Chapter 31

Rosabel La Rouge

“What’s the meaning of this, Alejandro?”

Hill slowly stood up and looked at Zachary and Aurelia, at Seth, then Taland, then me.

Once more, he didn’t react, had no expression on his face at all when he faced the Devil.

“Oh, I was just telling these younglings how you and I go way back, and how I know how your mind works, David. You always think ten steps ahead, and you inspired me to do the same.”

Hill put his hands in the pockets of his silver suit pants. “And you always liked to talk and talk and talk…” He nodded his head back. “How about you let them out so we can have an actual conversation, you and I.”

It wasn’t a question.

The Devil laughed, and Hill turned his head just slightly to look at me. To look at my hand. My wrist. The bracelet around it.

When our eyes locked, I could have sworn I saw the threat he just made running through his mind, even though he didn’t say it in words.

I’d be a damn liar if I said I wasn’t afraid—I was terrified. I was pissed. I was so ready to get the hell away from this place already, except the room had continued to spin again before any of us had even made it to their feet, and the magic held. It held strong—we weren’t going anywhere yet.

“But we can have a conversation in front of them, can’t we? They’re just children, after all,” said the Devil. “And more than that—I think I might have told them your little secret already, so there’s no need to hide. Not like any of them are coming out of my Regah alive, anyway.”

Fuck.

I looked at Taland, and he no longer seemed suspicious or afraid or anything at all—just plain cold. Calculative. He was measuring the distance between us, I was sure—except I had, too. And there was no way in any hell that any of us were going to be able to keep away from a spell no matter whom it was aimed at. The place was too small, and unless the Devil let us out…well, we were all dead, just like he said.

“What secret?” David Hill said, and he stepped to the side, turned his back to Hakim and the other two without hesitation, so he could have us and the Mergenbach siblings and the Devil in his line of vision.

The Devil laughed again, laughed harder. “Come now, David. Don’t play dumb with me.”

Hill’s teeth clenched so hard the entire room heard it. “It’s you who’s playing dumb, I’m afraid. I suggest you get to the point quickly and tell me why I’m here.”

“Ah, yes, yes—you’re a busy man,” the Devil said. “But I already told you—I called you here because I told them your secret.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “They came to me willingly—well, the young Tivouxes and the girl. And we were going to have a grand time. A debt was going to be cleared, but then your kin shows up and blows up my door.” Now, when he looked at Zachary and Aurelia, he looked so pissed off it was incredible how well he’d hidden it. “So I had no choice but to lock them in my Regah—to both teach them a lesson, and to uncover, once and for all, who we all are and what we really want. So…” His voice trailed off and he nodded his head at Hill. “Go ahead. Tell them about how you’ve been planning to find and bring back the Delaetus Army since before you took your position as the IDD Director.”

Lies, said a voice in my head.

No fucking way in hell, said another—but the strongest one wondered, how had I not seen it until now ?

“You must be tired,” Hill said. “Maybe you should sit down and wait for death, old friend. Your men are dying out there—it’s only a matter of time before mine get to you.”

“Men, men—I have more men!” The Devil laughed heartily. “I always have more men, David. Always!”

“You don’t want to do this,” Hill told him, and he had his hands in his pockets still, but he was slightly moving back whenever he spoke because he didn’t want anybody to notice.

He was moving back, away from Zachary and Aurelia. Away from us.

“But I already did,” the Devil said. “Go on, go on—tell them exactly how you have gathered everything you need in your Headquarters, and nobody has ever— ever suspected a thing!” His laughter rang in my ears. “You were smart, so smart. You used Madeline Rogan’s granddaughter because you knew she had the Council’s favor. You used the Tivoux boy because you wanted his brothers angry. Things didn’t quite work out the way you wanted, I assume, but you still got everything you needed in your Vault, didn’t you? You got the veler to find them and the script to call for them and the soul vessels to awaken them and the anchor to control them—you did all the work so beautifully.”

Taland had suddenly gripped me by the hand and pulled me back, so close to the moving wall that I felt the heat of its energy on my skin, and Seth was on my other side. He raised both hands at Hill when Zachary and Aurelia raised their wands at him.

My eyes closed and I forced air down my lungs— this is really happening.

I tried to find anything in my memories, anything at all that would hint that the Devil was lying— this is really, actually happening, and we’re at the heart of it.

I found nothing.

“You’re fucking sick,” Aurelia spit—and she wasn’t talking to the Devil.

She was looking at Hill.

Hill who had his head down, a hand in his pocket, the other out, fingers tapping furiously against his thigh. He made no sound at all, and his eyes were closed.

“Is it true?” Zachary said. “David—is that true?!”

His voice shook with anger, but his arm was steady, the tip of his wand releasing blue flames as he waited.

“Of course, it’s true,” said the Devil. “Brilliant plan, too—I was rooting for him, hoping he’d win. And he will win—I made sure of it. Except, David, I sent your boy back out there to steal from you since you failed to kill him. I thought it would make for a funny little detail when we came together for a glass. A good story to tell. But he failed, too, and I thought I’d have to figure out another way to steal the things you’ve gathered—then the La Rouge girl comes in and brightens my day with that bracelet—did you know, David?”

