“And we’ve got the power to do it,” Adrian added optimistically, shooting another look at Bex’s magnificent newhorns. “You took the prayers of all demons and used them to give yourself a new name! Does that mean you’re the new Ishtar now?”
Bex shrugged. “Maybe? Sort of? I don’t know. All I wanted was for Ishtar to help us, but she wouldn’t do that, so I saidI’ddo it, and then I ended up with this forest on my head.”
She reached up to smack her horns and nearly hit Boston, who’d put his paws on her back to get a better look at her new headgear.
“What I want to know is why do you havesixhorns,” the cat said in a fascinated voice. “If your new authority stems from the combined wishes of all demonkind, shouldn’t you have nine horns? One for each type?”
“She has six horns because Ishtar has six horns,” Nemini explained before Bex could open her mouth. “It’s a mark of her divinity, not a direct representation.”
Adrian’s face lit up. “So youarelike Ishtar!”
“If I am, it’s only because she wouldn’t do her damn job,” Bex said angrily. “I don’t care about gods or crowns. All I want is for demons to be able to live in peace without having to be anyone’s slaves.Why is that so hard?”
Her black ring was buzzing like a hornet by the time she finished, causing Bex to lapse into another of her whispered finger arguments that Adrian didn’t even bother trying to eavesdrop on anymore. Bex and Drox had always had their own dynamic. He was far more concerned about everything else she’d said.
Ever since his first conversation with the Morrigan, Adrian had been focused on cutting the chains as the magic bullet to bringing down Gilgamesh. If the gods were serious about a reset, though, that made them as much of a threat as the Eternal King. He supposed that didn’t actually change much since, aside from the Morrigan, the gods hadneverhelped them,but it was still depressing to know their one-cut solution was off the table. Even if Bex was some kind of mini-Ishtar now, beating Gilgamesh was always going to be an uphill battle, and now they had to do itwithoutaccidentally bringing back the gods. That sounded like fighting a war on a tightrope, but the factor that still worried Adrian the most was his father.
He shot another nervous glance at Gilgamesh’s palace, but nothing had changed since the last time he’d looked thirty seconds ago. The constructs were still standing ready on the battlements, and the lions were still gleaming on the roof, but nothing had opened fire. The glittering shield hadn’t gone back up, either, which struck Adrian as crazy, considering that Gilgamesh had lost a tower and a good chunk of the fancy mansions near the castle. There should have been some kind of retaliation by now, but the White City was as empty and silent now as it’d been the first time he and Bex stuck their heads out of the Hells. It almost felt like Gilgamesh wanted them to think they had victory in the bag and didn’t need to rush.
If that was the image the Eternal King had chosen to project, then Adrian’s first instinct was to charge the doors as fast as possible. He wasn’t a general by any stretch, but Adrian had a pretty good feel for how his father thought now, and in his opinion, Nemini’s earlier assessment—that Gilgamesh was holding back because it served him, not because he was afraid—had been right on the money. If Gilgamesh was keeping the pressure off and giving them room to breathe, then that room had to be his goal. Hewantedthem to feel like they had time to prepare, which meant that time itselfhad to be his victory condition.
In that case, they were already falling behind. Adrian had known his father was working on something huge since before he’d been kidnapped up to Heaven. Since they were all still alive, the king must not have finished it yet. That explained whyhe was giving his enemies so much room to dally, but it also meant they could still stop him if they moved fast enough. Bex had already figured that much out herself, but despite her big call to war earlier, only a handful of the most eager demons had actually made it to the rally point.
More were on the way, but it took time to move that many people. The same went for the Blackwoods. The Old Wives’ preparation was amazing in hindsight, but even the giant tree he’d grown with all of his quintessence blood could only funnel so many witches into Heaven at a time.
Add in the hundreds of thousands of weakened demons frantically trying to go back down the other direction and the whole situation was starting to feel impossible. The only reason Adrian wasn’t already falling into a panic was his firm belief that his Aunt Muriel wouldn’t have brought the coven here if they really didn’t have a chance. The same went for the Morrigan. The goddess of prophecy definitely wasn’t the sort to waste her time on lost causes, which meant that victory had to still be possible. They just had to find and stop Gilgamesh before he finished… whatever it was he was doing.
Once again, Adrian found his lack of knowledge supremely frustrating. His only consolation was that he didn’t need to understand something to break it. He just had to get close enough to throw the wrench into his father’s works. Fortunately, when it came to being destructive, Adrian knew exactly whom to talk to.
“If speed is the name of the game, then we’d better get moving,” he told Bex when she finally stopped whispering at Drox. “Is it okay if I set you down at the rally point?”
“Of course, but where will you be?” Bex asked with a concern that warmed Adrian’s heart.
“Not far,” he promised as he landed his broom on the road where the first batch of battle-eager demons was alreadywaiting. “I just need to take care of some long-overdue family business.”
That statement earned him a funny look, but one of the qualities Adrian loved best about Bex was how she always seemed to know when to step back. She didn’t even ask what kind of business he was talking about. She just said, “Don’t take too long.”
“I won’t,” Adrian promised, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before kicking his broom back into the sky to go find his brother.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Finding a Prince of Gilgamesh was normally pretty easy, but locating Leander in the swirling sea of demons rushing either to war or away from it turned out to be a tall order. Every time Adrian convinced a demon to slow down long enough to answer his questions, none of them seemed to know who he was talking about. He was starting to think Leander had vanished into thin air when he felt his brother step into the rootway.
The moment the banished prince’s bare foot came down inside his heart tree, Adrian ordered the roots to snatch it. The forest here was so big now that he could feel every muscle in the prince’s body go stiff as he realized he was trapped. He started struggling immediately, but it was too late. Adrian had already flown over, pulling Bran to a stop just shy of the warehouse-sized opening in the fir tree’s base where two entire populations—the Blackwood witches and the demons of the Hells—were switching places.
Fittingly, Leander was on the side that was going down. The far,farside, as if he wanted to put as much distance between himself and the arriving Blackwoods as possible. He was carrying a wrapped body Adrian assumed was Bex’s sisterMara, but none of the other unconscious queens Leander was supposed to be keeping an eye on were anywhere to be seen.
The prince didn’t even have the decency to look guilty when Adrian hopped off his broom in front of him. He just lifted the hand he’d been using to tear the roots off his bare feet and gave his youngest brother the scowl to end all scowls.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know what the hell you think you’re doing,” Adrian said, scowling back. “You promised Bex you’d help her if she rescued Mara. You don’t get to turn your back on that and run away throughmytree just because you got what you wanted.”
“Better than dying here,” Leander snapped, clutching Mara tighter. “I saw how many horns were on the Queen of Wrath’s head when she came out of that fire. Add in the Morrigan’s presence and even an idiot can see what’s coming. This is no longer a simple rebellion. Those fools are about to kick off a second war of the gods. Even if they win, the devastation will be catastrophic, so I’m taking my princess and getting us out of here while the concept of ‘out’ still exists.”
“You can’t run away from something this big,” Adrian argued. “Where were you even planning to go? The Blackwood?”
“Never,” Leander spat. “I’dnevercower in the forest my mother sold me to Gilgamesh to protect. Even if I was willing, the Blackwood is the first place our father will crush for his revenge. I have a much better plan in mind. I’m going to go back down to Earth, where the teleportation ban isn’t in effect, and then I’m taking us to Father’s private island. No matter what happens up here, Gilgamesh would never allow his precious collection to be destroyed, so I’m going to take Mara down to his wine cellar and hide there until somebody wins. Once the fires die down, we’ll see about making something out of the ashes, but my part in this is finished.”
