The result was a water level several feet higher than the knee-deep lake Bex’s wrath demons were pushing through. Now that the Hell of Pride was open, though, the water at the bottom of the stairwell was rising swiftly as the two spaces equalized.The churning current was so strong it knocked some of the weaker wrath demons over. Fortunately, Iggs was there to help them back up and keep them moving.
Nemini’s demons were not so fortunate. The queen’s command was still echoing through the cavern of the Lowest Hell, but Bex didn’t see a single horned head popping out of the water.
“Are we too late?” she whispered, jumping down to land in the now thigh-deep water next to her sister. “I don’t see—”
“Bexa,” Nemini interrupted. “Can you light your bonfire?”
“What?” Bex asked, confused. “Oh, sure, I can do that, but why do you—”
“Just light it, please,” Nemini said as she stepped to the side, out of sight of the door.
Bex still didn’t understand what was going on, but she did as Nemini asked, covering her entire body in blazing flames. The firelight filled the dark Hell in front of her like a sunrise, and as it glittered off the black water, a wave of horned heads broke the surface in reply.
“You came!” they cried in the ancient tongue of the Riverlands, coughing vile water out of their lungs as they swam toward Bex’s light. “You came just like you promised!”
Their shouts formed a joyous chorus, but Bex backed away in horror. She was opening her mouth to tell the demons they were wrong, that it had been their queen who’d come, not her, when Nemini reached out to touch her flaming shoulder.
“It’s all right,” she said in a voice that sounded equal parts sad and relieved. “My people never listened to me unless I made them, but they responded to your fire even when they were lost in the void. It’s better that they have a new light to run to than an old queen dragging them back to a past neither of us enjoyed.”
“It’snotbetter,” Bex snarled, smacking her hand away. “These areyourpeople!”
Nemini blinked. “So? You didn’t mind me giving orders to your people.”
“That was different,” she insisted. “You’re the one who ate a wave to get to them. You should get the credit for—”
“I don’t need their credit anymore,” Nemini said, her yellow eyes lighting up as if those words were a surprise to her as well. “It’s just like you said on the stairs. I’m still Nemini. The me I found in the void is still here, and unlike Queen Netara, she doesn’t need her people’s worship.”
Bex shook her head wildly. “But—”
“If your light keeps the demons of Pride alive, then I’m doing a better job as their queen right now than I ever did before,” Nemini said, her voice calm and matter-of-fact. “I can keep doing it, too. Here.” She held out her hands with the palms cupped together. “Can you give me some of your fire?”
Bex had no idea. She’d never tried giving her fire to someone else before. Nemini was asking like it was normal, though, so she must’ve done it in the past. Sure enough, when Bex pressed her flaming hands into her sister’s, a beach-ball-sized sphere detached from her bonfire to float like a magic torch over Nemini’s cupped fingers.
“There,” Nemini said, holding the new fire up like a signal flare. “Now they’ll see me as you, which means you’re free to go with Adrian. That’s what you want, right?”
Not when she put it that way. Obviously, Bex wanted to stay with Adrian and go find her sisters. If Leander was right about Gilgamesh burying them down here, then there was a good chance the other daughters of Ishtar were waking up just like all the pride demons that were now jumping out of the water like schooling fish. If that was true, and she could get to them, then Bex would finally have the allies she needed to bring down Gilgamesh. It was literally the stuff of her childhood dreams, but she couldn’t reach for it, not when Nemini’s demons were—
“You don’t have to do everything by yourself,” Nemini said quietly. “I don’t mind being a fake bonfire if it gets my people to safety, which might just be the most queenly thing I’ve ever said.”
“But I just promised to set youfreeof being queen,” Bex reminded her. “I can’t just turn around and let you—”
“It’s fine,” Nemini insisted. “I’m not doing this as queen. I’m doing it to helpyou. The fact that I’m also being a responsible monarch is just a byproduct, so stop arguing and go before the water gets any higher.”
“But—”
“Go,” Nemini said again as she lifted her ball of fire higher. “And put yourself out. You’re confusing people.”
The crowd of demons following Nemini’s torch out of the waterwasstarting to drift toward Bex’s fire instead. It was slowing down the evacuation, so Bex snuffed herself out, though she didn’t take her eyes off Nemini.
“Thank you.”
“What are older sisters for?” Nemini replied, moving her ball of Bex’s fire toward the stairs so the fleeing demons—Nemini’s demons, even if they didn’t know it—could find the way out.
“She’s certainly more opinionated now that she’s got her horns back,” Adrian said as he reached down to help Bex climb back onto the broom.
“She is,” Bex agreed as she took his hand. “But I like it. I always knew she cared too much to actually care about nothing.”
Adrian pulled her up with a smile, but when he opened his mouth to reply, Leander cut him off.
