Damien stared at the spot he had disappeared within, the ground upset and burnt in his wake, but otherwise there was only the faint flicker of the infernal left behind, like at the shrine but even weaker. The spell he’d concocted for translocation, the one Damien now had a copy of in his own pocket, might have been experimental, but it was…adequate.
“Who on earth wasthat?” Amma peeked out from around Damien’s arm to stare down at where Xander had gone.
Damien inhaled fully, recomposing himself. “A total prick.”
Amma made a quiet, surprised noise in the back of her throat. “He just climbed out of the ground, and you said he came from his home? That’s…that’s amazing.”
“Yes, yes.” Damien waved her awe away. “Xander is…Xander.”
“I saw that vial around his neck. He’s like you, isn’t he? Another blood mage?” She came to stand in front of him, eyes huge and full of even more questions than the multitude that fell out of her mouth. “Are you brothers? You don’t really look anything alike.”
“He is a blood mage as well, yes, and his mother is another demonic lord, but we’re of no relation.” Damien scoffed at the thought of Birzuma languishing in her own occlusion crystal, taken by Archibald a decade or so after his own father. She had been wreaking some kind of havoc out on the shores of the realm before being imprisoned. Zagadoth only ever had the most unpleasant things to say about her, and Damien’s own memories of the demonic lordess from his childhood were fuzzy, as if his mind were protecting him from fully remembering. Amma didn’t need to know any of that, though—she didn’t even know about Zagadoth’s predicament, so there was no use.
“It seems like you’ve known each other for a long time.” Amma rocked up onto her toes, tipping her head up. “Like you’re good friends.”
“Bloody Abyss, no!” Damien clenched a fist. “I hate the mere thought of him. He’s a despicable, little rat, and someday I will crush him into the nothing he is, and blot out his entire infernal lineage.”
Amma frowned. “Is this one of those times when you’re exaggerating to seem scary, or do you really mean it?”
“Of course I mean it. He is vile and wretched, and I loathe the fact he exists at all.”
She bit a full bottom lip, eyes glassy. “Oh, well, but…were you really considering trading me to him for that spell?”
“No, of course n—” Damien’s answer caught in his throat, and he looked her over. She was giving him another variation onthatface, the one that could pull out almost whatever she wanted from him. “Ididconsider it,” he lied, “but my work is far superior to anything Xander could come up with, so I’ll be keeping you and the talisman. For now.”
When he whipped away from her to head back for the garden’s entrance, she hurried to catch up. “Because I’m helpful, right?”
Damien snorted but grinned, an easy thing to hide with her behind him. “Yes, exactly.”
CHAPTER 19
A VERY GOOD THIEF AND A VERY BAD VILLAIN
Amma hadn’t thought this far ahead. That man, Xander, had mentioned Faebarrow which was enough to make her innards clench and mouth go dry, but when Damien changed their course to head for the barony, she actually broke out in a sweat and patches of itchy redness all along her neck. They couldn’t go to Faebarrow, they justcouldn’t, not together, not at all.
But Damien wasn’t keen on spending another night, not even another moment, in Elderpass, and so they left that evening after the run-in with the other blood mage. Damien seemed renewed by the experience and had them travel well after it had gotten dark, but he also seemed eager to put space between them and the town. Amma knew this was because of the guards who had seen him do magic with his blood. There were plenty of mages in the realm of Eiren, most in service to the crown and many even within the royal houses, but of course none of them did bloodcraft. Considered innately evil, just like demons and the dark gods they served, blood mages were rumored to have horns and hooves and intentions that would put an end to anything that got in their way.
But Damien wasn’t like that, not really—at least he didn’t have any body parts that looked terribly goat-like—and even as Amma sat astride a knoggelvi, creepy and dark though masked to look like an average horse, and plotted to get away from him, she knew Damien was different from all that.
Buthow muchdifferent was the question.
When they finally stopped for the night, Damien had Kaz build them a fire that he lit with the flick of his tail to fend off the chill, and then the imp curled into a ball and slept before his night watch began. The road from Elderpass toward the west was mostly flat, and even behind a copse and against a tree, there was a breeze. Amma pulled her cloak around her, sitting close to the fire, and across it sat Damien, knees splayed out, elbows propped up on them, staring deeply into the flames.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
He looked up. “Do what?”
Amma swallowed, trying to sound as casual as she could. “Waste your time going to that Fae-whatever place instead of Eirengaard. It’s not exactly on the way.”
“You wish to shorten your time left here on earth? Eager to meet the gods in Empyrea?”
Oh,of coursethat’s what he thought of first. She looked over to Kaz, knowing he would agree, but the imp was still asleep. “No, it’s just that you said Xander isn’t your friend, so why do you even trust him about that book? He said it killed your other friend, which I am sorry about, by the way.”
“Malcolm wasn’t my—listen, you don’t need to worry about what or who I trust, all right? I know what I’m doing.” His eyes dropped back to the fire, and he bit down on a rabbit bone from their dinner, gnawing it.
She sighed, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Well, I know it’s hard losing someone you’re close to, so if you want to talk about it—”
“I do not.”
