Kaz shoved at the other imp to put fresher air between them then gestured to his clearly infernal self. “Without Master granting us additional powers, this is all we are for at least a day.”
“We don’t have a day.” Amma grit her teeth and glared up at the high window. “The eclipse is happening tomorrow, and I still need to get all the way to Eirengaard, and Damien’s mother—”
“Master Bloodthorne’s mother?” Kaz padded up to Amma, sticking his crooked jaw in her face. Amma remembered how he had spoken of human women in the past, stating they weredeceitful and treacherous, and how that ill will extended to her. “She’s here?”
“We need her, so you’re going to be nice. I think she might be the only one with information on where Damien is, and I’m pretty sure this temple is enthralling her about a hundred times worse than I’ve ever been.” Amma stood pacing to the door. She needed to believe the woman was enthralled, really, otherwise the desire to pummel her for what she’d done to Damien until only holy water was left took over. “At least I know I can unlock this chamber. Are the three of you ready?”
When she turned, the row of imps actually straightened before her, even Kaz. They were truly ugly, wretched, feral creatures that behaved poorly and smelled worse, and she absolutely loved them. She took a deep breath, pressing a hand to her chest. “We’re getting out of here, and we’re rescuing Damien, and I don’t know exactly how we’re going to do it, and I don’t even know if all of you will survive, but you’ve all died once, and you were very good at coming back, so…”—she scrunched up her nose, not quite sure where she was going—“Who wants to totally demolish this holy place?”
Six eyes shimmered, claws clacked, and the imps swore to follow Amma into battle.
After explaining just what she needed them to do, the door unlocked for Amma as easily as she knew it would, and she stuck her head out into the hall, Vanders tucked into the pocket of the priestess’s robes she still wore just in case someone saw her. Each imp popped their heads out as well, but thankfully no one was coming. The narrow corridor was quiet, many doors along it where she assumed other acolytes slept, lay closed. It seemed the minor ruckus of her summoning didn’t rouse anyone.
She pulled up her hood and silently sprinted down to the study room, finding it empty and dark, the moonlight dimmer as it spilled in through the wide windows at the back of the temple.She gestured to the imps, and they came scurrying behind, Kaz stopping short, Quaz running into him, and Katz slowly bringing up the rear. They weren’t quite as steady on their taloned feet as she would have liked, but they could still serve some purpose, she was just waiting for that purpose to show itself. Another scurry brought her to the corridor that would take her to the courtyard, but there she stopped abruptly, knocked into by an imp against each calf.
There were two women in robes in the far courtyard on the right. The moonlight was odd, but of course the eclipse was coming, and it cast long, weird shadows from the bushes and basins. The trees had twisted under Amma’s arcana, reaching upward and out at strange angles, and there were cracks running through the outer walls that made her grin. “I did that,” she whispered, pointing out the destruction.
Kaz just rolled his bulbous eyes.
The priestesses were discussing something in whispers very close together that Amma strained to hear, but then one grabbed the other. Amma shrank back into the shadows, throwing a hand over her mouth, fearing they’d resorted to violence, but only after a moment did she realize she was simply watching the two from the shadows as they ferociously kissed one another.
“Oh,” she whispered to herself then snorted, “okay, but why can’t you go be frisky somewhere else?”
“Should we kill them?” asked Kaz, Katz waiting studiously behind him, and Quaz looked ready to bolt out into the moonlight, claws and fangs bared.
“No, we’re not killing anybody, these people are enthralled, remember? Just come with me.” They maneuvered quietly to the other archway and angled themselves so that the fountain was just in view, but a priestess was already sitting on the edge of it. “Why is everyone choosing tonight to wander around and be sneaky?” Amma groused and pulled the robes off over her head.
A short and stressful conversation with the three later, Amma pushed her shoulders back, held her chin up, and smiled. She belonged now, or at least, the priestess should have thought that she should think that she did, and so she was going to act like it, even if she wasn’t wearing their vestments anymore. Distracting one priestess and convincing her to come away from the fountain should be easy enough, but then that priestess’s head raised, and she saw it was Diana.
Amma’s smile faltered, probably a plain enough thing to see in the moonlight, but Diana was not beaming ridiculously back at her either. In her lap, she held Amma’s things, her pouch and her holstered dagger, and a cup sat beside her on the fountain’s ledge.
When she stood, bringing the cup with her, Amma’s muscles clenched, but the woman didn’t move to unsheathe the weapon. Deep circles were under her eyes, so like Damien’s that it made Amma’s heart ache. She bit her lip, swallowing back a lump in her throat, and then peeled the corners of her mouth up.
“You came here with him,” said Diana, her voice like a ghost wandering through some future version of the courtyard long after it had crumbled away to nothing. “You tried to help him.”
Amma wasn’t sure if it were an indictment or praise, or even if she was supposed to remember after so much mind-altering water, but the hollowness in Diana’s face urged her to nod back because it was true—she had tried to help him, and she wasn’t going to stop.
“He was my son,” the priestess said taking a step closer.
She watched her fists tighten around Amma’s things and the cup. “He still is.”
Diana shook her head, eyes locked onto the ground. “I let them take him.” She had moved a bit farther from the fountain, slowly going to where Amma stood. Another figure clad in priestess robes sauntered out into the courtyard.
“Where did they take him?” asked Amma, voice cracking. “And for what?”
“The will of the gods.” There was exhaustion in Diana’s face and words. Behind her, the robed figure came closer, and Amma’s eyes went wide as it wavered like a drunkard but then corrected to stay aloft. At least its hood remained pulled forward.
What was she supposed to say now? “Isldrah’s will?”
Diana shook her head again. “Osurehm. The crown.” She brought the cup to her lips, and Amma wanted to bat it away from her, to watch it rain down on the earth and to free the woman of the hold the enthrallment had, but it was too soon.
The other figure made it to the fountain, swaying one way and then the other, body undulating strangely until it finally leaned against its edge. It lifted one very short and very strange leg and hopped up onto the bottom tier. It swayed again, so far back Amma was sure it would topple, but then two sets of spindly arms jutted out of the robe, and, spinning madly in the air, it straightened again.Darkness, lightness, whatever, she prayed silently,help us.
“You’ll be happier here,” Diana said then, a lilt to her voice as her chin lifted.
Amma forced herself to nod. “Yeah. Totally.”
Diana extended her hand, and to Amma’s disappointment, it was the cup she offered and not her dagger.
