Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

CLIO

In Chrysalis's basement—the regular basement—Clio stopped in front of a door. With a quick glance at the sign above it that read OF – AA Explosive 1-5 Surplus , she broke the lock spell, pushed the door open, and hit the light switch. Fluorescent bulbs flickered to life overhead, illuminating rows of shelving laden with small crates.

Each crate held hundreds of steel balls. And each steel ball held an explosive spell waiting to be triggered.

She shook open a cloth bag she'd taken from Lyre's workroom and loaded it with a few handfuls of the lowest-level spells, a scoop of medium-level ones, and three high-level weavings.

Smiling grimly, she exited the room, crossed the hall, and opened the door to the workroom where she'd accidentally startled a weaver into blowing himself up. Plucking out a low-level orb, she activated the timed trigger to its maximum delay—what she hoped was at least a few minutes—and tossed it into the room.

Then she ran. Every hall or two, she broke into a room and threw in an activated spell. Through the corridors and up the stairs to the second level, she tossed around another dozen steel marbles. Then she raced back down to the lobby and activated the three high-level explosives. She threw two in the farthest corners and the last one toward the double doors leading outside.

She sprinted into the hall with the entrance to the forbidden underground level. Shooting right past the door, she fled around the corner and cast a shield over herself. She was reasonably sure she hadn't set any explosives on the floor directly overhead, but the building was a maze.

Crouching, she tore off a third strip of her skirt and tied it around her bleeding arm. She wished she could heal herself, but daemons couldn't reliably heal their own bodies. All she could do was hope she didn't faint from blood loss.

The seconds dragged past, and panic chattered in her head. Why was nothing happening? Had she set the delay for too long? Or had the spells failed to?—

The first detonation boomed from the other wing. Then the next blast. Then the next. One after another, some only seconds apart, the spells exploded throughout the building. The walls shook and the floor bucked until the entire structure was rocking. She clamped her hands over her ears, back braced against the wall, and hoped desperately she hadn't overdone it.

Then the spells in the lobby went off, and she knew she'd definitely overdone it.

Explosions screamed through the reception area and debris blasted down the hall past her hiding spot. The racket of snapping and tearing metal that followed had the building shaking even worse, and it sounded like part of the upper level had collapsed into the lobby—or had the lobby collapsed into the basement?

She winced at another earsplitting crash. Maybe both.

All the lights blinked out, and as the sounds quieted, a door slammed. Holding her breath, she peeked around the corner. An incubus flew out of the doorway to the underground level—Lyceus, the Rysalis patriarch. He headed toward the reception area. Another incubus followed right behind—Andante, the oldest sibling. A third incubus appeared, this one not as easily identifiable, but by process of elimination, she figured he had to be Ariose.

The incubi trio disappeared into the clouds of dust filling the lobby. Clio rose to her feet but found herself clutching the wall, her head spinning. Steadying herself, she checked one more time that the coast was clear.

The door to the underground level swung open again, and Dulcet walked out.

Clio lurched back, grateful her wooziness had kept her in place for those extra seconds. She peeked around again. Dulcet stood outside the door, facing away from her—then he looked over his shoulder.

She lunged back around the corner and pressed against the wall, trying not to hyperventilate. Had he seen her?

Knees shaking, she waited as the seconds passed. When Dulcet didn't appear, smiling that crazy, sadistic smile, she braved another quick glance. The hall was empty, the door closed, and she could just make out his back vanishing into the haze after his brothers.

Breathing hard, she pushed away from the wall and jogged to the door. Swinging it open, she squinted down the dark stairwell. A weaving on the third step glowed in her asper: a tripwire spell to alert the caster when someone passed.

She allowed herself a moment of smugness as she stepped over the glowing "wire" before hurrying down the long flight of stairs. At the bottom, the lethal ward on the heavy steel door was unchanged, and she disarmed it the same way she had before.

Another tripwire was set in the hall on the other side, and she stepped over that one too. The door at the end was unlocked. She cracked it open and peered into the room on the other side. The desk was exactly as she remembered, the lamp dark. The ward on the wall behind it revolved menacingly.

She slipped into the room, her gaze darting across the signs above the three halls, almost invisible in the darkness. Examination Rooms or Subject Occupancy?

