Chapter Six

The second me and the two demons got outside, greeted by the frigid night air, I made a break for it.

The alcohol gave me the confidence to try and outrun them—never mind that I hadn’t run more than a few feet in the last ten years.

I looked over my shoulder, my chest burning and my head swimming with whisky.

The demons weren’t behind me.

I paused, my brow furrowed, before I tripped over my own feet and landed face-first into Caim’s chest.

The horned demon flashed a hint of canine teeth as he looked down at me. His arms came around my stomach, leaving my hands free. “Fancy seeing you here.” He grinned.

“ Bastard .” I signed.

“What did she say?” Murmur stepped up to us both.

Caim grinned. “She’s drunk.”

I narrowed my eyes. “ I… am not drunk. ”

“Sure.” Caim barked a laugh. “Unless you were running away. If that was the case, you didn’t get far, did you?”

I rolled my eyes, batting his arms.

“Come on.” Caim’s smile didn’t drop, though his voice grew cruel. “You murdered people. Have some balls and tell me to my face why you were running away.”

“ I didn’t kill anyone .” My chest heaved as if I’d run a mile just from trying to escape his weirdly firm grip. “ I’m not a murderer. You’re a bastard. I don’t like you .”

A laugh loosened from his lips as if he hadn’t meant for it to escape.

“ You’re innocent ?” He let go of me, signing the words.

Murmur looked between us, confused and clearly hungover.

“ Why did Stolas buy me ?” My shoulders dropped. “ I deserve information if I’m going to stay with you . You said you needed a maid, but no one is yelling me anything about the statues!”

“Or what?” Caim crossed his arms over his chest, rocking back on his heels. “You’re going to run away again?”

I sucked my lips between my teeth, and then I kicked him in the balls.

I took off at another run as Caim’s cursing echoed through the quiet street. My sneakers squeaked against the damp pavement. My breath exploded from my chest as another set of arms wrapped around my stomach and lifted me clean off my feet. I bared my teeth, the alcohol pumping adrenaline through my body like nothing else. This time, it was Murmur who’d gotten ahold of me. He was less inclined to let me use my hands, mainly because he couldn’t understand ASL.

Before I could protest, Murmur heaved me onto his shoulder, just as I’d seen Stolas carry him. The parallel didn’t escape my notice.

I was grateful for my jeans; otherwise, I would have flashed the empty street.

“You should be glad I haven’t heard your voice, Madeleine Speck.” Murmur’s words rumbled through his chest, and I felt them through the fabric of my jacket. “I have a feeling your truth is rather uninspiring.”

All the fight went out of me, and I slumped down, my long hair swinging as we walked.

If Caim and Murmur had been amused by my drunken escape attempt, Stolas was the opposite. He was very much not amused by my antics.

I tucked my hands between my thighs, swaying, as I sat on the couch and watched Stolas pace in front of me. His dark hair was even more disheveled than before; several tufts stood up like feathers out of place.

I was drunk, and the joyous buzz was quickly wearing off. It would have been too easy to loosen my lips, even just a giggle or sassy quip about Stolas’s hair.

But it was a slippery slope. If I spoke once, I’d want to speak again and again.

Bad things happened when I spoke.

A raven sat on a wooden perch in the corner of the room. At first, I thought it was taxidermy; the bird was so still that it appeared to be stuffed. It unlocked its jaws and let out a comndeming caw, followed by several tocking clicks of its beak. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the raven was telling me off.

Stolas turned on his heels, pointing a finger at the bird. “Enough from you!”

My lips straightened as I held in laughter, but neither Caim nor Murmur found it funny. Malphas was nowhere to be seen. Stolas whirled around to the two demons who stood against the wall with their arms crossed over their chest. Stolas’s hair was a halo of mad spies around his face. He looked angry for the first time since I’d met him.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Stolas jabbed a finger in my direction. “You could have been picked up by anyone on the streets. Don’t you know what they do to humans out there?”

Why do you care? I crossed my arms over my chest and scoffed, looking away, feeling every inch the petulant teen I had been when I’d been locked away over a decade ago.

Stolas growled through gritted teeth. “That damned silence.” He threw his hands up in frustration, turning to Caim. “How much for the knowledge you hold, Caim?”

“You want to bargain, Prince of the Pit,” Caim’s lips ticked, his smile surprisingly subdued. “I’m almost insulted, Stolas. Are we not friends?”

“If we were friends, you would have offered me that language the moment you realized you could speak to her.” Stolas looked down his nose at Caim. “You’re having too much fun with this.”

Caim put his hand on his chest, offended. “ Moi ?” The horned demon shrugged. “I am Caim. I give voices to the unspoken so that they might understand the animals they hold beneath them. so they might listen to the screams of those they use or the flesh they eat.” Caim puffed his chest out. “I am of the oldest of Hell, just like you. Ars Goetia. We were bound together.”

“I can’t tell if you’re offended by his request or trying to rinse him for everything he’s worth.” Murmur pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.

Caim looked right at me. “I’m only doing this because you kicked me in the balls.” He squinted, stepping forward before Stolas had a moment to react. With a simple flick, he left a mark on the center of Stolas's forehead—a burning sigil the size of a nickel. It shone red for a single moment and then dissolved. Caim shook his hand as if he’d singed his fingers before he sucked them into his mouth.

Caim grinned, but his skin had a shiny pallor that hadn’t been there a moment before.

My drunk mind struggled to parse together what had happened. Something magical, for sure; I’d recognize the burnt scent of ozone anywhere.

“ So, I’m an animal .” I signed, giving Caim a dry look. “ Is that how you can understand me, Caim? You’re Doctor Dolittle .” I had to finger-spell Dolittle, and my fingers were sloppy, slipping over one another as I tried to sign. I looked like a toddler playing with a cat’s cradle string.

Stola's eyes narrowed as he looked between Caim and me.

“Who is Doctor Dolittle?” Caim’s grin wobbled, and it was clear he needed rest. Whatever he’d done to Stolas had taken something from him.

Murmur shrugged, shaking his head. “Hell, if I know.”

Stolas turned to me. “Why did you leave?”

I shrugged.

Stolas stepped closer to the couch, his large, spindly body folding over mine like a spider’s web, as he pinned me to my seat. His nose was an inch from mine. “Tell me. Now.”

I exhaled a snort from my nostrils like an enraged bull. Fine. If he wanted me to tell him, I would. Not that he could understand me anyway. “ You know what I am. You heard the Tailor .”

Stolas jerked back like he’d been struck. “What you are ?”

My eyes narrowed. “ You’re investigating those girls. The ones that were taken away at the border. The traffickers . You don’t want a maid. You want my magic. I’m telling you now, you don’t .”

Stolas’s mouth opened and closed. “I can understand you.”

I rolled my eyes, crossed my arms over my chest, and turned away.

“You thought it was a parlor trick?” Caim laughed sardonically. “Why do you think humans call me ‘The Giver of Knowledge’? I am Ars Goetia. You seem to have forgotten that.”

The raven cawed.

“Too right, Malphas.” Caim snapped his fingers, agreeing with whatever the bird had said. “Stolas thinks he’s the only one in the flock with a lick of magic and skill.”

I pressed my hand to my head, feeling my gorge rise as the whiskey in my system planned to purge itself. I stood up, racing for the bathroom before it even occurred to me that Caim had called the raven Malphas .