That was a lot to ask, but Lys never made requests like that without damn good reason. Bex was too full of rage and grief to put herself all the way out, but she managed to tone it down to a low burn, which Lys must’ve deemed good enough.
“Desh’s key team has only unlocked about half of the demons upstairs,” they told her in a quiet voice. “The MiddleHells have the opposite problem from the Lower. There’s actually a lotmoredemons up there than we expected, and at the rate the water’s coming in, I’m worried we’re not going to get them all out of their shackles in time.”
They both looked down at the flood Adrian’s broom was hovering over, which had gone up several feet just during the time they’d been talking.
“How long do you think we’ve got?”
“I don’t know,” Lys said. “Volumetric rate calculations aren’t exactly my strong suit, and the Middle Hells are pretty freaking big. Given how fast the water’s coming up now that it’s filled the Lower Hells, though, I’d say we need to hurry.” They flicked their amber eyes to the naked, bloody bodies of the unconscious queens covering Bran’s wings. “I don’t suppose any of them would be willing to help us crack some chains.”
“I’m sure they would if we can wake them up,” Bex said, pulling her wet, filthy hair out of its ruined ponytail. “Keep working on unlocking as many demons as you can. I’ll see if I can’t get us more help.”
Lys nodded and took off, their wings flapping unevenly to spare their injured shoulder. When Bex was certain they weren’t going to fall out of the sky, she quickly braided her hair to keep it out of her face and dropped down next to Adrian, who was still on his knees.
“Do you think you can wake up my sisters?”
“Maybe,” he replied in a distracted voice, never taking his mirrored eyes off the coat he was rubbing like a towel over his broom’s back. “But I can’t look at them right now. I have to get Bran dry before his grass gets too waterlogged and falls apart.” He started rubbing harder. “He’s been an absolute saint flying us around this entire time, but he’s in real danger if I can’t get the damp off him.”
“Would heat help?” Bex asked.
Adrian looked at her with a beaming expression of relief. “Yes, please!” he said, bounding back to his feet. “A low burn, if you can. The water hasn’t seeped down to his core yet, so if we can get his outer layers dry, we should be all right.”
Bex nodded and closed her eyes, happy to have something simple to focus on as she raised her fire by fractions. Producing radiant, steady heat turned out to be a lot harder than violent flames, but she owed Adrian’s broom big-time, so Bex gave it her all, gripping her anger in a tight, controlled ball until the air was so hot and dry it crackled.
“Perfect,” Adrian said as he put his coat—which Bex’s heat had also instantly dried—back on. His witch hat was more challenging. Being drenched had left it wrinkled and droopy. Adrian tried to reshape the point with his fingers, but it was hopeless. After a minute of fruitless fiddling, he shoved the hat into his enchanted pockets with a scowl and moved on to examining Bex’s sleeping sisters.
“Their wounds are healed,” he reported, wiping the dried black blood off their naked bodies with a healer’s gentle indifference. “But they’re not responding to reflex tests.”
“What does that mean?” Bex asked, crouching several inches away so she wouldn’t accidentally bake him with her new radiator mode.
“It means they’re in a coma, and I don’t know why,” her witch answered grimly, sitting back on his heels. “Physically, they seem fine. Their severed wrists have all healed cleanly, and there’s no sign of head trauma from their missing horns, but their pupils aren’t contracting when exposed to light, and they’re not exhibiting a pain response when I pinch them. That could mean damage to the nervous system, or it could be something magical. I simply don’t know.”
That wasn’t good, but, “They’re breathing, though, right?”
“Oh yes,” Adrian assured her. “Like I said, their bodies seem perfectly healthy. There’s just no one inside. Or at least no one who’s responding to what I can do on the back of a broom.”
Bex’s shoulders slumped. Saving her sisters should have been the biggest triumph of her lives, but while she was happy they were with her and alive, this situation was rapidly starting to feel more like failure than success. Even without their crowns and swords, five queens was a force to be reckoned with, but five comatose bodies that had to be protected was a liability Bex couldn’t afford at the moment.
“I’m going to go see if Leander’s having more luck with Mara,” she said as she rose back to her feet. “Are you good on drying?”
Adrian reached down to stick his finger into Bran’s wing. “I think so,” he said after much feeling around. “I’ll have to rebristle him when this is over, but it doesn’t seem like he’s in danger of falling apart anymore.”
The broom did feel steadier now, which was an enormous relief. Between the rising flood, her comatose sisters, and learning Gilgamesh had killed sixty percent of her demons before she’d even known he had them, the feeling that they were about to lose everything was hitting Bex hard. If she let herself think too long about any of it, she’d crumble, but Bex had been on the losing side for most of her life. She’d learned long ago to focus on the positives, like how Adrian’s beloved broom was okay, her sisters weren’t dead, and how there were still forty thousand wrath demons whowerealive and needed her help.
So long as she stayed focused on the things shecoulddo, Bex was able to push all the other tragedies to the background. It was a desperate sort of coping, but it kept her together as she leaped off the back of the broom to go find Leander.
She spotted him on the stairs halfway up to the Middle Hells, huddled in a nook between the pipes where he wouldn’tget crushed by the stampede of evacuating demons. He must’ve teleported straight there because he was still dripping with filthy water, and his bare feet were black with sin muck. He looked more like a drowned rat than a prince of Gilgamesh, but his mirrored eyes were focused and determined when Bex touched his shoulder.
“She’s still lost,” he said before she could ask, turning his body slightly so Bex could see the Queen of Sorrow’s sleeping face where he’d tucked it against his chest.
“Once,” he whispered, “when we were on Earth where it’s harder for Gilgamesh to spy, Mara told me what she remembered of losing her crown. She’d been betrayed by the Queen of War, but Gilgamesh was still perfecting the art of making princesses, so there was a gap between when War defeated her and when they took her horns.”
He reached down to brush the wet hair away from Mara’s closed eyes. “She used to have wings as well. Big, beautiful ones that let her soar over the Riverlands. War cut those off first to keep her grounded until they were ready to steal her crown. After that, the only thing she remembered was falling.”
“That’s how it was for me too,” Bex said. “I had someone with me when I fell, though. She’s the one who helped me come back to myself.”
“Could she help Mara as well?” the prince asked desperately.
“I can ask her,” Bex offered with a smile, reaching out to grab one of the passing void demons.
