Page 12 of Each Their Own Devil (Our Lady of Fire #3)

8

THE LAST MEAL AND THE FIRST TREE

“Beware the enemy most who invites you to their table.” — The Book of Open Doors , Book V: The Keeper of the Keys

He had known the moment Aleja left their world. When separated by wards as powerful as those between the Hiding Place and the Astraelis realm, the marriage bond had felt like a piece of thick fabric that had been pulled so taught that, eventually, the threads had started snapping.

“Nicolas,” Orla said. “Your wife just burned an Astraelis convoy offering a peace treaty, then absconded with the only bargaining chip we had against the Messenger. What are you going to do about this?”

“Right now, she’s the Dark Saint of Wrath,” he snapped back. The urge to defend Aleja burned at the tip of his tongue as if he’d put a match out on it. He’d tried to think of a thousand excuses to make for her that wouldn’t turn the other Saints against him—he’d need them unified now, even if it was in their anger—but every argument he’d played out in his head ended on one final thesis: he trusted Aleja, even if the others couldn’t.

By the time they reached the palace, she and Val had gone, along with Garm and one of the younger Avisai, who had returned hours later and collapsed in exhaustion onto the field where its family grazed on leftover bones. Nicolas wished he’d insisted that the Dark Saints return to the army camp; every painting here reminded him of Aleja wandering through the palace halls, staring up at the angels and nymphs as if they were old friends she visited regularly to catch up.

“Nicolas,” someone said from the other side of the war room. Taddeas, this time. He had been silent as Orla and Amicia recounted the story of what had happened with the mutineers, and that silence had continued until now. “If you know something, now is the time to divulge it. No one here will blame you for protecting your wife.”

“Speak for yourself,” Orla muttered.

Nicolas met Taddeas’s gaze and forced himself to hold it. Keep the Dark Saints united—that was what he had to do now. “Aleja believes that the Messenger is telling the truth. She also believes that Val has knowledge—or at least, can acquire the knowledge—to stop the Avaddon. I’m not defending her actions, nor am I saying that I agree with them, but if she acted so rashly, it’s because she thought she was doing it for the good of the Hiding Place.”

“Don’t,” Bonnie said, raising a hand. “If this Avaddon was real, then our librarians would have something about in their books—even a single word or two. The Second claims the same and we have no reason to doubt him. Don’t you think that in all the millennia the Hiding Place has existed, an event of that magnitude, or even the possibility of an event of that magnitude, would have been mentioned by one scholar at the very least?”

“I agree with you, Bonnie. We only have three facts. One, the Messenger is a known liar and manipulator. Two, we have no evidence that what she speaks is the truth. And three, despite this all, Aleja believes that the Avaddon is real, and Val holds the key to stopping it.”

“She doesn’t have her memories, Nicolas,” Orla said. “She’s just a human girl with?—”

“Enough, Orla,” he snarled, unable to help himself. “I never claimed she had all of her training. I never claimed she had all of her expertise. But she is still the Alejandra we knew back then; the Alejandra who put herself in danger time and time again to save not just the Dark Saints, but every foot soldier, Avisai, and the countless other demons that crawled their way from the mountains to help us in the last war. If you truly believe it, then look me in the eye and tell me the Dark Saint of Wrath is a traitor, just like Roland—Roland, who you vouched for countless times.”

It had been decades—more—since Nicolas had raised his voice like this to the Dark Saints, let alone Orla, who held more sway among the others than most. When she narrowed her eyes, it was with a certain pleased defiance, as if she’d been waiting for this fight. “I don’t think Aleja is a traitor. I think she is na?ve. She does not remember the cruelty of the Astraelis, nor the cruelty with which we responded in turn. I am fond of your wife, Nicolas, but she is not the same person who led us as High General before.”

“I agree with you,” Nicolas said. “She is practically untrained, but so was the Lady of Wrath when the first war came—a new Dark Saint whose only talent for killing was shooting rabbits with her bow. Aleja’s strength has always been her instincts, and that is something neither time nor the loss of her memories can take away from her. So, if you ask if I trust her, then yes, I do. Unconditionally. Not just as my wife, but as a Dark Saint and the High General in waiting.”

