She smiled, giving Ben a quick wave, before reality dampened her spirits once more. “I can’t. My parents—”
At nearly seven feet tall, Viina didn’t need to make any concerted effort to peer over Helspira’s shoulder. She approached her daughter’s side, clawed finger tapping her chin. “This is the necromancer that will save Nyllmas?”
Helspira nodded. “Yes, Mum.”
“Ti kat mbampe,” Viina mumbled.
“B’yehnz, Mum!” Helspira dragged an exasperated hand down her face. “He’s a perfectly normal height for a human.”
Sikras sighed. “We can’t all be six foot three and gorgeous like Benjamin.”
“She meant no offense.” Helspira ushered Sikras and Ben inside and shoved the uneven door to force it into the frame. “She’s just used to hanging out with Da, and she doesn’t get out much to engage with other humans.”
“No offense taken.” Sikras flashed Viina a charming grin and bowed. “And where is your adoring husband anyway, madam? I’d love to make his acquaintance.”
Booming footsteps from the other room signaled an approach, jostling tiny pebbles on the broken floorboards. Ever-so-slowly, Sikras turned, falling under the shadow of Helspira’s father. “Blood and bone,” Sikras wheezed, lifting a hand to give a tiny wave, “you could kill me with a sneeze, couldn’t you, sir?”
Blazing yellow irises set inside two black sclera peered at Sikras from an impressive height. Gold strands of hair streaked with gray shifted as his nostrils flared. “The only thing I slay,” he said, voice a reverberating baritone, “is hunger. Lemon tart?”
Sikras glimpsed the tray of tarts clutched in the giant, clawed hands. He blinked. Stared. Grinned. “How did you know lemon was my favorite, Mister ...?”
“Toggones,” her da replied. “Tog to friends and humans who cannot pronounce Toggones.”
Sikras’s hand looked small when swallowed by her da’s grasp, but it didn’t appear to dissuade him from shaking it. “A pleasure, Toggones. Sikras Nikabod.”
“Da, don’t get attached. He can’t stay.” Helspira grasped Sikras’s arm and tugged him backward. “He promised he’d kill Vessik and save Nyllmas.”
“And you’re coming with me?” Sikras asked, an upward inflection adding hope to his query.
Helspira dropped her head in a sigh. “Banneret Rowan threatened to send me and my parents to Chthonia the second he returned to Vinepool. I can’t risk leaving them here alone, not even to help save Nyllmas.”
“They can stay at our mansion. Right, Benjamin?”
Benjamin nodded. “Of course.”
“Mansion?” Viina’s black and purple eyes brightened. She rubbed her fingers together as she nudged Helspira. “B’yehnz, ti li mbi ling.”
“Actually, Mum”—Helspira rubbed the back of her neck—“he’s in crippling debt. Years and years andyearsof tax evasion.”
What little color Sikras had in his face drained. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tapped a small rock with his boot. “Yeah, no, I mean, brutal honesty is good, sure.”
Viina parted her mouth, presumably to speak, but paused. Recognition evaporated from her expression, and her upper lip twitched. A low growl rumbled in her throat, and just as she lashed at Sikras, Toggones dropped his tray to hold her back.
“Oh, Mum.” Helspira’s voice broke as the tray clattered, and she placed herself between Viina and Sikras. “Please, not now.”
“Shh, my love,” Tog whispered softly into his wife’s ear, his giant arms rocking her back and forth, as she writhed against him.
Wide-eyed, Sikras’s gaze slid to Helspira. “Is it the tax evasion thing? I’ll clear my debt with Saelihn, I swear.”
“It’s not that.” Helspira slid her hand into her mother’s straining grasp to soothe her with gentle strokes. “It’s a side effect of her entering a feral state in Chthonia so many times. It happens randomly, but Da and I can handle it. It just takes an hour or so for her brain to settle, for her to remember who and where she is. She’ll calm down, I promise.”
Ben and Sikras exchanged glances, and Sikras tilted his head. “A feral state, you say?”
“It’s the closest phrase I can think of to describe what happens when demons unite their minds and bodies to fight. The chemicals that get released in the brain, it’s all rage, fury, adrenaline, and something only found in demons.” Heartache gripped Helspira’s chest at the sight of her mum thrashing wildly under her da’s hold. “It stops the body from feeling pain, gives you incredible bursts of strength. It’s not sustainable for long, and the more a demon does it, the more unpredictable it becomes. It gets harder and harder for the mind to filter those chemicals. Mum went feral in Chthonia so many times protecting me. I thought I got her out before her mind took too much damage, but then ...” Damn that diavolos who had freed them. If her mother hadn’t tapped into her demonic savagery that final time, maybe she would’ve—
“I see,” Sikras said with an unusually casual tone. “How frequent are these episodes?”
“Two, maybe three times a month,” Helspira said.
