Michael’s birthday dawned with the hazy glow of purplish sky that lit every day in the hell dimension. But on the day of a special celebration the usual demands of discretion were lifted from the servants in the palace. The hallways and rooms bustled with a constant flow of lesser Loyalist daemons that were rarely seen as they saw to the needs of arriving guests and the decor and amenities necessary to care for them.
Lily avoided conversations.
She might regret not saying goodbye to the daemons that had cared for her for years, but other than a stack of notes she carefully placed in her writing desk to be discovered later, she didn’t intend to acknowledge her plans in any way. She couldn’t risk Ezekiel’s finding out that she was making unusual rounds among the servants. He would never let her go. Of that she was certain.
She did risk discovery when she left her rooms to visit her mother’s grave. Fortunately, the importance of the party preparations kept most too busy to notice her passing. She planned her course along less-traveled halls and used a side entrance that few others utilized.
Before she visited the cemetery, she stopped at the stables. The great stone stalls weren’t made for ordinary mortal horses. Mounts larger than draft horses carried daemons into battle, but most of the stalls were empty now that the Rogues had been driven out of the hell dimension. Lily spoke to all the creatures that nickered at her as she passed. She wasn’t intimidated by their giant bony bodies, sharp teeth or glowing eyes.
Reaper was waiting.
He was the most ferocious of them all, but even though he’d once carried the daemon king on war-torn fields, he took the apple from her hand with careful movements. If anyone had seen her leave the palace, they wouldn’t realize she was visiting the beast to say goodbye.
Once she was clear of curious eyes, she hiked up a craggy hill behind the palace and the stables to the cemetery beneath an ancient willow-like tree. Unusual plants and animals thrived under the lavender light of hell’s skies. Grim followed behind her this time, trailing after her instead of leading the way. Out of respect or uncertainty, she couldn’t be sure. He had stayed smoky and vague inside, but he had fully materialized by the time she reached the black marble tombstone on the crest of the rise.
There were cut desert lilies left to dry on her mother’s headstone. Lily fingered their brittle petals. She hadn’t placed them there, but many of the servants had loved Sophia. Someone could have asked a gardener for the flowers. Sophia had brought a human woman’s passion to the halls of the palace—warmer and softer than its master’s.
Not to mention the laughter of a human child.
Lily had been happy in the hell dimension. Often. She’d been freer in captivity than she’d ever been in the outside world.
“I know you would understand,” she said. “I have to set him free.”
Of course there was no answer. Grim sat in the distance too far away to hear her words, but her heart still pounded in her ears for saying them and her palms grew moist. She took a handful of petals and crushed them in her fingers before sprinkling them over the grave in a flurry of pale gray. She watched them float to the ground.
Her mother had asked to be buried here. Near her daughter, she’d said, but Lily had known she had also wanted to remain close to the daemon king. Did her unrequited love linger here even in death? Or had she found peace?
The hot knot in Lily’s chest said the ache of unfulfilled love was never eased.
She reached into her pockets for the familiar velvet pouch and her warrior angel kachina. Her hands met flute, but not doll, of course. She’d abandoned the doll in the hallway. A lifelong habit was hard to break. She focused on loosening the pouch inside her pocket and pulling the silver flute out into the purple light. Once it was in her hand, she sank down to her knees beside the scattered lilies on her mother’s grave.
Lily had no desire to disturb her mother’s rest if poor Sophia had managed to find it, but she needed to play here and reclaim the memory of the loving lesson times they’d shared. Her breath was weak and soft at first, but the song grew in strength. It was a Hopi lullaby. The first song she remembered and the first one she’d played. She didn’t intend a summoning. She hadn’t brought any of her kachinas. Nevertheless, a cool breeze wafted over the grave, stirring the crumbled flowers into petal dust in the air. Lily watched them flutter and float, hover and fall. The willow-like tree had long draping limbs filled with crinkled leaves. It seemed caught in perpetual winter. The breeze stirred its dry branches into a cacophony of sound. The sibilant hiss of leaves brushing together created whispers whose meaning she couldn’t quite ascertain. The insistent noises skittered along Lily’s senses. The hair on the back of her neck and arms rose to attention.
But she continued to play.
She refused to be too afraid to use the gifts she’d been given. She sought answers and guidance. She might have lost her precious doll, but she still had her flute and the ability to use it to dwell in the aura of her affinity. Eventually, the breeze stilled and a warm energy filled her, called from her own heart. She was Lily Santiago, Samuel and Sophia’s daughter, and she would not be a pawn in Ezekiel’s game to bind his grandson to the throne.
