He looked at the rocks with a bewildered expression. “Do I even want to know?”
She grinned. “Probably not.”
After a moment, Asmodeus offered her his hand and gave her a look of warning. “Follow me into the portal. Step only where I step, and do not let go. The other side is rigged with traps.”
She glanced back at the castle with jagged spires, barely visible in the distance. She trusted Caspian, and he’d almost killed her. She trusted Asmodeus, and he’d almost let her die.
The thought settled in her chest like lead. She’d risked everything to save him, fighting demons and dragons and bargaining with Lucifer himself. And for what? A creature who didn’t even recognize her as she bled for him.
But he had been drugged. Poisoned. Half-starved. That wasn’t really him—was it?
Maybe the blood-filled pleasure hall, and him feeding off her, lost in blood lust, was his true nature. Maybe the tender moments they’d shared were the aberration, not this.
Asmodeus moved to stand in front of the portal and raised his brows, waiting for her. His gaze flicked to her throat, and unease coiled in her gut.
He offered her his hand, and wishing to be rid of this place, she took it and stepped after him into the translucent barrier of the portal.
Chapter 59
Out of the Pan and into the Fire
Once she passed through the portal, she felt a strange jerking sensation in her stomach, and the world twisted disorientingly around her.
She blinked, and as her stomach settled, she noted they were once again standing in the familiar portal room of the castle. However, as soon as they arrived, the room grew dark, and they were rushed by billowing black clouds.
Asmodeus spoke quickly, uttering a string of words in the Godstongue that caused the cloud of darkness to hesitate, and then slowly dissipate. The room returned to its original appearance, and Asmdoeus explained that the black cloud was poisonous if inhaled. He pointed at several slots on the walls, she hadn’t noticed before, which had released the noxious fumes.
He explained that if someone entered without knowing the passcode, there were also weapons that would slide out of the slits in the walls to kill any intruders.
Elizabeth took a step forward, and Asmodeus gripped her arm. “Beware ofthat.” He nodded in the direction of the pentacle on the floor.
Remembering what had happened to the demon—how its life had been sucked out of it, and how it had turned into a waxy corpse before her eyes as it tried to claw its way out of the pentacle—she swallowed. “What exactly happens if someone steps on it?”
Asmodeus snorted. “Honey, if you like your face the way it is, I suggest you don’t find out.”
She glanced warily at the pentacle on the floor. In the centre of the pentacle was a tiny pile of ash, the only remnant of the demons that had entered the portal without leave.
Asmodeus explained how to close the door with the metal seal, then he vanished back through the archway.
Elizabeth pressed the seal into the wall, turned it, and the bookshelf slid back into place.
The library looked exactly as it had before they’d left.
Elizabeth inhaled deeply and could have cried. The air had never smelled so good, nor so clean.
She looked out the window—the sky was dark, the moon a silver crescent in the sky. Opening the window wide, she inhaled deeply, the cool night air welcome after breathing in air that smelled strongly of sulfur and ash.
Closing the window, she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. She was sweaty, flushed, and her skin was tarnished by the soot that had been thick in the air.
She stepped out of the library, relishing the feeling of her boots against solid and familiar ground. The sound of her footsteps echoed through the dark marble halls.
Elizabeth began trudging to her chambers when something struck her as odd.
Usually, a few strangely-shaped creatures were milling about the halls, but it was quiet.
The halls were silent—eerily so.
Where were all the servants?