The murmur of a voice had her ducking for cover behind the desk. When no one appeared, she hitched the bow and quiver higher on her shoulder and crept toward the Examination Rooms.

"… unfortunate for you that Dulcet recovered so quickly," an incubus was saying with mocking sympathy. "He's eager to persuade you to tell us all about your secret weaving."

The only incubus Clio could unfailingly identify by voice was Lyre, but she was reasonably certain the speaker was Madrigal. She slunk down the hall toward an open door.

"You know he can break you," Madrigal continued. "And our father won't spare you this time. He wants to know what you created. What did you do to bind that taste of shadow into the weave?"

Clio snuck a look around the corner. The small room had a chain hanging from the ceiling, the end of it bound around Lyre's wrists. He was on his knees, his arms pulled above his head and a metal collar glinting around his neck.

Madrigal stood in front of him, his back to the door. "Just tell me, Lyre, and I'll put you out of your misery."

Dried blood streaked Lyre's face, and a bruise was rising on his left cheek. His eyes, though, showed no sign of fear. That black stare was brutally emotionless.

"So generous," he said hoarsely. "Keep talking like that and I might think you actually care."

Madrigal made an irritated sound. "No one cares, Lyre. No one outside our family will even notice you're gone. Not even Reed could be bothered to stand up for you."

Clio's hands clenched. Reed had cared enough to help Clio, and considering the punishment he'd face if his family caught him aiding Lyre, his small gesture meant a lot.

She focused her asper on Madrigal. Two robust weaves shielded him—one to deflect magical attacks and one to deflect physical attacks. Squinting, she analyzed the constructs until she found the weakest point in the weave.

"You're nobody, Lyre," Madrigal taunted. "Absolutely nobody. We're the only ones who know you exist, and?—"

As he spoke, Clio dashed across the open doorway to the other side. Madrigal didn't see her, but Lyre did. His mouth fell open.

"—we'll be more than happy to forget about you the moment you're dead," Madrigal finished triumphantly, misinterpreting Lyre's shock.

Pressed against the wall, she slid the quiver and bow off her shoulder and set them on the floor, then pulled out an explosive steel marble. She used a dash of magic to shred the weave—she did not want any explosions down here—then hurled the ball down the hall. It bounced off the side of the desk and clattered noisily across the floor.

Madrigal broke off mid-taunt. Clio pressed closer to the wall as he stepped through the open doorway, facing the desk.

She lunged at his back and slapped her palm against his lower spine. All it took was one cutting dart of magic to shred the weak point in his weave, and the entire thing dissolved, leaving only one shield protecting him.

As he spun to face her, she cast a raw blast of power into his chest.

The force rolled right off him.

Her eyes popped wide, and in that horrifying instant, she realized she'd destroyed the wrong weave. He was vulnerable to physical attacks now—but not magic.

Madrigal casually flicked his fingers. His counterattack slammed her onto her back. Before she could recover from the impact, he grabbed the front of her shirt and spun a binding around her arms and legs.

"Fancy seeing you again, princess," he crooned. "Should I be thanking you for all those explosions? You've caused more damage than one little girl should be capable of. My father will be very annoyed when he finds out it was you."

Madrigal dragged her into the room where Lyre was chained.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lyre snarled furiously.

"Escaping," Clio wheezed.

"You—"

"Shut up, Lyre." Madrigal dropped Clio and slapped his hand over Lyre's lower face. Light flashed under his palm, and when he turned back to Clio, she could see the weave over Lyre's mouth and jaw, sealing his voice so he couldn't speak.

Madrigal smiled down at her, and she writhed, struggling to free her arms and legs. Craning her neck, she examined the binding to figure out how to break it.

"Isn't this fortuitous," Madrigal purred. "Clio is here to tell us what she knows. And this time, you can't stop me."

He glanced at Lyre, his smile sharpening with cruelty. Wisps of golden light unraveled around him, spreading through the room, and heat tingled through Clio's center.

"I'll tell you what, Lyre." Madrigal's tongue slid across his upper lip as he stared at Clio with black eyes. "Just for you, I'll fuck her first. After I take her body, I'll take her mind. And you can watch."

Aphrodesia clouded the room. Clio panted as the hot yearning inside her built into pain. Her skin ached for stimulation, and she couldn't stop staring at Madrigal's mouth. He stepped closer, towering over her as he watched her chest heave.

