Page 8 of Hell Hath No Fury (Tear Down Heaven #4)

Not a bad starter kit for a houseplant, but it had still taken Adrian all of yesterday and no small amount of his quintessence blood to grow the seedling to its current three-foot height.

That was pathetic compared to the monster trees he’d grown in twenty minutes using the same technique back in his forest, but growing anything up here was an enormous challenge.

All those letters just to get one seed and a pile of dirt hadn’t been the Crown Prince stonewalling him out of spite.

They were real restrictions set eons ago by Gilgamesh himself for the preservation of the Eternal Kingdom.

It might be called Heaven now, but this place had originally been Paradise, the land of the gods.

It had been Ishtar’s land in particular, goddess of life, death, war, love, beauty, and—most relevant to Adrian’s current situation—fertility.

Anything that sprouted, germinated, or pollinated was a potential lever the goddess could use to pry herself out of her grave.

Because of this, every type of plant, from ornamental gardens to sidewalk weeds to the slime that grew on the inside of wastewater tanks, was considered dangerous contraband.

Procreative activities were also forbidden within the city for the same reason, as were all living creatures except Gilgamesh’s chosen humans and their demon slaves, bodies of water larger than one liter, and all nonmagical fires.

Adrian didn’t see how any place you weren’t allowed to have sex, grow flowers, take a bath, or pet a cat could be possibly called Heaven, but such were the sacrifices required by an empire whose entire existence revolved around keeping the undying gods dead.

They took it damn seriously up here too.

There were so many anti-growth spells on the palace that just getting the pine tree to sprout had taken every bit of Adrian’s magic, experience, and skill.

He had it going now, though. The sap collectors he’d put in last night were full as well, which meant he was in business.

Peeking over his shoulder, Adrian reached down like a thief and began detaching the small gold finger bowls he was using as collectors from the cuts he’d made in the young tree’s bark.

There was no obvious reason to be so cautious.

He could still hear the princess sobbing in the bedroom, and despite promising they’d work together, Gilgamesh hadn’t set foot in the workshop since the night he’d locked Adrian in.

That was fine with Adrian, of course, but the king’s absence made him almost as nervous as his presence would have.

Back in the Blackwood, Gilgamesh had made it sound like Adrian’s work was the single most important thing in his entire empire.

Now he was being an absentee boss, and while Adrian was sure his father was still keeping tabs on him through the princess’s golden eyes, the whole situation felt very strange.

What was the point of forcing Adrian into such a hard corner if his father was just going to leave him to his own devices?

He hadn’t even set a deadline. Adrian was just stuck in here with nothing to do until he finished.

It almost felt like his father expected him to complete the horns out of boredom.

If that was the expectation, then Gilgamesh had made a grave mistake, because Adrian could always think of something else to do.

He’d spent the first three days trying every spell he could think of to get a message out to Boston and his family.

Those had all failed, of course, but that didn’t mean he was done.

He just had to get more creative. His plan for today was his most out-of-the-box solution yet.

Also the riskiest, but prisoners who played it safe were prisoners who stayed caught.

Adrian was certainly ready to roll the dice.

If he had to spend another night in that silent, bright-white box of a bedroom with an unstable doll-woman who wouldn’t stop touching him, he’d go insane.

Put it like that and the risk felt much more acceptable, allowing Adrian to keep his hands steady as he painstakingly scraped all the sticky, naturally antibiotic pine sap into the golden bowl his soup had arrived in yesterday.

He’d just carried it over to the worktable where the Queen of Pride’s broken horns were scattered when a teary voice called his name.

“Adrian?”

Adrian looked up with an irritated scowl to see the princess standing in the bedroom doorway with a covered golden tray in her white hands.

“The servants brought your breakfast,” she said. “Do you want to come eat?”

Her voice was soft and apologetic, which meant he was getting the contrite princess today. That was better than the furious one who kicked over tables and screamed at him to love her, but he still didn’t want to deal with it.

“Leave it,” he said, ignoring the delicious smell of fresh coffee that wafted from under the tray’s cover because he wasn’t a dog who could be conditioned into obedience with food. “I’m busy right now.”

