Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

CLIO

Clio frowned at Lyre. He frowned back.

They sat across the table from each other, their poses almost identical—leaning forward, hands folded on the polished wood tabletop, staring the other down. Or at least, she was staring him down. Despite his frown, she was pretty sure it was amusement making his amber eyes sparkle like that.

He wasn't using any magic. The racing of her heart was all on her.

She'd been hoping to resume her tour, but the receptionist had led her straight to the small meeting room. The space was warm and friendly, with potted trees in the corners and white walls. Lyre had joined her a few minutes later, and the verbal battle had begun.

He'd asked about the spell shop, and she'd recited the cover story she and Kassia had come up with—that she'd been scoping out different spell weavers before coming to Chrysalis. She wasn't sure he'd bought her story.

She'd asked why he'd been at that spell shop. He hadn't bothered to make up a story, instead firing back with another question of his own.

She'd asked for the rest of her tour. He'd refused, citing her safety. His exact words had included "walking catastrophe" and "enough damage for one day." She'd asked him to bring some of their premium spells to show her. He'd refused that too. In fact, he'd refused to do anything she'd asked.

So here they were, her glaring while he silently laughed at her. She crossed her arms, making sure not to cover the oversized sapphire on her wide fabric belt. Since he'd already seen her face, she hadn't bothered with her elaborate costume and had instead worn just the sleeveless-top-and-skirt combo.

"My home is under threat from Ra," she said stiffly, trying to steer the conversation onto a more productive track. "I'm sure even an Underworlder knows Ra's reputation. We can't simply arm our warriors with explosive spells. Our forces are too few. We need something—something frightening ."

"Frightening," he repeated dubiously.

"Something that will make Ra think twice about attacking us."

"Such as?"

"Isn't that your department? I tell you what I want, and you provide it?"

"Well." He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. "If you're looking for a magical doomsday weapon, we don't have anything like that."

She almost missed what he was saying, distracted by his lounging stretch. He'd thrown his lab coat over the back of his chair when he'd entered the room, and his navy shirt clung to his torso in a way that thoroughly hinted at the muscular planes of his chest and abdomen.

Lowering his arms, he braced his elbows on the table. "So, you want to make your limited forces seem undefeatable. Or do you want a weapon so heinous no one will meet your troops on the battlefield?"

She swallowed. "I would prefer the first option."

"If you start turning your enemies inside out, they won't want to fight you."

"You have a spell that can turn people inside out ?"

"No. But it's a good idea, don't you think?"

"Absolutely not . That's the worst thing I've everheard." She paused suspiciously. "You're not actually serious, are you?"

He smirked. "No inside-out spells. What else, then?"

"You don't have any suggestions? Besides that one."

He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in thought. "Honestly, Clio, we don't have any one spell that can win a war, and anything that might come close is beyond what you can afford."

Why did her name in his smooth, hypnotic voice make her swoon? She surreptitiously passed her hand in front of her eyes to look him over with her astral perception. Aside from his usual arsenal of weavings, he wasn't actively using any magic.

"How do you know what I can't afford?" she asked sharply. "Irida might be small, but we're a wealthy territory."

He didn't look impressed. "The queen of Ra herself couldn't afford them."

Clio narrowed her eyes. "What kind of spells are we talking about?"

"Who knows? I don't keep track of every prototype ever conceived by a master weaver."

Was he being deliberately evasive? She was willing to bet a few more diamonds that he was well informed on these dangerous "prototypes," and that he didn't want her knowing anything about them.

"I want to see the prototypes," she declared.

"Since you can't buy them, what's the point of showing you?"

"You claim you can provide or make what I need, but I haven't seen anything yet that will save my kingdom. Show me something that's actually impressive."

"I would love to impress you." He leaned back and tapped a finger against his full lower lip, drawing her attention to his mouth. "In whatever way I can."

Heat singed her cheeks, and she quickly checked him again. He still wasn't using magic.

"Are you flirting with me?" she demanded, half panicking.

"That would hardly be professional."

"And what about you has been professional so far? You're honestly terrible at this."

Humor lit his eyes, turning his gold irises to honey-flecked butter. "Funny you should mention it. This isn't my usual job."

