Page 20 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

He certainly had enough time to look. The climb to the Crown Prince’s office turned out to be thirty floors.

That would’ve been a slog in any building, but like everything else in the palace, the stairs had been carved to match Gilgamesh’s grand aesthetics.

This meant they’d been made to fit the tower’s scale rather than placed at a height suitable for use by actual human legs.

Adrian had never missed teleporting so much in his life.

By the time he spotted the golden doors that marked the entrance to the Crown Prince’s penthouse office, his thighs felt like they were about to fall off.

Maybe the reason he hadn’t seen any servants was because they had a secret elevator, because he couldn’t imagine anyone climbing this torture tower multiple times a day.

He wasn’t sure he’d survive the trip back down, but that was a problem for the future.

Here in the present, it was go time, so Adrian wiped the exhausted look off his face, got his panting under control, and stepped through the grand golden doors his princess held open for him into the fanciest waiting room he’d ever seen.

“Waiting room” felt like a sorry label for such a dazzling place, but that was exactly what it was.

Like everything else Adrian had seen in this giant mausoleum of a palace, the entry to the Crown Prince’s office was ridiculously enormous.

It was as long as a banquet hall with soaring white stone ceilings and thirty-foot-tall walls covered in enormous gold mosaics depicting hundreds of solemn-looking warlocks and sorcerers hard at work on all the various jobs required to maintain Gilgamesh’s sprawling empire.

But while it was decorated like the throne room of an industry-minded king, the only furniture available was two rows of hard white-stone benches pushed up against the grand walls.

The result reminded Adrian of a fancy bus station.

There was even a table set with crystal punch bowls and golden platters that was clearly meant for refreshments, but they were all empty.

The whole room was empty, actually, except for a single tall white figure standing in front of a pair of slightly smaller—but still absurdly grand—golden doors on the other side.

“Welcome, Prince of Wrath,” she said in a voice that wasn’t welcoming in the slightest. “I trust this is important. Your princess was most insistent, but annoyingly sparse on details.”

That was news to Adrian. He’d thought this was a surprise visit, but apparently Gilgamesh’s princesses had ways of communicating with each other.

Or at least ways of communicating with the Crown Princess, who seemed to be their boss.

It wasn’t too surprising since he’d always known the princess was his watcher, but it was still creepy to see firsthand, especially when the Crown Princess turned her cold, sharp, mismatched gold-and-silver eyes on him.

“My prince is always happy to meet with any of his brothers,” she informed him, looking down on Adrian from her already intimidating height that got even scarier now that he knew what was hiding beneath her white princess shell.

“Unfortunately, he is very busy at the moment with issues vital to the success of Heaven’s Eternal Kingdom.

It would be most unfortunate if you were to waste his time.

” Her mismatched eyes narrowed. “I hope you’re not here to complain about the teleport ban. ”

“It’s not that,” Adrian assured her. “I just need my brother’s permission for something. I promise it won’t take more than five minutes.”

The Princess of War looked pleased by the idea of Gilgamesh’s new favorite coming all the way up here to ask her prince’s permission.

Not pleased enough to actually smile, but she told Adrian to wait and opened the golden doors behind her, ordering him firmly not to go anywhere before she slipped inside.

“Stuck-up cow,” the fake Bex muttered, her golden eyes murderous. “Don’t worry, my prince. We’ll put her in her place soon.”

Under different circumstances, Adrian would’ve heartily encouraged infighting among the enemy.

He needed this to work, though, so he shushed her instead and took a seat on one of the long, hard benches that lined the palatial waiting room.

He sat there for a good five minutes, clutching the frantically-twitching carved cat in his coat pocket.

Then, just when he was growing certain that the Crown Princess had seen straight through his ruse and summoned Gilgamesh, the giant doors clicked open again.

“My prince will see you now,” the Princess of War informed him, lowering her head the barest fraction as she held the door open with her long, white arm. “Quickly, please.”

Adrian was off the bench like a shot. He got to the doors so fast, the Bex princess almost couldn’t keep up.

She looked furious when he ducked his head to her sister, but War was the princess who controlled access to Alexander, which meant she was the one he needed to butter up.

