“I’m disappointed to find your shields are not already up, daughter. Have I not instructed you to hold them daily?”
I gritted my teeth and swarmed my mind with flames, his presence receding for a moment. Then a blast of ice shredded my efforts.
He grunted. “That’s tolerable. Now, I’m going to create a hallucination, and I want you to twist the events without me knowing.”
“How do I do that without you knowing, if it’s your hallucination?”
“Listen to the whispers of your Infernus. They will tell you.”
“The whispers of my Infernus are random sounds.” They told me nothing.
“What did I say about doubting yourself?” His cold presence expanded, twisting the colorful, icy greenhouse into… nothing.
It stayed the same.
“Are we starting?” But he was looking over my shoulder, ignoring me.
The door to the greenhouse squeaked, pulling my attention to the general in his full armor, dual swords strapped to his back.
“Lucifer, we need you in the dungeons. We found another infected.” He walked down the path to stand in front of us.
Lucifer nodded, rising to his feet. “We’ll have to pick this up later, Lucille. In the meantime, I’ll have the general step in, and you can attempt to hold your shield against him.”
General Ronen straightened. “And the infected?”
“I will question them first. You can join me in a half hour,” Lucifer said, raising his chin and walking out without another word.
“I guess our training starts now,” I mumbled, having nothing else to say.
He sighed, removing his swords and leaning them against the bench as he sat. “I guess so.”
I pulled at the flames of my Infernus, surrounding my mind, feeling a sudden cold before warmth replaced it. I glanced at the general. “Was that you?”
He reclined back, throwing his arms along the back of the bench, his hand brushing my ponytail. “Was what me?”
I frowned. “Did you enter my mind?”
“No, Lucille,” he said, tugging playfully on my hair. “When I enter you, you’ll know.” His tone sounded serious, but his hand traveled to my neck and grazed down across my shoulder.
My stomach did weird things, fluttering and twisting in equal degrees. Swallowing, I leaned away. “What are you doing?”
He moved in, curling his hand into my hair, and tilted my head back. His lips were inches away from mine, his warm breath fanning across my face. “What do you want me to do, Princess?”
The fluttering in my stomach died. Something wasn’t right. The wordprincesscoming out of his mouth sounded wrong.
I stared into his golden irises, finding them dull and ordinary—no pull, no warmth. I inhaled, smelling nothing. The spicy balsam was absent. Even the distinctive winter smell of the greenhouse wasn’t present.
This was Lucifer’s hallucination—an odd choice to use the general in this way.
But now what?I figured out he was playing with my mind. How did I twist this?
I shut my eyes, acting as if the general’s proximity moved me, and dove into my Infernus. Their icy hot tendrils coiled around me in welcome, whispering contradictory sounds. Out of all the noise, I picked up on the three I was familiar with. The rest, I didn’t recognize.
How did I pull on the sound of the Hallucination Circle if I didn’t know which one it was?
I was wasting time.
The general shifted closer, his nose grazing the line of my neck, startling me.
