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That made me snort.

The mage leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper because bears have impeccable hearing. “Do you honestly believe he lives in acave? Like a real, propercave? Wet and dank, and with bat shit all over the floor?” He made a face of disgust that I found amusing.

“Dinner’s ready,” Kenvin said with a grunt, turning to face us. “Eat up. The protein will help with your recovery.”

“You said it’s magsith?” Maxar asked, standing up. I stood up as well. “Does it taste like chicken?”

“Tastes like magsith,” Kenvin said, opening the lid of the enormous barrel-shaped grill to unveil the hideous beast on the spit. It wasn’t the entire animalthough, just the front half, minus the horns and mantis-like pinchers. So it really just resembled an elk’s head and torso, I suppose.

“So helpful,” Maxar murmured, adopting his token smirk as he snagged my eye and picked up a plate.

Kenvin carved off each of us a piece from the shoulder and placed it onto our plates. “There are charred night leeks over there.” He pointed to the small table where a tray of blackened bulbs lay stacked and still steaming.

Maxar and I loaded some on our plates, then went back to our seats. Kenvin pulled up a chair a moment later and the three of us sat in silence eating.

The magsith was edible. Not great, but not as terrible as I had anticipated. The leeks were about the same. I would say that the char actually saved them, as the bitterness of the burned part masked the otherwise questionable flavor.

“She’ll be all right,” Kenvin said after a little while. “It was a tough first day.”

“Be honest,” Maxar started, “do you think she’ll be able to learn her powers and take down Lerris?”

Kenvin’s crystal-blue eyes narrowed as he chewed, thinking. “Depends how much time you have. Will she learn her powers? Of course. She’s immortal. Eventually, she’ll figure them out. In the short amount of time you four seem to think she has?” He scratched at his chin. “She’s got a lot to learn still. She’s got a lot of power that she needs to learn how to control. Otherwise, she’s going to hurt someone she doesn’t want to hurt. That ball of red energy isn’t anything I’ve ever dealt with before, but it seems to only come about when she is angry. If she can conjure it at other times as well, like times of fear, that could be helpful. She also needs to learn how to target it. How to shrink it so it takes out just her intended target and not the entire room.”

“It took out that douche at the tavern the other night,” Maxar said. “She didn’t hurt anybody else then. Which is progress from the last time she conjured it, which was like a sonic boom that dropped us all to the ground and killed a bunch of vampires.”

The old demon nodded. “True. But she needs to be able to do that every time. Do you think she can?”

We were quiet. As much as we wanted to believe that Omaera could singleout an individual target every time, we weren’t sure. She got lucky last night. But would she always be so lucky?

“If you put some of this barbecue sauce on the magsith, it makes it taste better,” Kenvin said, handing me a small bottle without a label on it. I eyed him warily, but he seemed to have a puddle of the brown goop on his plate. Hopefully this was the same stuff, and he wasn’t trying to kill me. I squirted a little onto my plate and swirled a chunk of the medium-rare magsith meat around in it, then hesitantly brought it to my mouth.

Maxar watched me curiously, and when my eyebrows shot up my forehead in surprise, so did his. “Not toxic?” the mage asked.

Kenvin scoffed. “Not trying to kill you morons. Yeesh.”

“It’s surprisingly palatable,” I replied, handing the mage the bottle. He proceeded to cover his meat and leeks with the stuff, then acted surprised when he took a bite and enjoyed it.

“Hey, that’s not terrible,” he said. “Finally, something in Hell that’s not hellish.”

Kenvin rolled his eyes.

“What’s the sauce made of?” Maxar asked.

Kenvin’s gaze shifted abruptly to me which caused me to pause mid-chew.

“I’m guessing it’s better wenotknow,” I said slowly.

The old demon merely grunted, then started eating again. “Once you get over the heat, the monsters, the terrible food, the dust, the sulfuric water, and the overall sense of perpetual doom, it’s not a terrible place to live.”

My lips twitched as I stared at the old demon. Was he joking or being serious?

“Are you joking or being serious?” Maxar asked. “Because I honestly can’t tell.”

Kenvin rolled his eyes again and chewed his food.

“You think the bear will ever tap out? He’s got an appetite bigger than fucking Jupiter,” Maxar said with a chuckle before biting into a leek.

I shook my head. “Not if it means abandoning Omaera. He’d starve himself before he left her if he thought she needed him.”