The silence that followed was broken only by the imperfections in the candle wicks, popping as the flames burned. Nicolas expected Orla to argue, but it was Merit who spoke—the first time he had done so all evening. “If you’re wrong about this, Knowing One, it means the end of our realm, the Otherlanders, and the humans who use our magic. No one here is brave enough to say it, but I will. You had the chance to stop this war once before, centuries ago—all you had to do was sacrifice one life for the sake of thousands, of millions, and you?—”

“The life of my wife ,” Nicolas interjected.

“ Yes ,” Merit barked back. He rarely spoke up, unless Orla paved the way for him. “We all lost friends, and family, and lovers. Think about your husband, Taddeas, sent to the fey realm for protection. Would you ever be able to forgive the Knowing One if you knew that all he had to do was execute a prisoner—a prisoner who has already betrayed us once? Would you have traded the Astraelis’s life for yours, knowing your husband would be a widow? Would you have traded the Astraelis’s life for Jack’s?”

“I—” Taddeas began, then stammered over his words. It was rare, these days, that he showed the shyness he once had when he first arrived at the Hiding Place, but when a few of his braids slipped in front of his face, he didn’t bother pushing them back. “I would do whatever it took to save him. But it’s no use miring ourselves in hypotheticals. What’s done is done. We need to figure out how to use it to our advantage.”

“Look,” Nicolas said, “There was no outcome that could please everyone at this table, including me. If we can’t ensure peace, then we can ensure we’re well-protected when the Astraelis armies arrive at our doorstep—not mutineers this time but the Messenger with the Third in tow. We need forces stationed around the Second’s cave at all hours. Increase security around the border with as many people as you can spare, Taddeas.”

At a chorus of weary nods, Nicolas wondered—hoped—that this had been enough to spur the Dark Saints into action. He wasn’t sure how they would react to his next words.

“That’s not the only thing we’re going to do. It’s time to gather our troops. We will not be letting the Dark Saint of Wrath’s actions go unanswered, just as we are not going to lose the opportunity presented to us. The Messenger is weak, and the mutineers are disorganized. And despite our advantage, we are not in control of this war. So I say we take it. We ride into the Astraelis realm with the intention of reclaiming the Third for ourselves. If we retrieve our Dark Saint of Wrath along the way, we can decide what to do with her afterward.”

By the time the house appeared in the distance, Aleja could no longer feel her feet. She supposed that was a mercy. There had been times when she’d contemplated asking Garm if she could ride his back—the hellhound was big enough in this form to carry her—but Val had complained so little on the trek that Aleja could hardly moan about her blisters.

“This looks strange,” Val muttered.

Aleja had noticed the change in scenery early on, but she had been too exhausted, and her head too filled with thoughts of what was happening in the Hiding Place to question it out loud. The lush green hills of the Astraelis realm had gradually turned brown. Earlier, the hills had been filled with life: crickets chirping, shrews darting through the underbrush, and owls swooping down to capture them. It had taken hours for Aleja to stop jumping at every sound, whether it was the squeal of a small animal attempting to escape a predator’s talons or Garm’s excited whine at the activity around them.

There had been security, as Val had promised, but each time a group of Principalities passed, they seemed too engrossed in conversation to notice the intruders tucked behind a boulder or gnarled tree. Even the Thrones that tore through the sky overhead didn’t pause to carefully search the grounds. By the time the third patrol had gone by, Aleja had stopped holding her breath, simply waiting for the moment she could stand and ease the ache in her knees from crouching. How could this be so easy?

“What’s strange? The fact that the Astraelis patrols are apparently shit now, or the fact that your mother needs to hire a new gardener?” she asked.

Unlike the Hiding Place, which had shared relations with humans for so long that its architecture was a strange mix of gothic and art nouveau, the building ahead could not be compared to any human creation. Tall, thin spires rose from a domed structure painted pastel green. In the early morning light, the spires pierced the sun’s rays, as though their points were sharp enough to cut through light itself.

Though it was clear the grounds had once been surrounded by a garden, it had grown wild from neglect. The tall, thick stalks of sunflowers were broken in half, bowing as if the flowers were trying to return to the dirt. The skeleton of a large bird lay sprawled beneath a hedge.

“Both,” Val said. “The security will allow me in, but I’ll need to break the wards before you enter. You and Garm wait here.”

“No way am I letting you out of our sight,” Aleja said. But as they reached the low stone wall surrounding the property, she stopped walking. Even before coming to the Hiding Place, she had been a witch living among a family of magicians whose wealth made them the envy of their neighbors. She understood the danger of wards.

“Do you have any idea what will happen to you if this house decides you’re not supposed to be here?” Val hissed.