Curiosity got the better of her. "If master weavers don't normally do deals with buyers, why are you?"

"It's a long story. Suffice it to say, I'm not supposed to be enjoying it."

She arched her eyebrows. "Am I that terrible to deal with?"

Oh no. She was flirting with him now. Had he noticed?

A slow smile spread over his face, and her stomach dropped. He'd definitely noticed.

"Spells," she said firmly, attempting the most neutral tone possible. "You're supposed to be selling me spells."

"Indeed I am."

His voice had deepened, a purr caressing each word. Slow warmth rolled through her center. His eyes were drawing her in, submerging her in liquid gold, and she couldn't look away. She wanted so badly to reach across the table and touch him, to feel that honey-tan skin and lean muscle.

Warning bells clanged in her skull, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Popping them open, she looked at him anew—and saw the golden tendrils of magic uncoiling from around him like invisible smoke.

"Ah!" she shrieked, leaping to her feet.

He tried to leap up too, irises flashing black as his defensive instincts triggered. His chair tipped backward—and he went over with it. He and the chair hit the floor with a bang.

He pushed up on an elbow, glaring with shadowed irises. "What the hell?"

"You were using aphrodesia on me!" she yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

His glower faltered. "I was?"

"You—" She blinked. Had he not realized he was doing it? No. He was an incubus. He was just feigning innocence. "You did. I know you did."

He climbed to his feet and pulled his chair up. Dropping into it, he propped an elbow on the table, his eyes safely amber again.

"I can prepare a proposal," he said, sounding properly businesslike, if still unfairly sexy, "with several spell sets that other Chrysalis clients have used successfully against their enemies."

She blinked again. That was it? He wouldn't admit he'd tried to use his seduction magic on her? Was he going to pretend it hadn't happened?

Grudgingly, she lowered herself back into her chair, watching him suspiciously with her enhanced sight still in focus despite the headache it would give her. His offer of spell combinations wasn't what she needed. He'd admitted there were spells too powerful and dangerous to sell in this building somewhere, and she needed to see them.

"How long will a proposal take?" she asked, buying herself a moment to think.

"Are you in a hurry?"

"Well," she said dryly, "aside from the impending doom of my homeland, I don't know how much more of this never-ending night I can take."

"Scared of the dark?"

"Hardly, but I miss the sun and the moon and the stars." Only after speaking did she think maybe she shouldn't have shared that kind of thing with her enemy.

Except Lyre didn't feel like an enemy. And that was even more dangerous.

He studied her, and she had to look away before she fell under the spell of his eyes again.

He pushed back from the table. "Come with me."

"What? Where?"

Without answering, he pulled the door open and walked into the hall. Clio followed him out. He led her through a maze of hallways broken only by closed doors. When they rounded a corner and she glimpsed the reception area at the end of the hall, she thought he was sending her back to the inn. Instead, he stopped at a seemingly random door and pushed it open. Beyond the threshold, the pristine white walls ended and dull, dark concrete bricks took over. Dim lights flickered overhead, scarcely illuminating the metal stairway that descended deep into the gloom.

"Where…" she began nervously as Lyre started down the stairs.

"It's just a shortcut," he said over his shoulder. "Hurry up."

Biting her lip, she trailed after him. "A shortcut to where?"

Again, he didn't answer. They descended what had to be the equivalent of two basement levels before the stairs ended at a small landing with a large reinforced steel door. The most complex wards she'd ever seen were layered atop the metal.

Lyre stepped in front of her, blocking her view. "What are you looking at, Clio?"

"N-nothing."

"No?"

Without breaking eye contact, he stretched his arm out and touched the wall to his right. She glanced over and saw a second, smaller door with a much simpler ward embedded in it. He swiped his fingers across it, sending the lines and runes of the spell dancing before the magic went dark. He'd disengaged the ward without a single glance to see what he was doing.

He nudged the door open. "Ladies first."

She took a hesitant step toward the waiting threshold, and he shifted, keeping his body between her and the heavily warded door—deliberately blocking her view. Did he know about her ability to read magic? He hadn't suspected a thing during their last meeting. Maybe he was just being extra cautious.

With fear tickling the pit of her stomach, she stepped into the doorway and found a narrow hall swathed in darkness. Her feet rooted to the floor.