“Are you finally getting to work on the horns?” she asked excitedly, her distraught tone completely flipping around as she dropped his tray on one of the workshop’s empty tables and ran over. “That’s fantastic! Your father will be so pleased.”

Adrian shrugged and put his back to her, focusing all his attention on stirring the sticky sap with a metal file he’d found in one of the tool sets on the wall. He’d almost gotten it to the right consistency when the princess leaned her white head into his field of view.

“What’s that yellow stuff?” she asked, wrinkling her perfect copy of Bex’s nose. “It smells like air freshener.”

“It’s glue,” he lied.

The princess tilted her head sideways to give him a golden-eyed look of shock. “You’re gluing the Queen of Pride’s horns?!”

“Do you know a better way of sticking broken things back together?” he asked, putting the bowl of sap down with a clatter before walking away from her to inspect the shelves that lined the workshop’s far wall.

He’d already spotted what he was looking for yesterday, but there were so many golden tools and cuneiform-covered gewgaws that it took him a while to find it again.

After a few minutes of shuffling, Adrian spotted it behind an enchanted set of jeweler’s magnifying glasses: a gold-inlaid mahogany box containing a delicate set of woodcarving knives, awls, and chisels.

Those were all going to be useful, but what Adrian was really after was the box.

He broke the lid off by whacking it across his knee, ripping all three tiny golden hinges out in one clean hit.

He removed the rest of the metal ornamentation with the sharp point of the wood awl until he was left with just the mahogany.

The ancient wood was so covered in lacquer that Adrian could hardly make out the original grain anymore, but despite all that, it was still the product of a tree.

Not a tree that grew anywhere he was familiar with, but all forests were part of the Great Forest, and that made it good enough.

“Why are you breaking things?” the princess asked as Adrian carried his prize along with the woodworking tools back to the worktable where he’d left the sap. “If you needed a piece of wood, you could’ve just asked me to get you one. Your father put me here to help you, remember?”

Adrian did remember, which was why he hadn’t asked.

He still hadn’t figured out how much Gilgamesh was able to see through her golden eyes, but there was no way that white spybot wasn’t reporting in.

The less she knew the better, in Adrian’s opinion, which was why he kept his mouth shut tight as he sat himself down on an elegant white-and-gold-covered stool in front of the windows, braced the wooden box lid between his knees, and began to carve.

Approximately one hour later—it was impossible to say for sure since Heaven’s blinding light shone from the sky, not from an actual sun that moved—he’d whittled the thick cover down to a palm-sized carving of a fluffy, long-haired cat.

The ancient mahogany was dustier and more prone to tear-out than the oak, pine, and poplar he was used to working with, so it wasn’t his best carving.

He must’ve done a good enough job, though, because the princess’s golden eyes widened with a soft whir when he held the final product up to the windows to inspect the grain.

“Is that Boston?”

Adrian nodded, too overcome with emotion to bother lying.

Even when it was just a rough image, seeing his loyal familiar hurt more than he’d expected.

Boston must be so disappointed in him right now.

He’d warned Adrian over and over not to put so much trust in Malik, but Adrian had been flying high on his father’s praise and hadn’t listened.

He was determined to get back home and apologize, and for that, Adrian only needed one more ingredient.

Placing the little, dark-brown carving carefully on its wooden paws, Adrian reached into his empty coat pockets and started scraping his fingernails against the lining.

The Crown Princess’s search had been very thorough, but no amount of pocket-emptying could ever entirely remove cat hair.

He had to scrape every inch of the big pocket Boston liked to hide in plus three other pockets that had simply accumulated hair over time from being an everyday part of Adrian’s wardrobe, but eventually he managed to collect a nice, fat, fist-sized cloud of Boston’s long, black fur.

He rolled it into a ball between his palms, and then he picked up the carving he’d just made and dunked it by the tail into the bowl of sap.

When the whole cat was coated in sticky, piney glue, Adrian pressed it into the wad of fur he’d made, crushing the two together in his fist to make sure every inch of the little Boston was covered.