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The floating island was about the size of a football field and covered in asphalt, or some similar substance. I didn’t see anything obvious to explain how it was floating like this. Must have been magic. Or Magitech.

The floating island didn’t seem to be affected by the tornado. In fact, down here, standing on the flat pancake surface, that tornado felt like nothing more than a bracing wind. I could see it spinning around us, trapping us inside, on this peculiar island. It had zipped itself up around the island, so I couldn’t see past it. My new reality ended in a tornado.

This wasn’t a natural tornado either, the kind that rolled over land. This tornado had been spun together with magic. Just like the floating asphalt island.

Grace and Faris were looking around too. Faris threw a few spells at the tornado, obviously trying to break through it, but his spells just bounced back at him.

Grace laughed at his failed efforts. “Such a man’s idea, to think he can overpower everything with brute force.”

Faris’s dark brows drew together. “I have a lot of brute force.”

Grace laughed again. “Not enough, apparently.”

“And I suppose you have a better idea?” Faris demanded.

“Naturally. We are going to wait this out.”

Faris looked at the tornado, which was showing no signs of slowing down or fizzling out any time soon. “That is unacceptable.”

“You always were so impatient, Faris.”

“I have things to do. That’s what it means to actually be important.”

The look he gave her brought a frown to Grace’s lips.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she said.

“Good for you.”

“And it won’t work. I’m not impressed by your ego, nor cowered by your shameless arrogance. And neither is Leda.” Grace looked at me.

“Keep me out of your lovers’ spat,” I said, not taking my eyes off the tornado. The spell had to have a weakness. If only I could find it.

“It’s a little late for you to be left out of anything, dear,” Grace said breezily. “You are, after all, our daughter, and therefore very much at the center of our lives.”

She smiled at me. The look on the demon’s face was positively doting. Honestly, it really freaked me out.

But it made Faris laugh. “She isn’t fooled by the motherly act, Grace.”

“You aren’t helping,” she snapped at him.

“I have no intention of helping you carry out your nefarious scheme.”

“Nefarious scheme?” She planted her hands on her hips. “What exactly do you imagine I’m scheming to do?”

“I don’t know.” Faris frowned as if the admission grated on him. “Or at least I haven’t figured it out yet. But I will find out what you’re planning. And I will stop you.”

Her eyes twinkled with delight. “Well, aren’t you a regular storm cloud on a sunny day.”

Lightning flashed across the sky, visible above the swirling tornado.

“Very funny,” Faris said drily to Grace.

“That wasn’t my doing.”

“Someone is coming,” I told my unhinged parents.

The tornado wall parted slightly, like curtains being drawn apart, then two figures stepped through the opening. The tornado zipped closed behind them.