“For a spell.”
No shit, Sherlock.She was surprised he’d even answered. “What does the spell do?”
His head jerked infinitesimally toward the sigil on the floor. His tall horns exaggerated the movement. “You had a chance to study it for yourself. You couldn’t decipher it?”
She noted the challenge in his bloodshot eyes. He wanted her to be clueless and stupid, she realized. Then he would be able to dismiss her. But she wasn’t going to make any of this easy for him, not if she could help it.
“Knowing who you are and that it requires a blood sacrifice,” she said, “it’s likely necromancy. The lines are drawn in blood and chalk. That means they need extra fortification to keep from breaking, which implies there’s strong resistance against whatever you’re trying to do. The inner part of the sigil has burned away completely, suggesting hellfire was conjured in the process. Knowing that, if I had to guess …” Fuck, she was just spitballing here. In truth, she didn’t have a clue, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “I’d say you’re either trying to break a very powerful seal or create one.”
His head tilted, locks of shiny white hair sliding over his shoulder. His lips drew together, but he didn’t look displeased. More … curious?
He was difficult to read. It was hard enough to see past his unnerving eyes and the black shadows around them set into that pale face. And she couldn’t think with him so close.
“So?” She forced her voice to remain level. “Am I right?”
“Which is it?” he asked. “Am I breaking or creating a seal?”
Her eyes narrowed. He genuinely wanted her to guess. And while a part of her wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and then see if she could reach up far enough to gouge his eyes out, another part wanted to prove to him that she wasn’t the helpless little mortal he thought she was.
“Breaking,” she decided. “You’re trying to break a seal.”
“Hm.”
Her brows rose in expectation of a confirmation of her guess.
He smiled thinly. “I guess you’ll never know.”
Dick.She ground her teeth. “What do you want with me? Why do you have my grimoire?”
Ignoring her questions, he pushed off the desk suddenly and stepped back, and it was like all the air returned to the room. She sucked in a greedy breath and straightened out of her painful backbend.
Now that he’d given her space, she was pissed off at how much she’d lost composure. But that had been exactly his intent, hadn’t it? He’d wanted to remind her that she was still afraid of him, and he’d succeeded.Bastard. Prick. Asshole.
“I specifically told you not to come up here,” he said, staring at the sigil on the floor.
She said nothing. She had no way to justify herself. She’d known she would get caught too, but she hadn’t planned out what to do once that happened.
“No one is allowed here.” His voice was a low growl. “Those that disobeyed me in the past ended up on the tower spikes. As far as I know they’re still there.”
His head swung around, and he pinned her with a sharp look. He saw her confusion and jerked his chin toward the window.
Obeying his silent command, she unglued her rear end from the edge of the desk and took careful steps toward the dusty glass.
Pulling her jacket sleeve down, she smudged a tiny peep hole into the filth and then peered through the window. Outside she saw the black-blood sky and the shapes of distant mountains. She also had a clear view of the rest of the castle. There were several more towers, all lower than the one they were in. The tops were sharp spires. Atop those spires were bodies.
Demons had been impaled through their midsections and stacked on top of one another like a grizzly shish kebab.
She jerked back to stare at him in horror.
And he smiled.
Of course he did.
He was fucking disturbed. He had a torture dungeon and an army of dead humans enslaved to him. He impaled demons on his towers and had the audacity to smile about it. He’d left her to starve in a cell and only bothered to let her out because he needed her blood and didn’t want her to die. Not only did he not care about her wellbeing, he got off on terrorizing her.
He was the enemy. He would not show mercy unless she forced him to. She had the distinct impression that he would seize any chance to betray those not careful to protect themselves in negotiations, simply because he could.
If she was going to survive this, she needed to be very careful.