“Then, hurry,” she spat. “There’s not a lot of cover out here if a patrol passes by.”

“Exactly as my mother designed it,” Val replied. As he walked away, she watched the tips of his mask fanning out to either side of his pale hair. It had grown longer during his imprisonment.

Aleja held her breath until she watched him disappear over a ridge as he headed toward the spired home. Once he was gone, she reached out blindly, even though Garm was still a few yards away.

At her muffled sob, he was at her side, and the hand that had been grasping at empty air found a handful of short, dark fur. She tried to inhale, but it seemed as though her body had forgotten how to do the very thing that kept it alive. She was dying, wasn’t she? All of the pain she had put herself and her friends through, and she was about to pass out in the Astraelis realm and no one in the Hiding Place would ever know her fate. When she tried to look down at her feet, she might as well have been staring into the star-filled sky for all that the world seemed to rotate around her.

“Aleja,” came Garm’s rough growl. He nudged his head into her shoulder. “You can stop this. It used to happen to Nicolas too, back when the curse was consuming his heart. Take a deep breath.”

“I can’t,” Aleja rasped. She had ruined everything—ruined their chances of winning the war before it started, ruined her shot at a life with Nicolas where she would drag him to every museum in Italy while he recounted the bargains he had made through history.

“Yes, you can. Breathe from your stomach. Let it expand.”

She tried. When she looked up at Garm, she was no longer afraid that the world would dissolve in front of her eyes. “What did I do?” she whispered.

“What you believed was right.”

“Do you think it’s right?”

“Yes,” Garm said with a rumble. “Because the Knowing One believed you. I trust Nicolas.”

Aleja did not mention that Nicolas had been wrong in the past, as had she, but if she let doubt creep in again, she might actually collapse. Her fingers clenched around Garm’s fur as Val reappeared on the hill.

“We’re in luck,” he said. “My mother isn’t home yet, but she should be arriving soon.”

“Why is that lucky?” Aleja asked, desperate for good news.

“I know my mother’s house very well, dear Lady of Wrath. Her absence will give me time to protect ourselves should we not get the reception we are hoping for.”

“Are you sure the wards won’t kill me?” Aleja whispered, as she crashed into Val’s back in an attempt to stay close to him as they entered through the front door. Garm seemed to have no such worry. As soon as there was space for him to maneuver his large body around Val and Aleja, he bound into the entryway, nails clicking against the wooden floors. His tail almost immediately hit a vase decorated with little painted yellow flowers on a wooden pedestal.

“I dismantled the truly nasty ones,” Val chided. “Control yourself, hellhound. That vase is over five hundred years old.”

“That vase is human-made,” Aleja said, finally finding the courage to raise her voice to a normal level. “Probably Turkish, from the first half of the sixteenth century. I see your mother only hates humans enough to slaughter them, but collecting their artwork is okay.”

“The Astraelis have never endorsed the needless slaughter of huma?—”

“Tell that to every witch that was burned because of a rumor that an Astraelis whispered into a human ear. I’ve been educated in your ways well enough.”

“The Astraelis have not engaged in such tactics for quite some time.”

“They haven’t had to. They built the machine, and the wheels are in motion, with or without them. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the results of your plan to kill the Second.”

“ Their plans,” Val said. “When I learned that the Second’s death would cause the death of witches in the human realm, I escaped into your realm. We’re on the same side and, as you mentioned, not everything in this house will be glad of your presence. Stay close to me.”

Aleja was already so near him that his robes occasionally brushed her arms. She looked out into the room. Aside from the occasional human artifact, stepping into the Messenger’s home was akin to stepping into an alien palace. There were a few scattered chairs with almost cartoonishly tall backs. Their shapes made Aleja think of a sculptor working with a tree, who had followed the natural curves of the branches instead of carving them until they met his vision.

The walls were a soft gold, but there were no paintings—just a few scattered vases on tables similar to the one by the door and a small version of a statue she’d seen in her textbooks countless times: Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss by Canova. Cupid, the angel, embraced Psyche, his human lover, having recently awakened from a death-like sleep. It was a new replica made of bleached stone, not marble.

“Why isn’t there anyone here? I figured your mother would have guards,” Aleja said, trying to picture how the Messenger could have possibly acquired the statue.

“There is no need. No one but me would be able to get in and that is only because I share her blood. That is how I knew she would be returning soon. The wards are… Oh, how do I describe it? Wobbly. Like jelly. She would never leave them in that state unless she was only away shortly.”