Suddenly, the Devil pressed his hands against the veil that separated us from him—and I still had no fucking clue how.

“Oh, tell me, tell me—did you know how well it actually works? I’d have never believed it if I hadn’t seen it with these old eyes— never, I tell you,” the man continued, and the way he was looking at me now made my skin crawl.

My instinct was to hide my hand behind my back so they wouldn’t see it.

Another insisted I should just take off that damn bracelet and throw it at them— here, have at it, fight for it like dogs!

But the third instinct was the strongest, the only one I couldn’t ignore. The one that said the bracelet was mine, and neither of them could use it except Taland. Neither of them could harm me because I had it. Neither of them could harm us.

A strange kind of calm came over me, one that slowed my heartbeat and forced most of the fear to release its hold over me. We were here and we weren’t going to leave right now, so we had to survive. We had to make it—it was as simple as that.

“Hey, sweetness,” Taland whispered from my side, slipping my hand in his. “You won the Iris Roe without magic.”

“But I had you,” I whispered back, though I knew exactly what he was saying.

“You have me now,” Taland said. “You have me always.”

I turned my head just slightly so I could see his face because I wasn’t leaving Hill and the Devil out of my sight for longer than a second.

“We’re getting out of here,” I told him, and I sounded just as sure as he always did when he spoke.

Taland nodded. “Yes, we are.” He squeezed my hand. “Use it. Don’t hesitate.”

“I will,” I promised him.

I pulled my father’s ring off my finger and slipped it in my pocket, just in case. I didn’t want to lose it, even if I knew it wasn’t my anchor anymore. It hadn’t been since I lost my magic.

Or maybe gained more colors was the better description.

Aurelia was calling Hill names.

Hill remained with his head down right there in the middle of the room.

The Devil laughed and laughed…

“If we make it out of this, you owe me beers for the rest of your life, brother,” said Seth from where he was standing on my right.

I almost laughed. Beers, he said.

“I’ll make sure you drown in them,” Taland said. “Radock? Kaid?”

My stomach fell, even though I didn’t see his face, had no idea if he was sad that his other brothers hadn’t come here with me. And I did remember why, but right now was not the time to talk, so I bit my tongue and let Seth answer.

“Safe,” Seth said. “They’ll be here when they need to be here.”

Through the corner of my eye, I saw Taland nod.

Hill raised his head just a little bit and his fingers were no longer tapping against his thigh. He’d been thinking, I was sure of it, maybe even planning, or simply just trying to figure out how to best navigate the Devil’s accusations, since he made them in front of his own people—but he was done now. Taland and Seth said something else, but I couldn’t hear them. My attention remained on Hill’s face, and I expect him to open his eyes any second now, and my muscles were relaxed, my magic at the ready…

He did.

Hill opened his eyes, and yet another strange sensation came over me, one that said everything was already as good as done, and the best we could do was play the roles we were meant to play all along.

Zachary had been in the process of demanding answers from him, I thought, when Hill raised a finger in the air and said, “ Enough. ”

The Devil stopped laughing, too. Taland and Seth were no longer talking, and Aurelia and Zachary had their lips sealed, though their wands remained raised and aimed at Hill.

“Enough, enough, by the goddess, enough ,” he continued, and he turned to the Devil.

I didn’t expect anything good from this man, obviously, but for a second there, he had me fooled. For a second there, I thought he was smart enough to demand we work together to get out of this place and talk outside. For a second there, I was silly enough to imagine he might care—not about me, goddess forbid, but about Zachary and Aurelia, who were his own family. His own.

Except Hill didn’t care about trivial things like family.

“You did me dirty, Ale,” he told the Devil, shaking his head at him, his hands on his hips as he sighed. “You really did me dirty this time, and I’ll have no choice but to make you pay.”

The Devil wasn’t worried in the least. “As is your right. You may absolutely try, my friend.”

It struck me that they really were friends. It struck me that they knew each other well enough for one to guess exactly what the other was up to, for the other to call him by a nickname. They really did know each other, these two. The IDD director, and the biggest criminal in the Tomb.

Somehow, this little fact didn’t surprise me.

“I’ll do more than try ,” Hill said. “After all, you exposed me in front of these children, and now I have to watch them die—I’ll do more than try for that.”

“You disgusting piece of shit,” Zachary spit. Aurelia had already begun to chant, and blue flames were gathering at the tip of her wand. He joined her, too, but the thing was, Hill had begun to chant, too, as soon as he was done threatening the Devil, and unfortunately for the siblings, he was faster. More powerful. Much more powerful.

I’d only ever witnessed Hill using his magic once in Madeline’s office that night when he picked me for a mission that didn’t even exist, a mission he made up. He’d created a screen in the air and had showed us images on it, and back then I hadn’t even seen him moving his lips.

This time I did, and the spell he chose couldn’t have been longer than ten words because he raised his hands and white flames burst out of him with incredible force, and they slammed onto Aurelia with such speed that nobody even saw her being picked up and thrown against the floor the very next second.

