chamber, she amended her time line. Lorcan looked as though he were about to fall asleep on his feet.
“What is going on with you?” she demanded when they were alone again. A stone golem had led them up into another pane of strange glass, to a set of rooms already prepared for guests. Immediately, both began checking the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
“Nothing I want Kulaga to know about,” he answered. Then, “Please, just trust me. It’s not … It’s temporary.”
Farideh pulled open a cabinet—only a bowl and ewer of water inside. “You said Dahl did it.”
“Did I?” He kept his eyes on the tapestry he was looking behind. “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t his fault entirely. How was your mother?”
“Terrible,” Farideh answered. “Why are you not telling me what happened? Where is Dahl?”
His dark eyes met hers. “Darling, I know you don’t want to hear it, but your brightbird tried to kill me. I left him behind, because as much as I … care for you, I don’t want to die. Now I could go the rest of my life without hearing the name Dahl Peredur, especially from your lips.” His wings twitched in an irritable way as he surveyed the rooms. “Did you convince her to come?”
Farideh looked away. “No. You were right. She’s too afraid.”
He sighed. “Pity. How careless the gods have to be to give a coward such courageous issue.”
Farideh felt a blush threaten her cheeks. “Have you got any other spells I can use?” she asked. “That was too close before. I need to be better prepared before we do this again.”
Lorcan hesitated. “I might.”
He said nothing more for so long that Farideh’s temper began to fray. “What? Do you want something in return? Now?”
“Don’t be silly. Even if I could wring something from you, you saved my life before.” He beckoned to her and she moved to stand closer—too close, she thought. You’re giving him the wrong ideas, leaving open the wrong doors. Lorcan took her hands in his, formed a bowl of air between them. Stared at her palms for long moments.
Farideh focused on the arch of her fingers, not on his hands pressed over hers, the heat of him too close. She waited and waited for the familiar flood of magic, the sudden appearance of another spell at her fingertips, tense and uneasy. Sometimes the spells were simple things—bursts of magic or flame. Sometimes they were the hungry spirits damned to the Nine Hells. She hadn’t asked what was coming, and maybe that was foolish.
But no spells came to her.
Lorcan dropped her hands. “I … I think I’m tired again. The spell with the souls …”
It wasn’t just the spell with the souls though, Farideh felt sure. The sleeping and sweating, the strange bursts of emotion. It was as if something fundamentally part of Lorcan had been stripped away. She covered his hand in hers.
“You ought to lie down,” Farideh said. She swallowed. “The protection spell—if you can’t connect to the Hells, maybe it’s safest. The rooms … I think it will stretch far enough.” If it didn’t, she could sleep on the floor between them.
“I’m only tired,” Lorcan said. “I’ll have to return. Kulaga isn’t on our side, which means he might well try to turn the other collectors against us.” He pulled her hand to his chest. “It would be safest if we didn’t separate.”
No—whatever part of her wanted to give in, to go with this Lorcan who was almost sweet, almost gentle, the greater part of her was sure. Though not cruel enough to say so. “Go and lie down. I’ll stay up and make sure the room’s secure.”
As Lorcan limped into the other room, Farideh wondered how long this would last, how long he would be … so near to human. How long some part of her would want that, want him.
How long she could manage without finding a way to drag the devil in him back from wherever he’d lost it and get the spells she desperately needed.