Page 149
“Privately,” he says.
I almost laugh. “Now?”
“Especially now.”
Isolde’s fingers catch my sleeve before I can follow him. Her grip is brief, firm, and very much an order disguised as contact. “You come back.”
I look down at her hand, then at her face. “Bossy.”
“Alive people can complain about my tone later.”
Sable snorts. “She’s learning.”
Isolde releases my sleeve. The bond stays warm between us as I follow Rhazek toward a side chamber off the trade hall, a small witness room used for private negotiations and polite extortion. The space smells of sealing wax, old arguments, and panic-sweat from whatever clerk evacuated it moments before. Rain lashes the narrow windows. Red light flickers through the glass with every pulse from the estate.
Rhazek shuts the door and puts one hand against the frame.
Gold-red script crawls over the wood, sealing sound inside.
I fold my arms. “If you tell me to stay back, I’m going to disappoint you.”
“I expect disappointment. I require comprehension.”
“That sounded ominous enough to be educational.”
His eyes settle on mine, infernal gold meeting hybrid gold, and for a moment I remember the first days after the contract rewrote me, when his gaze felt like a blade deciding whether I was salvageable. “Vaerith is preparing a high-tier summoning. The pressure signature suggests a devourer class entity, possibly older than the city’s current ward grid.”
I feel the thing under the estate pulse again, even through the room’s seal. My skin prickles in recognition. “How high-tier?”
“High enough that lesser demons would flee its wake. High enough that the district wards will become fuel once the ritual opens fully.”
“And high enough that he can blame me if it arrives while I’m standing nearby.”
“Yes.”
“Charming.”
Rhazek’s expression remains severe. “If you attempt absorption, the entity’s structure may alter yours permanently.”
My hands go still.
He continues without mercy, because Rhazek has always considered mercy a decorative vice. “You have consumed lesser infernal essence and ward-energy. Those were containable because your adaptive structure is young and your anchor is unusually compatible. A higher devourer carries layered appetite, old territorial law, and predatory memory. Absorbing even a portion may deepen your infernal architecture beyond any current map.”
I stare at him while rain claws at the windows.
“Translate that into something less like a funeral lecture.”
His gaze does not move. “You may survive and become less human in ways neither Sable nor Isolde can reverse.”
The words land quietly.
That makes them worse.
I think of my eyes glowing without effort in the mirror. The horns pressing against glamour. The hunger learning the shape of souls. The way Isolde looked at me in the safe house, fingers in my collar, refusing to let fear make decisions for either of us. The way she stood in the trade hall and cut Vaerith’s ownership claim apart with law, ink, and a spine he never bothered to respect.
“She’ll be in danger if it opens,” I say.
“Yes.”