"I thought you weren't scared of the dark."

Lyre's purring voice whispered right in her ear, and she whipped around to find him standing almost on top of her. He raised a hand. A glowing gold sphere appeared above his palm, and he tossed it past her into the corridor.

His light preceded them into the darkness. Was he leading her into a trap? But why would he? It made no sense.

The tunnel-like passageway took a couple of minutes to traverse. At the end, it opened into a stairwell. They climbed two stories before a door appeared, but Lyre continued upward. The stairs kept rising, turning and turning again as they ascended even higher. There were no signs or windows to hint at where he was taking her.

Finally, the stairs ended at one last door. It wasn't warded.

Lyre grabbed the handle and swung it open. Light flooded the stairwell, blinding Clio as she stepped through the threshold after him. A warm, fresh breeze brushed across her skin and tugged at her ponytail.

She was outside. And it wasn't dark anymore.

Her mouth hung open as she stared. She was standing on a rooftop, and spread before her was Asphodel in full daylight.

Wooden structures with red-tiled roofs and black cobblestone streets formed a grid-like labyrinth. A block away, the boxy Chrysalis building sprawled, and a nearby canal sparkled in the sun.

But it was the view beyond the estate walls that captured her attention.

Towering mountains of dark stone raked the sky with snow-capped peaks, surrounding the valley where Asphodel was nestled. Trees with tall, spindly trunks and spiky leaves dotted the hillsides, and dark greenery that wasn't grass—something more like thick moss—covered the ground.

Clio turned in a slow circle, taking in the surrounding summits. On one side of Asphodel, a deep canyon opened like a dark scar across the valley floor, spanned by the single arching bridge they'd crossed on arrival. On the other side, the valley stretched away. Low hills embraced a winding river that eventually met the walls of the estate and fed the network of canals that webbed across it.

It was beautiful—a dark, fierce, dramatic beauty so different from the lush, vivid Overworld.

Lyre moved to her side, his gaze on her face. "Better?"

"It's—" She turned to him. "But how? It was pitch black when I walked over here—no sign of dawn at all. How can it be full daylight so quickly?"

"Our days and nights aren't as straightforward as on Earth." He glanced up. "Looks like the clouds will burn off in a few more minutes. Watch."

She craned her neck back as the pale mist high above eddied in strong winds. Patches of blue appeared, and a beam of golden sunlight broke free, streaking down into the valley. She squinted. Peeking from behind the clouds was something else.

The clouds swirled and dispersed, and she suddenly felt lightheaded.

Filling a portion of the sky was a huge, thin crescent, like Earth's moon except five times the size. But it wasn't a moon. It was a planet. White and gold clouds swirled across its alien surface, and beside the massive crescent, the sun glared blindingly.

There was a planet in the sky, but it wasn't the shock of something so unexpected that had stolen her breath. It was because she'd seen it before.

"Lyre." She grabbed his arm. "Lyre, that's—that's?—"

He nodded. "The same planet you can see in the Overworld's sky."

"But—how did you—what…" She fell silent, unable to compose her thoughts enough to speak coherently.

"We've had Overworld clients before," he said with a shrug. "So I've heard the comparison. The going theory is that both our worlds are moons of the same planet."

"I can't believe it," she whispered. "Why have I never heard about this before?"

"The handful of Overworlders who've been to the Underworld didn't come here for a nice vacation, so you can imagine the reasons they might not want to advertise their insider knowledge."

The planet was so painfully familiar that her insides twisted with longing.

"It's so beautiful," she whispered, scarcely making a sound. "It's been so long since… it's almost like being home again."

"So long since… you've been to the Overworld?" he asked in a puzzled tone.

Realizing what she'd said, she jerked straight. She also realized she was still clinging to his arm and snatched her hands back. "I'm just homesick."

"Already?" His tone was dry, but the way his gaze drifted thoughtfully across her face suggested he was still trying to figure out her last remark.

She gestured at the sky. "How do your days and nights work?"

"The eclipse just ended," he explained. "We'll now get the equivalent of a ‘day' of sunlight before going into a very long night—about twenty-four hours of complete darkness. Following that, another ‘day,' then the eclipse will repeat, which is about nine hours of darkness. The full process is called a cycle, and it's the equivalent of three days on Earth."

