Ana pushed her bag further up on her shoulder as the blonde stalked around the desk. “I do,” she replied.
“Good. I like to take my leave around now and go to the bar downstairs. The bartender is heavy-handed and quite the fuck.” The blonde paused at the door and turned around to her. “You can call me Millie. Now, let’s go cheers to that fucking twisted brain of yours.”
Ana hated how much she liked this woman.
She’d never really had friends, unless she counted the few witches that had taught and raised her in Icemyer. Every being she’d interacted with in the last ten years had been a transaction—all business, little pleasure.
Maybe it was that need inside her for companionship that drove her to relax a little that afternoon.
Millie held up her second drink to Ana’s and cheers’d her. The beautiful demon’s smile was broad, and her eyes… Her eyes held such secrets. Devious secrets. Ana had looked in the mirror and seen her own eyes share that same expression a few times before. On the days when she’d slain her final enemy, on the day that she sent those missiles into the Ironmyer castle.
“To the Smiths that they find their ways through the shadows,” Millie declared with a clank against Ana’s drink. Ana smiled and drank a sip in agreement.
“Are there truly so many Smiths as you say?” Ana asked.
“There are, actually,” Millie answered. “Lost souls that found their way here. Most of the people working the cemetery are Smiths. I’ve always enjoyed seeing Smith’s working their way through the system to better their standings. Most get here and have so little left after paying a navigator that they start at the bottom. But the king has resources for everyone on every corner. It’s one of the reasons I love this place. Everyone remembers where they came from, and no person is left behind.”
“I’ve heard you call this place a sanctuary for people cast out of other realms,” Ana said. “If he truly wanted a haven, why keep the shadow borders?”
The talk seemed to make Millie’s mood weaken. “Because without them, a great number of our people would be hunted down,” she answered. “How much have you been told about the people here?”
“You mean the demons and witches that live here?” Ana asked.
Millie’s phone lit up, but she turned it over and shifted her full attention to Ana. “The other realms you lived in… how many demons did you meet?”
Ana thought of the ones from Icemyer, but she wasn’t about to divulge that information, so she thought to Firemoor and to the Spine, where rumors of demons swept the streets and filled the air like mentioning them were poison. Newscasts blamed them for a few of the attacks on eastern Firemoor when the government army had cleansed it for fear of witches, not demons as they had been told.
“None,” she answered.
“But you knew of them,” Millie said. “You knew they were worse than death. And that if you were to meet one, along with a witch, you should report it immediately.”
Ana stared at Millie, seeing the intensity in her eyes. “Yes,” Ana said.
Millie took another long swig of her drink. “Demons cannot be killed,” she said, and Ana resisted shifting at the thought of the knife that lay back at her apartment.
“They share the immortality of their maker,” Millie continued. “Firemoor has been looking for a way to eliminate us since the war broke the Myers and Moors apart. But many people do not know about the prisons in the other realms. Most people don’t know of the experimentation and the torture those who are caught go through every day just because of what they are.” Her lashes lifted, and Ana stilled at her face.
“Samarius does not hide this place so people cannot get in. He hides this place so that the people inside are not persecuted for what they are. This placeisa haven—“
“Why doesn’t he go after his people?” Ana interjected. “If it is his own demons in these prisons, why does he allow that to go on? Why not save them? These are people he swore he could protect with their agreement to become his demons… does he not think protecting them includes saving them from these prison camps?”
“What my king does about these situations is not the business of the public,” she said. “What do you think Firemoor’s army would do if they saw us talking about crossing the border and taking their prisoners?” A soft chuckle came from Millie. “I don’t even know why I am bothering to explain any of this to you,” she said. “You’re new here. Why do you care what our king does in his free time? Why can you not enjoy your new freedoms as every other person has?”
“Because maybe I have people on the outside that I want to have that freedom,” Ana said. “Maybe I grew up watching all of that happen, had friends disappear and family rounded up like cattle for what they were. And maybe the only person that can save them is your king.”
Ana didn’t blink away from Millie for a solid moment. She waited on the demon to come back at her. To scold her for even thinking such about him. But Millie just smiled.
“Maybe the person you’re searching for is the woman taking down monarchies as easily as kicking over a sandcastle,” Millie said, making Ana stiffen. “I hear people worship her name in the other realms.”
“Oh, they do,” Ana agreed. “But she is only a mortal. Imagine what Death could do if he were to put his mind to her cause as much as he puts his mind to hiding this place.”
Millie considered her, her eyes raking over Ana’s entire form, and the corner of her lips lifted higher when she met her gaze again. “The paintings,” she said, changing the subject. “Why do you want them?”
“I think the people immigrating into this kingdom deserve to see the true history of our world, as seen in the eyes of the people that were there, the people that are still alive and can attest to what happened,” Ana answered. “Not the lies we’ve been taught in the others. Or is the truth another of the things your king hides?”
“Careful, girl,” Millie warned.
Ana’s mouth dared to flinch. “Your king and his demons are the only ones that remain alive after that war. They’re the only ones that can reveal the truth, and I think revealing that starts with the art made to commemorate it. Wouldn’t you like to have your story told?”