“Great,” Aleja muttered. “Shouldn’t she be on the front lines? She’s captured the Third and there are mutineers among her armies. I wouldn’t think this was the time for a vacation.”

“My thoughts exactly. I daresay we’ll find out more when we see her.”

Garm’s hot, damp breath hit the back of Aleja’s neck as they turned down a long hallway lined by elaborate sconces in the same spindly style, like enormous golden spiders crawling along the walls. “Stop walking. I smell something,” he said.

Aleja’s hand shot to the hilt of her stiletto, but Garm sniffed again.

“I…I know that smell, it’s?—”

Ahead of them, a small figure darted across the way from an intersecting hall. Garm pushed past Aleja, despite her wordless protest. “I thought you said this place was empty,” Aleja gasped.

Garm was too fast for Aleja to keep up, but he stopped running as abruptly as he had started, and Aleja barreled into his haunches. She caught a glimpse of dirty-blonde hair and skin paler than it ever had been in the human realm.

Aleja could not help the words that came out of her mouth. Garm’s skin was hot and shifting beneath her hand, as if he could barely contain the rage inside of him. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t let my hellhound tear you to shreds right now.”

“You shouldn’t be here, Al. Even the Messenger isn’t safe from the Authorities now.” Violet’s voice shook.

“This isn’t a fucking rescue mission,” Aleja said, pushing Garm aside so that there was no barrier between her and Violet. “If you don’t want to die, start talking.”

To her side, Garm crouched with a growl that vibrated from the base of Aleja’s spine to her tailbone. With a word, Garm would tear Violet’s throat out. Aleja wouldn’t need to do the deed herself.

There was only a single command between Violet and death.

But as Violet stayed silent, so did Aleja.

“The Messenger invited me,” Aleja eventually said, not lowering her hands.

“I know,” Violet said. “But I can hear the Authorities. The Messenger’s grip on her power is more precarious than she might be letting on. It doesn’t matter that the mutineers who tried to make a deal with the Knowing One—yes, she knows about that—never returned. It’s only made the other rebels more desperate. If they find you here, they will kill you, Al.”

“I thought this house was safe,” she answered through gritted teeth, unsure of whether she was speaking to Violet or to Val.

“It was . The wards just broke,” Val answered.

In the Hiding Place, hostile magic always sent a shudder through Aleja, but here, it felt as if her jaw might crack from the way her teeth clacked against one another. You don’t bow, you don’t kneel, for anyone or anything else , Nicolas had once told her, and Aleja had managed to obey him, even in the face of the Second.

She almost broke now, if not for Garm nudging his massive head under Aleja’s arm to hold her up. Violet was not as lucky. Her hands flew to her ears. A thin line of blood squeezed through the gap between Violet’s palm and her jaw, hitting her light gray tunic.

The sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come on, and the next person to touch Aleja was not Garm but Val. His massive hand clamped down on the shoulder that Garm was not supporting, not yanking Aleja back but urging her forward. “That wasn’t my mother. Down the hall and to the left,” he said. “We need to reach the armory. It’s the safest room in the house.”

“I know the way, but it’s warded,” Violet said. As she dropped her hand from her face, the line of blood became a smear across her cheek.

“I can get through them. Go !” Val said.

The house had fallen silent aside from their footfall and the sound of their panicked breaths. The urge to run was a human instinct, but they were in a narrow hallway. Anyone who followed them would be unable to escape Aleja’s fire. “Garm, stay with them. If anyone other than me shows up, attack.”

With a baleful look, Garm obeyed.

Aleja swore she could no longer see the hallway’s end as it disappeared into darkness. You’ve done this, and you can do it again, she thought to herself. But her will faltered when a Principality came rushing out of the shadows.

While most of them had pale masks with pastel tones, this one was a bright reddish orange. She didn’t hesitate before letting her fire loose. It filled the narrow hallway, obscuring her view of the Principality.

The wallpaper curled off the home’s bare frame as Aleja retreated, running backward until she felt safe enough to let her fire peter out. The Principality wasn’t dead, but she had brought him to the ground. His once-bright mask was now charred black as he crawled toward her, one hand outstretched.