Lily came to the end of the lullaby and allowed the last note to fade. She lowered the flute from her lips. Looking down, she noted that there were no dried petals left on the grave. They had all been swept away.
Grim was a dark shadow behind her. Waiting. Watching. She rose and slid her flute back into the pouch in her pocket.
“One day I’ll see you again, but not here,” she said softly. The headstone that held her mother’s name and the years of her birth and death had a sleek, dark surface. Lily started when her movements mirrored in its surface. Her heart leaped with a quickened beat. She could see a distorted reflection of herself in the obsidian marble. That was all. But she was pale and her hair was wild. Reflected in the grave marker, she was unfamiliar. As if a different woman rose to head back to the palace.
And maybe she was.
She was no longer conflicted.
Desperate. Afraid. Filled with dread.
But determined.
She turned to follow the path down the hill without noticing the figure of her guardian silhouetted against the purple sky. He looked down on her and the palace from a taller rise as she walked away. Grim paused. He raised his horrible muzzle in the air and nodded at the daemon king before turning to follow Lily Santiago inside.
* * *
Michael woke alone, stiff and dirty and naked. He was confused for several seconds as his mind processed his surroundings. It was definitely daytime, but the sky above was dark. He finally processed the myriad panes of glass and the whistle of a gardener in the distance, thankfully before the gardener came his way.
It was his twenty-first birthday, a day he’d dreaded his whole life, but he didn’t have to ask himself why he hurried to shrug into his clothes.
Lily.
She was bound to hell by the powerful affinity her father had bequeathed her. She wasn’t safe in the outside world and it would never be safe for them to be together anywhere but the hell dimension. This palace was her refuge. Somehow that made it more appealing to him than it had ever been before.
Did it matter that his grandfather might be using Lily to bind Michael to the throne? No one liked to be manipulated, but he had grown up dealing with daemons. Nothing was straightforward. Nothing was simple. Lily was an innocent caught in a web that Ezekiel had been weaving for centuries. Even when she succumbed to the irresistible attraction between them, he could sense her reservations. He was disappointed to wake alone, but he had to admit there was also a rush.
He was the stepson of a hunter. Adam Turov had hunted Rogue daemons for years and helped their victims. Lily might want to run away from Ezekiel’s schemes, but Michael wasn’t prepared to just let her go. The rush he felt was the thrill of the chase. His whole life had been building toward this birthday and this celebration. The palace was abuzz with preparations as he stalked down the stairways that led to his rooms. Servants curtsied or bowed as he passed as if he had already assumed the throne, but Michael had only one thought on this mind: the hunt was on. Tonight wasn’t only about his birthday and the throne. Tonight was about showing Lily that they were meant to be together in spite of all Ezekiel’s manipulations. Not because of them.
* * *
Lily went back to her room, no doubt creating gossip because of her new hellhound companion. Grim shadowed her without making a sound, but his materialized presence was enough to cause a stir.
“I guess it would be too much to ask for you to stay invisible?” she asked under her breath. “I’m fine. Not even a chill bump to be seen.” If he had been able to speak, Grim might have pointed out that she avoided the walls and even the most innocuous shadows all the way back to her bedroom.
When she arrived at her door, Grim took up his post again with a vigilant pose—ears up and forward, shoulders stiff. She had to admit his presence was reassuring for now. Later, he might interfere with her plans, but she would worry about that when the time came.
Her room met her with peace and darkness. There was no bustle here. No party preparations. But she’d had a visitor while she was gone. The ball gown had been taken from the garment bag in the closet and spread across her bed. The bed was king-size and yet it still didn’t accommodate the voluptuous layers of organza that spilled over its edges. The diamanté gems featured heavily on the bodice and then were scattered with more subtlety on the skirts, but the sparkle was compelling. Lily stepped forward and lifted the dress gently. She watched the soft lamplight glimmer on the gems in the fabric as they reflected the light. The shimmer also revealed the deep midnight blue of the dress and the intricate weaving of hand-sewn silver threads holding the garment together.
Sybil had outdone herself this time.
She couldn’t have known about Lily’s fascination with the night sky over the Arizona desert. Yet the dress perfectly called forth the memory of flying through that sky with Michael beside her. She was both eager to try the dress on and loath to begin an evening that could only end in resolute sadness. But she would dance and dine with the Brimstone prince. She might spend hours in his arms tonight. No ordinary designer could have provided a dress worthy of her last night in hell.