Lyre jerked his chained arms, and the sharp crack jarred through her. She tore her attention away from Madrigal. Her eyes met Lyre's, his irises as black as his brother's but with fear instead of lust.

She struggled to think. Her mouth was dry, and she realized she was writhing with discomfort, her body throbbing from head to toe, needing to be touched.

Madrigal crouched beside her, gaze drifting over her body. Her nails dug into her palms, and she used the pain to clear her head. She had to stop him. But how? His magic-deflecting shield still protected him. If only she knew a kind of magic that could go right through shields, something like?—

—like aphrodesia.

She didn't stop to think if it was a good idea. She didn't think at all. She focused on Madrigal's shimmering gold aura, the essence of his power, and mimicked it.

Her aura flashed to gold, and a sensation both warm and sharp slid through her—a new power waiting to be unleashed. She pushed her energy outward, letting it flood the room the way Madrigal's aphrodesia had.

He paused, hand stretched toward her. Confusion scrunched his forehead as his eyes glazed.

Suddenly she could feel him there—feel his very presence. It was faint but growing stronger. A strange pull, like she was a magnet drawing him toward her, even though he hadn't physically moved.

Her new aphrodesia, infecting him . That's what she was sensing.

She could feel a second presence too, almost as strong. Turning her head, she met Lyre's black, hungry stare. She hadn't meant to catch him too, but she didn't know how to target the seduction magic—or if that was even possible—so she kept flooding the room with her energy as fast as she could.

A ravenous growl ripped from Madrigal's throat, and he reached for her.

"Stop!" she cried.

He stopped, his eyes blank and empty. Seeing that emptiness, feeling his presence as though she'd bound a leash to his mind, she understood what Lyre had meant when he'd talked about whether Madrigal could "enthrall" her.

Aphrodesia wasn't mere seduction. It was utter domination over another's will. It was so strong, so all-consuming, that its victim lost their sense of self and became a slave to the incubus's command.

And now she had enthralled Madrigal.

"Stop using your aphrodesia," she ordered.

The haze of gold around him lightened.

"Take this binding off me."

He touched her stomach. The weaving dissolved—then his fingers curled around her shirt, and he lunged at her.

"Stop! Back up!"

Fighting the movements, he jerked back onto his heels, teeth bared. She was losing control of him. Pushing herself up, she examined his remaining shield, found its weakness, and used a sharp snap of magic to break it apart. Before he could assault her again, she cast a sleep spell over him. His eyes dulled, and he keeled over, unconscious.

Releasing a relieved breath, she turned to her second problem.

Lyre stared at her, lust burning in his black eyes.

Madrigal had almost taken her will multiple times, but she had taken control of his will in only a few moments. Lyre, too, had been helpless to resist her mimicked aphrodesia. It seemed the virile incubi were more susceptible to their own breed of magic than anyone else.

She dispelled the mimicked aura, letting her natural green energy return. The haze in the room disappeared, but Lyre's expression didn't change. How long until the effects wore off? She cautiously approached him, and his gaze followed her every movement like a watchful hunter. A shimmer of aphrodesia unraveled around him. It wasn't much—he'd recovered only a little magic in the hours they'd been apart—but it was enough to make her heart rate pick up again.

Not knowing what else to do, she placed her fingertips on his forehead and sent the same sleep spell rushing into him. He slumped forward, the chains snapping taut as his weight pulled on his arms. She quickly broke the lock spell on the cuffs and he fell into her. She laid him back, removed the silencing spell on his mouth, then broke the magic-dampening weave on the collar and wrestled the steel band off him.

Knowing the rest of the Rysalis family could return any second, she touched Lyre's forehead again and lifted the spell. His eyes flicked open, still black as pitch, but they focused on her face without that predatory intensity.

"Clio," he croaked. "What the hell did you do?"

"I'll explain later. We have to get out of here." She grabbed his arm and started to pull him up. To her surprise, she ended up sprawled on his chest instead, her arms trembling.

He pushed up, lifting her with him, and helped her straighten. "How much blood have you lost?"

She glanced at the wet bandage. Streaks of drying blood marked the entire length of her arm. "A bit? But I'm only a little dizzy."