"A twenty-four-hour night?" she repeated disbelievingly. "So how much daylight versus darkness do you get here?"

"Hmm, well, if you include the long twilight periods as part of the night, each cycle is about one-third light and two-thirds dark or near-dark."

"Wow."

"There's a reason it's called the night realm," he said, amused.

"Doesn't it bother you? So much darkness?"

"Nope. I like the dark. It's cooler and quieter, and the air is fresher."

"Huh. The Overworld is more like Earth. Days and nights are equal length."

"Technically, our days are the same length as our nights too. There's just a big eclipse in the middle."

Her gaze swung back to the planet in the sky. "Why did you bring me up here?"

"Thought I'd show you a good first view, since you've been so judgy about everything."

Her eyes jerked back down to him. "I have not been judgy ."

He merely looked at her.

She scowled. "Well, maybe a little, but it hasn't exactly been fun so far."

"No? You mean getting stuck to that door wasn't fun?"

She folded her arms. "That was entirely your fault."

He smirked, then leaned forward, getting closer, and that purr returned to his voice. "No harm, no foul, hmm?"

She backpedaled, a flush rising in her cheeks, and his smile widened. He slid his hands into his pockets and leaned back to gaze at the sky, squinting against the brightness.

The sight of Lyre in the sun was even more spectacular than usual—the way the warmth lit his flawless skin, the way it gleamed over his pale hair, turning it almost white. And the way it made his eyes glow like molten gold, his pupils contracted to tiny black dots, his irises bottomless and crystalline.

She told herself to look away from him, but her body wouldn't obey.

"So," he murmured, "now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want me to draw up a proposal, or something else?"

Chrysalis's regular warfare spells wouldn't help her, and a proposal would take, at best, a few hours. They'd send her back to the inn to wait, where she'd have no chance of sniffing out one of those prototypes he'd mentioned. She couldn't go home with nothing but a useless piece of paper. If all else failed, she needed something to take back to Bastian.

"I don't think a combination of spells will be enough," she told Lyre. "My people would still have to fight Ra, and that's what we must avoid at all costs."

"At all costs?" he muttered.

"You said, during my tour, that if Chrysalis didn't have what I needed, you would make it for me."

His eyes swung toward her, no longer molten but two cold chips of stone. "You want a custom weaving?"

She nodded, taken aback by his sudden mood shift. "Something that can intimidate Ra into abandoning their conquest."

"That will be very expensive."

"Like I said, Irida is a wealthy kingdom."

"The price may be higher than you can pay."

Her brow furrowed. Was that an undertone of threat or of warning?

"It will take time," he continued. "A lot of time. I thought you were in a hurry."

Why was he trying to talk her out of it? Didn't he want to sell her something extra expensive? Either way, his opinion didn't matter and neither did the price—because Irida wouldn't be paying anything beyond their down payment. She just needed to buy time to search for those prototypes Lyre had mentioned.

"Returning home without the spell I need won't help anything," she said. "It has to be a custom spell."

He gazed mutely at her for so long that she had to fight the urge to shrink back. There was no humor in his face anymore.

"Fine. I'll make the arrangements."

She sighed, relieved despite her confusion over his reaction. "Thank you."

Saying nothing, he moved toward the stairwell.

"Lyre? I—um—I wanted to ask…"

He glanced back, and his unfriendly stare almost silenced her. She didn't know why he'd gone so cold, and she missed the charming incubus she'd maybe flirted with earlier.

She forced the question out. "It's been bugging me… why did you break that bottle of quicksilver in the spell shop?"

"It was an accident."

"We both know it wasn't. I just want to understand why."

He was silent for a long moment, and she thought he wouldn't answer.

"Quicksilver is used to weave the deadliest, foulest kinds of blood magic." He turned his back on her, reaching for the door. "It's too bad I wasted it, though. Maybe they could have used it for your custom weaving."

He disappeared down the stairs.

Clio's heart drummed against her ribs, but not with exhilaration. Dread crawled through her, and as she started after him with slow, reluctant steps, she wondered if she was making a big mistake.

If only she knew which part was the mistake.