The Devil laughed. Zachary screamed.

Our time was already up.

Zachary was running for Hill, and the Devil’s men stayed back, went closer to the edge of the room. Taland shot forward, too, even though I’d been sure he had no raven feather on him. But Seth must have given him one because the brothers were calling up their spells, and Blackfire magic was gathering in their hands as they ran for Hill. Together with Zachary’s Bluefire, it slammed onto the man and pushed him back a couple feet. They actually pushed him back—but it wouldn’t be enough.

We hadn’t made a concrete plan, Taland and I, but we both knew how the other thought, and that’s why I’d let him and Seth go first. That’s why I forced myself to stay behind, so that I could run to Aurelia, who was just now coming to, blinking her eyes slowly, blood dripping down her nose. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to sit up—there really was no time to be gentle.

Her eyes opened wide, and she focused on me.

“Do you need a healing spell?!” I asked, and for a split second, she looked absolutely shocked.

Then she shook her head and grabbed me by the collar of my jacket. “ Don’t let them have that bracelet,” she told me. “Protect it with your life.”

“Nobody can have this bracelet. It’s mine. ” No matter that I stole it from the Vault—it was mine, and none of these crazy people were going to have it. She couldn’t have it, either, and I thought I’d specify that now, just in case she got ideas in her head.

Nobody was going to use my bracelet, only me and Taland—even if a dead army came back and the world was at its end— we were going to use it, nobody else. Just us. They all could rot in hell. This bracelet belonged to me, and my magic belonged to it .

And the more I thought that, the clearer I felt the metal against my wrist, the way it warmed up, prepared itself to obey me. Mine, mine, mine, mi ? —

“Are you listening to me?!”

Aurelia had been talking, but I hadn’t heard a single word—I hadn’t heard anything at all, just my bracelet.

I shook my head, and the sounds of the room came back to me all at once.

“We need to make it out of this alive, and if we’re gonna do that, we have to work together,” I said, regardless of what she’d said. If we were all attacking one another, none of us would survive.

Aurelia nodded, a little concerned just now— for me . Or maybe about me ?

“The enemy of my enemy,” she said.

“Oh, we’re not friends here.” Nobody was my friend anymore, not until I knew with absolute certainty that I could trust them. The way things had been going lately in my life, my trust had to be earned. I would never again give it freely. “But we still need each other.”

She understood. “How powerful are you exactly?”

“Enough to cause a lot of damage to this place, I think.” And maybe that was taking it a bit too far, but I didn’t know for sure, did I? Taland thought that the bracelet made me stronger, and I never doubted Taland before. I wasn’t going to start now, especially when he and Zachary and Seth were still fighting with Hill.

Unfortunately for us, the man didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat as he dodged the spells with ease, then called up his own.

“Good,” Aurelia said. “All we need is to break that screen. Do you know how a Regah works?”

I could have laughed. “I didn’t know this even existed.” All that time at the IDD and I’d never once heard the fucking name.

Aurelia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Help me up.” I jumped to my feet and pulled her with me. She seemed to be steady enough, and her wand was still in her hand.

“The screen that he sees us through,” she said, pointing ahead at where the Devil was standing in his jail cell at the Tomb with his hands in his pockets, watching, smiling. The woman who’d been sitting in the recliner was now standing by the barred door, as if she were waiting for something.

“If we can break it, he’ll no longer have control over the Regah. It will let us go back to the real world.”

Back to the real world —it almost sounded funny.

“So, I attack the screen.” It seemed easy enough—I knew plenty of spells to make things go boom .

“The closer you get, the more effective your magic will be. I’ll join in the fight and you get to the other side, okay?”

I nodded—it was just like any other mission I’d been to before, except Taland was here and if my magic wasn’t strong enough, he wouldn’t make it. No better incentive to give it my very best, was there?

So, I did.

“Good luck,” Aurelia said. “Let’s talk on the other side, shall we? We have a lot to discuss.”

I didn’t answer and she didn’t expect me to. My eyes were on the Devil, on that veil of magic that separated him from us, and she was already running to the others who were fighting Hill.

I moved to the other side, behind them, making sure that Taland was okay while I chanted my spell—a long one, fourth-degree, powerful enough to shatter a fourth-degree ward. I figured it was my best bet.

And I thought I was going to make it.

The Devil saw me approaching. There wasn’t much space between the people fighting and the spinning wall at my back. I could touch it if I reached out a hand.

His smile dropped, though, and that gave me a false sense of hope, because I thought, if he’s afraid, then it can be done. It would be easy, over in no time.

Except the ground groaned and shook again, and then I heard Hill’s voice, his shout, and a blast of Whitefire magic flashed from the middle of the room that rendered me completely blind. The energy grabbed me and pulled me up in the air, and I lost complete control of my body.

Impossible to continue chanting.

“ Pests, ” I thought Hill said, but I could be mistaken because in the same moment I was slammed against the floor so hard I heard my bones crack.

Then there was darkness.