“I want her tokeep her word!Iwanther to make damning my soul worth this. I want her to make Cora’s deathmean something.” At this, her voice breaks and her breathing grows shallow.
She throws her face heavenward, fighting the sudden silver lining her eyes. Her words and my guilt wrap around my throat, and grow tighter than any chokehold.
“Don’t keep demons as company,” I whisper, my vision blurring. “They’ll leave you scarred and broken.”
They’re the same words I told the raven.
Because they’re true.
And it’s killing me to watch Eve learn them this way.
Eve wipes at her eyes with hasty fingers, lowering her gaze to the table.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I’ve said the words millions of times throughout my centuries.
And I can count on one hand how many times I’ve meant them.
I mean them now.
“Druka isn’t the only demon you know, Eve,” I continue, grateful my voice is steadier than I feel. “You don’t need to risk your soul to get what you want.”
“What I want,” Eve whispers, “is Tiarsus dead.”
Tiarsus… she’s mentioned him once before, during our time in the Moon Temple. If I remember correctly, he was the leader of the thieving guild she took part in.
“I would hunt him for you,” I say, holding her stare. “No barter. No exchange. No contract.”
And perhaps that says something about me and the kind of demon I am. Or perhaps it says something about the camaraderie Eve and I have found and fostered.
She’s sacrificed enough. I want her to find her own happiness. And if that means hunting this Tiarsus, so be it.
“Don’t be stupid,” she says with a weak laugh. “You’ve enough going on. A Sovereign Queen can’t be chasing a thief.”
“Maybe not a Sovereign Queen,” I counter, giving her a small smile. “But a High Empress can.”
I’ll have more resources available to me than what can be garnered through Erus alone. I’ll have the strength, eyes and ears ofeightfae nations. Finding a singular, notorious fae would be light work.
Eve grows rigid in her seat.
“You would do that?” she asks, muting her surprise as her eyes meet mine.
There’s a small collective of people in this realm I would fight for. Eve is counted among them.
“For you? Yes.” I nod once.
A cold shiver races down the length of my arm and settles into my left wrist. A tiny tendril of green slips onto the table from beneath my sleeve. Eve notices it too. Her eyes narrow as I pull back the edge of my sleeve, bearing more of my skin and forcing my bracer to move a hairsbreadth.
A veilflower bracelet.
Hooking a finger around it, I pull, and it snaps, bursting into thick, dark blue smoke. As I lower my sleeve as far as my bracer will allow, searching for more vines or flowers, a stark black stain against my skin is revealed. And I freeze.
It’s aMalbolge rune.
A title…Lady.
“Is that…” Eve’s breathy question lingers between us.
