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And he didn’t let up.“Do you think you’re the only one?”Mircea hissed, his calm demeanor now completely gone.“I haverisked, and I havelost.Mywife, who I had only just found after five hundred years of searching; my men, taken one by one as I stood helpless to save them; mydaughter,” his voice broke slightly on that last word before he abruptly grabbed Pritkin by the throat in a move I didn’t think was planned because Mircea froze immediately thereafter.

And Pritkin didn’t retaliate, despite having the opportunity, perhaps seeing the expression on the other man’s face.For a moment, we all just stood there in a frozen tableau, a witness to grief so great that I didn’t have a name for it.Then Mircea blinked and slowly let him go, and both men stood there, looking shaken.

I did, too, because I honestly didn’t know what Pritkin would say.Not because I doubted our feelings for each other, but because Mircea didn’t know what he was asking.I wasn’t even sure that I did, but I knew one thing.

Pritkin had finally managed to split his hated demon half off from himself because the separation wasn’t supposed to be permanent, just long enough for them to be in two places at once.His incubus had had no reason to fight it and probably little knowledge of how to do so, as it may not have expected that particular spell any more than I had.But this time...

This time, it would know and would be watching for it.

This time, if they reunited, it was for keeps.

And Pritkin knew it.

For a long moment, there was silence, with only the night wind sighing softly around us, and then—

“Where?”It was one word and growled so roughly that I barely understood it.

But Mircea did.“He has a...compound...out in the desert.Come, I’ll take you to him.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Idon’t understand one thing,” I said to Rosier.

“Onething?”he snarled, maybe because we were racing the sun to get to this compound Mircea had talked about.The godly monsters could spot a rabbit from ten miles away in sunlight, and while they normally ignored the activities of us lesser creatures, there were times when they didn’t.

But driving at night had drawbacks, too, and I was starting to worry about Rosier’s vision.

“Make that two things,” I said as we hit the side of a bigger-than-average dune and almost capsized.“Who told you that you could drive?”

“You want to try it?”he snapped, wrestling with the steering wheel of what could only be called a jalopy.A cobbled-together one worthy of Mad Max, only no one in that world would have had the piece of junk.

It was part of a convoy streaming across the desert because my cavalcade wouldn’t trust me alone with “some damned vampire.”Or some damned demon.Or even with Pritkin, whom they were regarding with varying degrees of distrust after seeing him canoodling with Jonas.

They didn’t understand why we were taking a detour but suspected it had something to do with the Circle, and that had been enough to tear it for the witches.No one was saying much on the feys’ part, but they didn’t look happy, either.Maybe because there wasn’t much to be happy about or because of Rosier’s driving, but dour wasn’t the right word for their expressions.

And then, predictably, Æsubrand blew up.He and the rest of the fey were squashed into the back of our jalopy, unwilling to let me travel with Rosier otherwise.But they clearly weren’t enjoying the ride, and the Ice Prince had had enough.

“He is trying to kill us!”he yelled as we jounced across the sand after another flight off the top of a dune.

“Wretched boy,” Rosier threw back at him, probably because the “boy” never failed to make the prince flush puce.“In that case, I’d die myself.”

“You are an infernal hell-beast!You can’t die!”

“Would that were true,” Rosier muttered and wrenched the steering wheel to avoid another one of the caravan of mismatched roadsters hedging us on all sides.

The vehicles were some that the dark mage contingent had come up with, as they had local connections.And had joined the cause because they were drawn to power and thought I had it.Enough at least to fight the gods who had betrayed them, along with everyone else.

A call had gone out for anyone who wanted to join up, and they were flocking to the camp in the desert.Meanwhile, Madesh and the bone squad were piled into two more jalopies, one on either side of us, neither of which he was driving.I eyed a skeleton wearing goggles on its leathery half-face while its white, bony jaw gleamed in the moonlight and wondered if I was going mad.

God, I hoped so.

“Why isn’t Pritkin’s incubus with you?”I asked Rosier, getting back to the point.“Instead of out here in the desert?”

“Because he’s still Pritkin!”he snarled as we banged over some more rocks, slid across some scrub, and plowed back into deeper soil again.“He’s stubborn as the day is long and wouldn’t help me!Here I am, trying to hold the Hell regions together practically on my own, and he’s putzing about in the wilderness, refusing to do a damned thing!”

“That doesn’t sound like Pritkin,” I said.

“And I couldn’t force the issue, as half of the remaining demon lords want him killed so that Zeus can’t absorb his power!They wanted me killed for the same reason until that fat bastard of a god hit me with his little curse, and it was no longer an issue.Now, they’re just waiting for me to run out of energy, and then it’ll be a free-for-all for the top spot, which will only aid our enemies, the idiots!Yet, do you think I get any assistance from my misbegotten spawn?”