But another figure now crowded into the narrow hall. He wore the robes of a mage, and his hands were already raised, already prepared to?—

If the pain of the wards breaking had been a vibration, this felt as though someone had dug enormous hands into her chest and was peeling her apart from the inside. She clutched her rib cage in a desperate attempt to keep her torso from splitting in half, even as her training screamed in protest; with her hands occupied, she had no means of defending herself.

With a desperate cry, she managed to tear her right hand away and send another burst of fire in the Principality’s direction.

Her fire hit an invisible wall. She stumbled back a few steps and summoned her flames again. This time, her enemies’ defenses were slower to respond. One of the Principalities cried out in pain, and she prayed that Val had already reached the armory.

But as she turned to join him, something caught her—a thread of golden magic looped around her leg, sending her crashing to the ground. Without looking, she shot a hand behind her, sending another wave of flame in hopes of buying herself a moment to scramble to her feet. Though she hadn’t aimed, someone hissed in agony.

No , she thought, I’m not dying here . The stiletto’s hilt was smooth in her hand as she turned and pulled the blade from her sash, but it was a short-range weapon. She wasn’t as quick as a trained Astraelis warrior, but if she could just?—

“I always dreamed I’d be the one to do this, Lady of Wrath,” the Principality whispered, sending out a wave of golden magic that she could not dodge. It tightened around her like a vice.

Her sudden freedom was so unexpected that she stumbled forward, and her hands hit the ground. The shockwave traveled all the way from her hands to her skull, briefly turning the world dreamlike, but she spun, reaching for the blade she had dropped before turning back to the mage.

Her eyes stopped at his throat. A blade pierced his neck from behind, the blood like a waterfall. With a few gurgles, the Principality collapsed. His face was replaced by another winged mask as he fell. It was circular—at least a dozen wings in shades of gold and pale pink, like a kaleidoscope.

“Behind you—” Aleja began, but the Messenger was prepared when the two remaining rebels staggered forward. No golden strands accompanied the Messenger’s magic. With a wave of her hand, the two remaining Principalities…dissolved. Where they had stood, two silhouettes of red mist hovered for a moment before being swept away by a draft.

“You’re early,” the Messenger said flatly, turning back to Aleja. The bloody mist added a pink sheen to her mask.

Aleja’s throat ached as she pressed her hand against it. “I was forced to destroy a group of mutineers that tried to strike a deal with the Otherlanders,” she said, resisting the urge to fall back and take a few deep breaths to assure herself that she wasn’t dead.

“I’m well aware,” the Messenger said.

Aleja made the first motion to stand, realized her legs were still shaking, and decided to lean casually on her left elbow. “You should thank me. They demanded your son’s life. If I hadn’t broken him out of our prisons when I did, his head would be on a spike in the Hiding Place right now.”

“Val?” the Messenger said sharply. It was enough to let Aleja know that the Messenger might have been aware that mutineers had attempted to deal with the Knowing One, but not what they had demanded in exchange. “Where is he?”

“Attempting to break into your armory, I expect,” Aleja said with what she hoped was a nonchalant sigh.

The Messenger shook her head, and red mist shed from her mask. “My son may be a genius in some respects, but in the matters of warfare, he’s an irredeemable fool. Come, then. Your timing is not ideal, but what’s done is done.”

“What about what’s left of them?” Aleja said, gesturing toward the two Principalities that still had discernable corpses. “Won’t there be others?”

“A small group was tracking you. They figured out where you were going and managed to sneak through the gap in the wards Val created before I arrived. There won’t be more for now.”

“Wait,” Aleja said, as she rose to her feet. Not for the first time, she was struck by the ease with which her Dark Saint body recovered from what would have taken her weeks to heal from as a human. “Are you seriously telling me that the mutineers are brave enough to break into your home, knowing you were only minutes behind them, and you’re… unconcerned ?”

“Not unconcerned. I just have my priorities. Would you care for dinner, Lady of Wrath? Let’s make history tonight. It will be the first time an Astraelis has hosted a Dark Saint in her home since the moment the Second turned his back on us and created the Hiding Place as a refuge for rebels and villains.”

Aleja was not hungry until a plate of bright golden potatoes speckled with pepper and a steak with a perfectly pink interior that smelled of lemongrass was placed in front of her by a magical servant. The small creature resembled the librarians of the Hiding Place, only their faces were covered by pale orange hoods, matching the robes that swathed bodies barely as tall as Aleja’s waist. Her ancestors had conjured similar creatures— magical constructs with no will of their own who existed only to run their estates in Miami, Mexico City, Havana, and Spain.

