“If you’re so cold and unfeeling, care to explain why you havebrothers, then?” Eva, it seemed, did not possess the same fear of Belial that Lily did. “What’s that if not a form of friendship?”
Bel’s expression was murderous. Hellfire danced in his eyes, and the temperature in the room dropped.
“I don’t care about any of that right now!” Lily cried suddenly. “I just want to know how we get Mist back!”
“There is no way to get him back!” Belial thundered, and she recoiled. “He went to die, and that’s his own goddamn choice!”
No, she was not sitting back and letting Mist sacrifice himself. She marched across the room and stood inside the sigil on the floor, studying the intricate lines. “How does this gate work? Why can’t we just reactivate it and go through?”
“It goes to Paimon’s lair, and he put a lock on it.” Belial pointed to one of the smaller symbols within the sigil. “That means the gate can only be used once. And, even if he hadn’t, if I show up in Paimon’s lair right now, she’s going to want me delivered to Lucifer, which I have a problem with. Fighting will ensue. War will follow. The same damn war I’ve been trying to avoid.”
“This is Mist’s life we’re talking about! I’ll start ten wars if that’s what it takes to save him!”
“You start a war, you have to be prepared to finish it. And the end of that war means either I’m dead or I dethrone fucking Lucifer and end up as High King, which is the last thing I want. Not to mention, it could last forever. The whole point was to escape Hell, not to spend thousands of years fighting to rule it.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t try to help,” Ash said, coming to stand beside Eva. “We don’t have to kick down the front door. Maybe we can do it stealthily.”
“How the fuck do you propose we sneak around Paimon’s lair? She knows every single thing that goes on in that shithole.”
Lily had stopped listening. She was staring at the gate at her feet, studying the intricate design, and feeling some kind of strange energy washing over her.
It felt like… Mist. Like traces of his magic. She could feel remnants of the force that had activated the gate interwoven into the sigil. It called to her like a siren’s song, beckoning her…
She closed her eyes and focused deeper, trying to follow it to the source. That inner guiding voice was whispering at her to do something. The harder she focused on the magic traces, the louder it whispered.
“Lily!” Iris called from somewhere far away.
She’d forgotten her twin was even there, but now, she was glad of it. She needed Iris’s help for this. For what, she didn’t know. She just knew she needed her.
“What the fuck?” someone said.
“She’s glowing!”
“Is that normal?”
“No! Lily!” Iris’s voice again.
Warm hands gripped her shoulders and shook her, and with that touch, the connection was made. The missing piece slid into place, and this time, when Lily reached out to the magic, she could grasp it. She could… read it.
Was this how Mist felt when he hunted? Because suddenly, she was certain she could track him anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the realms.
No matter where he went, she would find him.
Suddenly, she was surrounded by it. All around her, magic swirled like a whirlpool. Without hesitation she dove in, and the world fell away. Distantly, she heard more panicked shouting and was aware of her sister’s hands on her skin.
A tiny warning bell sounded in her mind, but by the time it penetrated, it was too late.
Her eyes flew open, and before she had a second to take in her surroundings, she already knew she was not where she’d been standing moments before.
* * *
This time,Mist didn’t waste a second in his cave.
He loosened and shoved down his pants and then used his claw to carve the hellseal seal on his thigh where Paimon wouldn’t see it. Righting his clothes, he then dug through his meager possessions in the crevice in the wall and pulled out the only weapon he possessed. The small black dagger in its worn leather sheath was slipped into his pocket and tucked discreetly to the side.
A demon with claws did not often require another weapon, but it was far quicker to decapitate with a blade, and he needed things to move as rapidly as possible.
Weapon secure, he dissolved into mist and traveled down the length of the tunnel toward the main hall in search of the Queen of Hell.