Once again, she looked gratified by his humility, pushing the gold door all the way open to make room for Adrian and the scowling princess following one step behind like a white shadow to enter the Crown Prince’s office.

It was different than Adrian expected. After the trip here, he’d been braced for a ballroom with a single desk in the middle, but while the office was large and ludicrously luxurious, the gold-covered walls were actually built to human scale.

This made it the first room Adrian had seen in the palace since his own bedroom that didn’t look like it was designed for snooty giants.

But just because it wasn’t overpowering architecturally didn’t mean it was comfortable.

All the elements of comfort were present.

There was a large white rug to soften the stone floors, couches and chairs made from actual wood and fabric instead of marble and gold, diamond-shaped shelves filled with leather scroll cases, and plenty of lamps to soften the white light streaming through the curtained windows.

Those alone should’ve made this the coziest room in all of Heaven, but the man sitting behind the golden desk at the room’s far end was anything but pleasant.

Just like the last two times Adrian had seen Gilgamesh’s eldest son, the Crown Prince was dressed like a perfect soldier.

He was wearing less armor than usual—just his golden scale chest plate with no gloves or helmet, which made it easier to see the embroidered patch covering his missing eye—but he still looked like the epitome of a competent commander with his perfectly starched white shirtsleeves, excessively neat desk, and thronelike chair.

The only flaw in this projection of perfection was his olive-skinned face, which was haggard and sleep-deprived when he raised it to fix Adrian with a look of supreme irritation.

“Make this quick,” he ordered as he waved his calloused hand at the enormous pile of scrolls waiting in a golden basket beside his desk.

“As you can see, the living world is still in a panic over the closed Anchors. Heaven’s faithful servants require all of my attention, so I’m afraid I don’t have time to babysit Father’s newest pet. ”

“This won’t take long,” Adrian promised. “I just need your permission to enter the Hells.”

His eldest brother’s one remaining eye narrowed. “Why?”

Adrian swallowed. He’d never realized so much suspicion could be crammed into a single word. If he’d needed a final warning, that was it, but he’d already stuck his neck out as far as it would go, so he gave it all he had.

“I’m nearly finished with the restoration of the Queen of Pride’s horns,” he announced, sticking as close to the truth as possible so he wouldn’t have to remember what he’d lied about later.

“But there’s a piece missing, one vital to the crown’s completion.

My finding spell tells me what I need to fix it is in the Hells, but I can’t go down there without your permission, so here I am. ”

He’d tried to keep things as straightforward as possible, but the Crown Prince’s suspicious scowl didn’t let up.

“Why would the final piece needed to fix Pride’s broken crown be in the Hells?”

“I have no idea,” Adrian said innocently. “I only know what my spell tells me. Sometimes you just have to have faith and trust the—"

“If you already know where it is, then send your princess to retrieve it,” the Crown Prince ordered. “That’s what she’s for.”

“I’d be happy to perform any service you desire, my prince,” the fake Bex volunteered immediately, but Adrian was already shaking his head.

“I have to go myself,” he insisted, pulling the sticky, wooden, fur-covered cat out of his pocket so the prince could see it twitching. “I’m the only one the finding spell responds to, and I won’t know what I’m looking for until I see it.”

“Isn’t that convenient?” the Crown Prince said in a dry voice before glancing down to shuffle through the papers on his desk.

“I have a report here that you’ve already requested and been granted a mountain of contraband from the magical materials vault.

Since you’ve clearly made yourself comfortable pillaging our storehouses, why not go down and look for a suitable alternative there?

Aren’t you the one who bragged about being ‘a hell of a witch’? ”

“It’s because I’m an experienced witch that I already know nothing else will work,” Adrian argued. “Agatha was your mother, too. Even if you paid zero attention before running off to become a prince, surely you remember there are key elements to every spell that cannot be subst—”

“Do not speak of the Blackwood to me!” Alexander snarled, his one eye flashing silver. “Those witches sold out every one of us to protect their precious forest. You’re the only child they saw fit to fight for, but while Father seems to think that makes you a special little flower, I do not.”