He swore and heaved himself to his feet, then drew her up.

Clio lifted his spell chains from around her neck and dropped them over his head. "Your bow and arrows are just outside the door."

He hauled her across the room and into the hall, holding her good elbow to keep her steady. Were her knees so weak and shaky from the blood loss or from the adrenaline?

"Hang in there, Clio," he muttered as he slung the quiver over his shoulder. "We'll be gone soon."

"I'm fine," she said, but her voice fluttered breathlessly. "How will we get out of Asphodel? Do you know where the ley line in the valley is?"

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her down the corridor. "We aren't going to that ley line."

"But Eryx said the other one is heavily guarded."

"We aren't going to that one either."

Leaving her to lean against the desk, Lyre turned not toward the staircase leading upward or the door to the underground tunnel where he'd shown her the Underworld's sun for the first time, but to the wall behind the desk—the one with the deadly blood-magic ward.

"Lyre?" she whispered. "What are?—"

"Shh. I need to concentrate." He traced part of the weave, not quite touching the wall. Almost absently, he reached over his shoulder, pulled out an arrow, and used it to nick the fleshy side of his thumb. A drop of blood trickled down his wrist.

She brought her asper into focus, but the room got fuzzy around the edges and she couldn't make it work. Lyre touched the wall. A five-foot-wide circle of glowing lines appeared, filled with runes and geometric shapes—layers and layers of them. He wiped his fingers through the line of blood on his hand, then tapped a rune.

The first layer of the weave darkened. He rewet his fingers and touched another rune. That layer darkened as well. He touched a third rune, and the circle vanished. A whoosh of stale air blew across them, and cracks appeared in the wall, forming the shape of a broad door.

Lyre pushed on it and the panel slid backward, then glided to the side, vanishing from sight. A dark passageway yawned in front of them, beckoning them onward.

"Lyre," she began, "where?—"

A soft scuff—a footstep—had both Clio and Lyre whirling around.

Dulcet stood in the doorway leading from the upper level, surprise arching his eyebrows.

With a lightning-quick movement, Lyre snapped a gemstone off the chain around his neck and flung it. Golden light sparked across it. Dulcet flung his hand up, unleashing a blast of power.

His attack hit the gem, and it exploded like a bomb.

As the floor shook and cracks split the stone ceiling, Lyre grabbed Clio around the waist and hurtled into the shadowy passageway. He pushed her in front of him and cast a faint light, illuminating rusted metal walls.

"Go!" he barked.

She didn't need him to tell her. She was already sprinting, her woozy fatigue forgotten as adrenaline pumped through her.

She came upon the stairs so unexpectedly she couldn't stop her momentum. She jumped and flew down several steps before landing. Lyre raced after her. The stairs descended a dozen yards, then turned and kept going. Down, down, down. She lost track of the steps, but they went on forever.

Finally, the stairs leveled out. How far below Asphodel was this? Why were they fleeing underground? There'd better be a secret escape tunnel down here.

The small landing ended with another massive steel door. As soon as her feet touched the floor, a ward lit up—an enormous circle filled with runes and constructs that began to spin.

Clio stumbled to a stop, the room spinning along with the spell.

Lyre stepped past her, stopping in front of the door. The ward shifted from green to yellow. As he raised his hand cautiously toward the rotating patterns, Clio brought her asper into focus with painful effort.

The complexity of the runes, combined with the multi-directional rotations, almost had her on her knees. She swallowed down her stomach. The weaves were pulsing, and she saw that it was counting down. It had to be disarmed within a set time or it would kill whoever had approached it.

As the color shifted from yellow to orange, Lyre touched a rotating rune with his right hand. The rune went still, but the rest of the ward kept turning and the glowing lines deepened from orange to fire red. He touched another rune with his left hand. It stopped spinning too.

"Clio," he said.

She already knew what he needed. Leaping forward, she slapped her hand against a third rune. Magic pulsed through the ward, and the entire thing went dark.

A rune that could only be disarmed by two daemons, not one. Had it been created that way to prevent any of the Rysalis brothers from coming down here by themselves?

She didn't have time to worry about it. Legs quivering and head spinning, she grasped Lyre's arm as he shoved the heavy steel door open.

Together, they stepped into the darkness beyond.