The smell of the food hit her, and she realized that it had easily been a full day since she had eaten. She debated whether satisfying her hunger would be worth the slow, cramping death that would follow if the Messenger poisoned her.

To distract herself, she tossed a chunk of potato to Garm, who was snoring by the fireplace. When that wasn't enough to quell the clawing pangs in her stomach, she summoned one of the small fire creatures she had occasionally practiced conjuring at the palace to wake him.

“Hm. Pretty,” the Messenger said as Aleja’s raven managed to glide for a few seconds before being snuffed out. Even without Nicolas near, it was still flecked by gem-like shades of violet and dark blue. “Has the Second given you some horrible new trick to use against us?”

“That knowledge is beyond the scope of our agreement,” Aleja told her, because she thought it sounded cool.

The Messenger didn’t bother to cover her yawn. “Val, why is her magic like that?”

Val glanced between them, the feathers of his mask stiff. “It’s not something I’ve paid attention to,” he finally said. “Otherlander magic is too chaotic for my tastes.”

“Agreed. Eat, Wrath,” the Messenger said from the head of the table. “If I wanted you dead, I could have let the mutineers kill you.”

“She’s right,” Violet whispered, to the right of Aleja. “You’ll need your strength.”

“Strength for what?” Aleja hissed back, her voice echoing against the grand vaulted ceiling of the dining room. Like the other rooms she’d seen of the Messenger’s home, the architecture couldn’t be compared to any era of human art or architecture. Everything felt stretched out, like a warped photograph.

“Yes, Mother. I am also curious about that,” Val said.

“I have the Third in the stables, Val,” the Messenger said. “Why don’t you go entertain yourself with him after our meal?”

“You brought the Third here?” Violet interjected. “ Why ?”

“As has been so aptly demonstrated for us tonight, my armies are not fully aligned with my plans, Violet. This realm can no longer be considered a safe place for the Third,” the Messenger said, slicing into her steak.

“There are still those who are loyal to you,” Violet shot back.

Aleja looked between them. It was one thing to have accepted that Violet had betrayed the Otherlanders in favor of the Messenger, it was another to know that Violet had apparently been given insight into the Messenger’s deepest concerns.

“You never answered my question,” Aleja said. “I’m here. I brought your son. Our only hope to save any of our lives is for Val to figure out how to find the First and get her to assume a form in which she can be killed. As much as I want to sit around eating steak in my enemy’s dining room, the apocalypse approaches. If we only have a few months to figure this out?—”

“We have about a week,” Violet said quietly. “Or, at least, that’s what the Authorities think. They can feel the magic of the First’s coming death even more intensely than the Messenger can.”

Aleja couldn’t stop herself from dropping her fork. It hit the edge of her plate, sending it flipping over the edge of the table. The small golden potato Val had been raising to his mouth shared a similar fate, plopping to the table with a splat.

“That’s impossible,” he said. “Even with my most pessimistic calculations?—”

“Your calculations were wrong,” the Messenger said. Unlike the others at the table, she seemed to have no trouble popping another piece of meat into her mouth. “Or rather, you did not have all of the information you needed at the time. Having the Third in our possession has been enlightening.”

“A week?” Aleja snapped. “Why haven’t you— What have you been doing to stop this?”

“It’s a new development. Besides, I told you at our first meeting that your priority was returning my son to me. Instead, he’s been kept in a cell, completely useless to our cause.” The Messenger finally lowered her fork and turned to her son. “Val, now that you’re here, what will you need to get to work?”

Val did not return her gaze. “I’ve explained this to the Lady of Wrath many times. Our best chance was to allow me to study the Second, but I’m afraid that opportunity has been lost.”

“Perhaps not,” the Messenger said. “As Violet said, there are still some in the Astraelis armies who are loyal to me. We could create a distraction. An attack far south of the Second’s mountain range—one large enough to force the Knowing One to direct all of his Dark Saints to respond. Even with a small band of my soldiers, we would meet little resistance.”

“We’re not causing a distraction that will lead to Otherlander deaths,” Aleja said at the same time that Val spoke.

“It won’t be enough time. It took me decades to gather what research on the First that I could. Even with proximity to the Second— or the Third—it might be months before a breakthrough.”

Violet shoved her plate aside. She had hardly eaten more than a few bites of the potatoes. Instead of steak, she had been served some sort of grain patty that she had sliced into strips but left untouched. “You still haven’t told her, Messenger.”

