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She was wearing the form of a tall, thin mage with a shock of limp gray hair and seams of dirt in his withered cheeks.She’d been using his age in her disguise, staying partly bent over as if from arthritis, to hide the areas where her true form showed through the less-than-perfect illusion.Not that anybody was likely to notice with showers of sparks and fleeing shadows everywhere, making all our bodies run with light and color.

“The gods can’t read dark magic,” she said, flinching as a particularly loud spell burst nearby as we skirted the celebration, staying close to the river.“Either that or they ignore it, as it doesn’t feed them.Too polluted, apparently.”

“But aren’t they curious?”The mages were making a hell of a racket, far more than we had out in the desert.

But Zara shook her head when I pointed that out.“The ones in Vegas weren’t drawn to any ‘racket.’The portal’s magic got their attention, and they came running, hoping to eat the fey who had cast the spell.Or they would have if they had that much mind left.”

“That much mind?”I repeated.Because the only thing I could think of worse than a god was a mad one.

“Occasionally, you’ll come across one with enough brainpower left to be canny,” she confirmed.“But most of those moved on long ago to better hunting grounds.The rest are like slavering beasts, acting almost completely off instinct.We call them the Mindless.”

“But doesn’t this tell even them that something is happening?”I gestured around.The last thing we needed was some crazy gods showing up!

“Something interesting is always happening,” Zara said bitterly.“In most places, civilization has devolved into kill or be killed, but the gods pay no attention to that.They don’t care if we savage each other.And as far as the Black Circle is concerned, they’re all supposed to be dead.”

“Dead?”

“The gods turned on them as soon as they finished mopping up everyone else.”Her lips curled into what might have been a smile if it hadn’t been so vicious.“The survivors chose this place as their base because the gods had already torn through it when they mounted their final assault on the Silver Circle.They think it’s deserted.”

“Well, that won’t stay true if the idiots keep doing that!”I said as a combined spell hit the sky, showering bright green sparks against the darkened clouds and reflecting in the river to our right.And in the remaining stained glass in the windows of the medieval church to our left, its ancient walls and field of tombstones now blushing verdigris.

“The mages force the remaining locals to provide them with food and necessities,” Zara said.“They keep them quiescent by protecting them from roving bands of bandits and by allowing them to throw celebrations occasionally to alleviate the tedium.”

“So the gods think that’s what’s happening now?”I said because this was some celebration.

“The gods don’t think, Cassie!”she whispered viciously.“They react!And a few human spells aren’t enough to get their attention.Most people have wards these days, and they fritz out all the time!Now, what’s the damned plan?”

It was a good question.We’d managed to get by the main knot of celebrants, who were spread out around the front of the scaffold like a scattering of gold from all those torches.Rosier had reached the structure and climbed on top, staring out over the crowd with a scowl, and I wondered again if I could trust him.

Having a demon lord on our side would come in very handy right now.

But that was the thing: would hebeon our side?Rosier had only ever had one side—his own—and maybe Pritkin’s at times, although they were almost the same thing.He’d had a son intending to use him to bolster his power in the hells, and he probably needed him more than ever now.

He and Pritkin had come to a sort of equilibrium when Rosier finally managed to see him as a distinct entity and not just an appendage of his own.But how much of that was likely to hold up now?Not much, I reluctantly decided.

If Rosier managed to find Pritkin before we did, we’d be a man down faster than we could blink.

Fortunately, I knew where Pritkin was about to be, even if Rosier didn’t.

“See that cage in the shadow of the scaffold?”I said, pointing.“That’s where Pritkin’s heading.”

“Yeah, and the damned demon’s almost on top of it!”Alphonse hissed because he’d decided to come along after all.

“But it’s butt up next to the structure, so he can’t see it from where he is—”

“He don’t have to see it.His groupies are all over the place.They’ll tell him if we get anywhere near it or kill us themselves.”

“And we look like their rivals,” Zara said quietly.“I don’t think they’re going to be pleased to see a necromancer and his horde sneaking up there.”

“We could lose the cloaks,” Purple Hair put in.

“And then we’re a bunch of humans sneaking up there.”

“Worse, we’re a bunch of witches,” Gray Curls said.“We wouldn’t make it five yards, and then there’d be a sight more bodies swinging in the wind!”

“It looks like they’re planning something like that anyway,” Butch Cut said.“That thing could hold a dozen, maybe more.”

“We could go for the entrance,” Topknot said.“While everyone’s distracted.I still remember how to call it up.”