“Got him moving, didn’t it?”
Michael sighed. “I’ve always wondered about you.”
“Oh please, Mikey. If I wanted to wreak havoc, I would. Giving Luce a hard time is just fun.”
The infirmary was a chaotic rush after the silence and isolation of the portal. Demons scurried along the perimeter with worried or purposeful expressions, collecting items such as herbs or damp towels and depositing them on the table in the center of the room. In the center, a cluster of bodies obscured their view: Raguel with arms crossed like a guard and his back to theoccupied bed. Camiel applying a fresh towel to Mags’s brow. Zaj hovered like a frantic pixie and barked directions to the other demons.
Remi hurried back to her husband’s side, but Luce hesitated at the door. He might have stood there all night, frozen in place by worry and guilt, but another blast of powerful magic rocked the room. Bottles rattled in their cases, one of the cabinets tipping wildly before an electric blue demon with two forked tails steadied it.
You have to do this. Luce crossed the room with purposeful strides. “What’s going on, dammit?”
Rag gave him a measured look and nodded at the bed they all clustered around. “Mags had an episode. She went into one of her trances, but this one was…really bad. We couldn’t bring her out of it, and she just—” He broke off, looking pained.
Cami leaned in close to Luce, grabbing his sleeve. “I have not heard screams like hers since the Plague.”
Luce pushed into the cluster of bodies until he could take Mags’s small hand in his own. “Who put her under?”
Sachiel looked haunted. “I didn’t want to.”
“He had to.” Glory’s eyes sparkled with tears. “She just keptscreamingLucifer, I thought her lungs would burst.”
Luce extended his free hand to rest on Sachi’s arm. “You had no choice, it seems. But now I need her to wake. Bring her back, please.”
Sachi stepped in close, kneeling beside the bed so that his mouth was level with Mags’s head, and pursed his lips as if to whistle. Instead, he blew out a stream of blue-tinted breath that wafted in lazy coils over her slack, sleeping face. It drifted downward as he rose to his feet, settling onto her skin and sinking beneath the surface. A tense moment brought the room to an unnatural stillness, save for the demons clearing away in anticipation of what was to come.
Slowly, her lashes fluttered. Her lip twitched, and her eyes blinked open. Mags cast her gaze around wildly, breath coming in rapid gasps as she sat bolt upright so abruptly that Luce had to catch her against his chest.
“Breathe, Mags! You’re fine, you’re safe.”
She continued to thrash for a moment, too frantic and disoriented to process what was happening, until she slowly came to her senses. Her breathing slowly regulated as she pressed her forehead to Luce’s throat, taking in the steady pulse under his jaw as if to reassure herself he was still living and breathing. Her hands came up to twist in the fabric of his shirt, and she lifted wide, tear-filled eyes to his.
“Tell me what you saw,” he murmured.
“He…Foster,” she broke off in a whimper.
“Is he alright?” Luce felt his pulse quicken, some primal combination of fear and concern.
Mags chewed her lip. “He completed another sacrifice.”
A violent wave of power rocked the room, and Mags clung to Luce like a small child.
“Is that what these power surges are?”
She nodded. “We’re too late. He’s crossing the threshold, Lucifer. I don’t know if we have any other choice now.”
Remi picked at the frayed cuff of her sweater, picking at loose threads and widening the hole her thumb poked through. “I know we wanted to try and save him, but this…”
The room trembled under the onslaught of power.
“It’s too wild,” Rag frowned. “He’s coming unglued because he doesn’t know how to handle the power. No one was meant to control this much alone.”
Lucifer turned, inexplicably, to Michael. The blond cleared his throat to address the room. “He did not choose this path spontaneously.”
“He’s right,” Luce pulled back from Mags’s grip to meet her eyes. “Are you well enough to conduit?”
She paused, mentally assessing herself, then nodded. “I can, if it’s brief.”
“What do you mean?” Glory cocked her head to the side quizzically, considering Michael.