“Told me what?” Aleja said sharply. She’d retrieved her fork, but with the magic emanating from her hands, it was superheated and uncomfortable to hold. A week. In a week, her husband would be dead. Her friends among the Dark Saints would be dead. Every person she had ever met in the human world—from gossip-spouting Paola to whoever remained among the cultists that had once kidnapped Violet—would be dead. She dropped her hands under the table to stop the Messenger from seeing how much they were shaking.

“The Third has been asking for you,” the Messenger said, as if she were letting Aleja know that one of her cousins had rung to catch up.

“Excuse me?” Aleja said. This information hardly seemed to register; the dread in her felt bottomless. What was one more piece of terrible news?

“The Third has been asking for you,” the Messenger repeated slowly, like that had been the issue with Aleja’s misunderstanding the first time. “In fact, it’s all he will say. It’s infuriating.”

“You didn’t think to mention this to me in the Hiding Place?” Aleja snapped back.

“It was a surprise for when you paid us a visit. Can you imagine how it might have galvanized your fellow Dark Saints to think that the Third was desperate for a rescue?”

“He’s hardly safe here either. Do you not remember that your own fucking soldiers broke into this place not hours ago?”

“The situation is admittedly not ideal,” the Messenger said, turning her teacup slowly. A lemon slice rotated at the liquid’s surface. “More soldiers than I expected have taken up the Authorities’ cause. A hundred or so remain loyal to me and always will, but?—”

Aleja swallowed so fast that she had to cough before speaking. “A hundred or so? That’s it ? I wish you had told me this sooner. I might have actually been able to talk the Otherlanders into an alliance if they thought you had any actual power left.”

“As I said, it’s not ideal, but we do have some advantages. The soldiers loyal to me are long-time veterans, well-trained, and disciplined. And you, dear Wrath, did a wonderful job of incinerating the only potentially strong leadership the mutineers had. With Merivus’s death, there will be a power vacuum and many scrambling to fill it. The Principalities are born and raised with the concept of absolute obedience to the Messenger; there are few natural leaders among them.”

“They don’t need an organized army if they have all of the Authorities on their side!” Aleja said, shoving her plate aside. “That’s like saying that it doesn’t matter that the opposite side has fighter jets and a nuclear bomb because you have a thousand well-trained foot soldiers.”

“I’m going to assume that is a human reference and bears no relation to our situation, Wrath, but I will concede that you’re right. Yet there might be a temporary solution to this problem. Over the years, I have kept my best mages close—kept them happy. There will be mages among the mutineers who are adept at getting through the Otherlanders’ wards, but not at scale. It will be hard to convince them to wage an all-out attack on the Hiding Place for now. Secondly, your Dark Saint of Gluttony has been cleverly growing dense forests all around the Otherlanders’ palace for centuries now. It makes it difficult for the Authorities to get close without risk of attack from the Avisai, who can fly higher and quicker than they can. The Authorities will do everything they can to avoid a fight near the palace.”

“What are you trying to say, Messenger?”

“That you should host me and my loyalists there.”

Aleja’s fingers twitched out of her control, dancing with orange and blue flames. She had to shake her hands out to dispel them. “Of all the things you’ve said in the past few hours, that is the most ridiculous. Even if we could somehow convince the Dark Saints, there are thousands of people living in the Hiding Place who would rather die than see Astraelis on our territory.”

“They will die,” the Messenger pointed out. “Tell them we come as refugees, evicted from our own lands. Tell them we come as prisoners—I will swallow my pride and arrive in chains, if that is what it takes.”

“It might be the only thing that gets me back in their good graces,” Aleja muttered.

“Then do it.” The Messenger waved her enormous hand. Aleja had never noticed that she still wore a wedding band. “If you can ingratiate yourself back into the Dark Saints by claiming that this pesky act of treason was committed because you saw it as a way to get to me , then I won’t contradict you. I will hate every moment of it. I will plot my revenge in secret. But I will do it.”

Aleja thought back to Orla’s argument, back in the war room. Was this a ruse? Was the Messenger really willing to be escorted into the Hiding Place in chains, or was this bait she knew that Aleja—who would surely be shunned by her own friends—would find almost irresistible to take? “I’ll think about it.”

“Think quickly. The words hurt enough to say. I can’t promise I won’t change my mind. Now, go see the Third, please. He’s getting annoying.”