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I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t feed his ego,” Grace told me. “It’s too big already.”

“I was being sarcastic,” I said, even though Faris’s wings were beautiful, unlike his dark soul.

“Don’t even bother. Sarcasm goes right over Faris’s head,” said Grace. “Trust me. I’ve tried.”

“Trust her at your own risk,” Faris warned me.

Then he turned around to blast the tornado. It blasted back.

He cursed River’s name again.

“She’s long gone. I don’t think she can hear you,” I told him.

Ignoring me, he tried hitting the tornado with more magic. It hit him back even harder. Grace pulled out her phone and used it to gleefully capture videos of Faris’s battle with the tornado.

“To show the other demons later,” she whispered to me with a wink.

“Stop throwing a temper tantrum,” I told Faris, then I turned to Grace. “And, as for you, stop egging him on. You’re both acting like children, not immortal deities. And to be honest, I am downright embarrassed to call myself your daughter.” I brushed the concrete dust off my shirt, a souvenir from our earlier battle with the rats. “Besides, if you two hadn’t been goofing off, you would have realized that the tornado is just using your own magic against you. It can only spit back at you what you give it.”

“Of course we noticed,” Grace said, looking offended.

“We aren’t imbeciles,” Faris added.

“Then why do you keep blasting the tornado?” I demanded.

“Because I am annoyed.”

“When you have as much magic as we do, if you don’t release it regularly, it tends to explode rather horribly,” Grace explained.

“Especially, when we’re aggravated,” Faris said.

“Or otherwise worked up or incensed.”

“Honestly, the nerve of that girl River.”

“Popping in and out.”

“Uninvited.”

“Unannounced.”

“Unwanted.”

“Like she owns the place.”

“It’s intolerable.”

I wondered if they realized how ironic their words were, coming from people who popped in and out all the time, uninvited, unannounced, and unwanted.

“It’s bitter, isn’t it?” I said.

“What is?” Faris asked.

I smirked. “The taste of your own medicine.”

He scowled at me. He looked like he was seriously considering smiting me.