Using the light from her own body, she surveyed the cave. The stone ceiling was low and jagged. A single folded blanket on the ground served as a bed, and there was an unlit torch mounted on the wall above. A small crack in the corner caught her eye, and she crouched in front to explore it.
Holding her arm out, she let the faint glow illuminate the alcove.
Inside was a folded pair of black pants that Lily immediately recognized as the kind Mist always wore. There were a few other random knick-knacks—pieces of chalk, a blank journal, a tarnished silver necklace, a Bic lighter. And lastly, propped against the stone, withered and dead…
A lily flower.
Her heart cracked at the sight of that dried up flower. Here, in this dank pit of despair, literally in the bowels of Hell, Mist had placed the flower she’d given him among his few possessions.
“This is Mist’s cave,” she told her sister.
“He has a cave?”
“I’d call it his home, but…” There was nothing homey about this place. No wonder he’d been so proud of his empty bedroom.
She leapt suddenly to her feet, determination coursing through her veins.
So they had accidentally ended up in Hell. Not ideal, but while she was here, she might as well make herself useful. She was a rare blood-born, and a supposedly powerful one, practicing or not. She wasn’t helpless.
She turned to her sister. “I’m going to find Mist. You can stay here or come with me. Your choice.”
Iris’s eyes bugged. “What? No way!”
“Do you know a way to get us out of here?”
Iris looked at the hellgate drawn on the ground and shook her head. “I’ve never used a gate before, and I have no idea how to activate it. I deliberately avoided learning any Sheolic magic, which I realize now is stupid.” She glanced at Lily. “You’re the one who’s glowing. Can’t you do something?”
“The glowing just happens against my will. I have no idea what I’m doing. And even if I could escape, I don’t want to go anywhere without Mist. He’s here, and he’s in trouble, and I want to rescue him.”
Iris’s mouth twisted. “You have no idea how crazy that sounds. I get you like the demon, and I’m maybe willing to consider that maybe, possibly, not all demons are evil all the time, but we’re literally in Hell, and—”
“I love him.”
Her sister’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out of her head.
“I love him, and he doesn’t know. I never got to tell him.”
“Damn it, Lil, this is insane. Do you have any idea how insane this is? We’re completely unequipped to rescue anyone. We’re the ones who need bloody rescuing right now!”
“If we can get to Mist, he’ll get us out of here. And besides, we have power together. Maybe there’s something to that prophecy thing. Belial said it was impossible to reactivate that gate, and yet, here we are.”
“Yeah, thanks for that! You could have told me you were planning a one-way trip to Hell!”
“It wasn’t like it was intentional!” They were shouting now. A distant part of her recognized that was incredibly stupid, but she was too caught up in the argument to listen.
“I can’t believe you’re summoning demons and traveling through gates, when for years I couldn’t get you to attend a coven meeting! Just because you met some guy!”
“He’s not ‘some guy!’ And I didn’t want to attend your stupid coven meetings because you were always shoving the damn things down my throat!”
“It’s our heritage!”
“It’s what killed Mam and Dad!”
“No,we’rewhat killed Mam and Dad!”
Silence echoed around the black cave as the sisters stared at each other.
“They spent their whole lives trying to protect us,” Iris said quietly. “Mam worked hard to create a cloaking spell powerful enough to thwart Valefor. She was a genius, Lil. She combined centuries of our ancestors’ research and created things no one had before. Valefor couldn’t break her wards no matter how hard he tried. Even burning the building down didn’t work. If I could have even a fraction of the her ability…”
