Page 39

It was, of course, because that was painfully easy to do, especially when juggling them between two authors across six stories.

“What does it matter?” Tarzul huffed, and for a second he was likable, but it didn’t last. “My scribe kept a meticulous schedule. She altered the human’s perimeter cuff the morning of the festival, and her next task was to alter it again the following morning. She did not arrive, did she?”

Severath shook his head.

“By the guard’s own admission, she did not arrive,” the councilor repeated, a fist banging on their shared desk as he glared at Severath. “For an entire night, your ward was essentially in a cage without a lock. All she had to do was sneak out, find the key, and destroy it.”

“Destroy it?” Severath hissed through grit teeth. “I thought we were speaking of a missing demon, not a harmed one.”

“Excuse me, council?” Rosalind lifted her hand, and Severath was glad she stepped forward before he could say more.

“ Why would Ember do any of that? She’s smart enough to understand that if someone hurt Elliran—which, we don’t even know happened—another demon could cast new runes on her cuff.

And if she did manage to sneak out in the night, why would she go back?

Why wouldn’t she just have all the runes removed from her cuff and run? ”

“Because humans are nasty little creatures, and this one is a known criminal,” Tarzul spat. “They taste blood once and they cannot be stopped.”

“Enough.” Fineril’s voice echoed into the chamber before Severath could shout himself. Beside her, the Horn of Rudiments pressed a hand to her chest and sucked in another melodramatic gasp.

This was getting ridiculous, and though Severath knew his anger would not solve anything, the truth would.

“I was with her.” Severath glared at Tarzul, uncaring what would come with the admittance.

“In her bed.” He hadn’t been explicit in his assessment, but he had admitted to intimate misconduct in a separate letter to Fineril.

Whether the horn shared those details, he wasn’t sure.

“Oh!” The pink demon leaned forward, face split with a grin. “This is getting good .”

Apparently those details hadn’t been shared. “I would have felt her body move out from under my tail that night. Ember remained with me.” As if it had a mind of its own, the appendage protectively wrapped around Ember’s ankle.

“So she seduced you into colluding?” Tarzul’a lip turned up in utter disgust. “One of our own betraying us?”

“No,” Ember’s voice broke into the council chamber as she stood.

Severath wanted to tug her back down, throw himself atop her, protect her, but he could only watch her cast a piercing glare at the Horn of Finance.

“Severath would never betray Heck. He was not with me—not that night. Other nights, yes”—and with that she gave him a faint, apologetic smile—“but I was alone the night Elliran disappeared, so you can’t blame him for anything.

I did not leave the house, but I was alone. ”

The Horn of Rudiments shrank back into her chair with a disappointed sigh.

“As we’ve established then, she has no alibi.” Tarzul waved a clawed hand through the air.

“Again, I’d ask for what exactly?” Rosalind had gotten bolder, crossing her arms and jutting out a hip despite her small size between and under the eyes of so many demons. “No one’s been killed that we know of.”

Just as quickly as she’d said it, Rosalind muttered an apology to Zaiya, but the lilac demon only strode up to the council and presented a folded piece of parchment from her pocket. “I received this the night after the festival.” Placing it on the table, she slid it toward Councilor Fineril.

The pale-yellow demon carefully unfolded the page, black eyes taking in what was written, then she passed it to the Horn of Rudiments, whose reading was much more animated, complete with at least two deity invocations.

Finally, she slid it to the Horn of Finance who squinted at the parchment for only a brief moment and exclaimed, “It’s a forgery! ”

Fineril tipped her head back slightly as if already exasperated, but her pink counterpart actually squealed with delighted surprise.

“And a lazy one at that—whoever wrote this didn’t even try to fake my scribe’s signature.

Not that a human could muster the magic to do it, but then a human wouldn’t even know to do such a thing, would they?

” Tarzul thrust the letter back at Zaiya, and she stared him down before delicately retrieving it.

“These words don’t all sound like hers,” Zaiya admitted. “But she’s the only one who knew those details.”

“So, you admit the human forged the letter.” Completely ignoring half of what she’d said, Tarzul sat back as if he’d made his case.

Zaiya’s composure weakened but remained. “No, I’m simply providing evidence. I didn’t even know Elli was missing until today; I just thought she was upset with me. I want her found , and I think this can help.”

“Zaiya, may I?” Severath held out a claw, and without hesitation she handed off the letter.

Demons who could cast all had unique, magical signatures, a thing Elliran would have utilized many times over as a scribe, but this carried no indication that it was from Elliran save for her name written plainly at the bottom.

It was clear that Tarzul thought this further implicated Ember, which was ridiculous, but it occurred to Severath that none of them knew why.

“Ember, would you please read this aloud for the council?”

He extended the letter to her, but her eyes only went terrifyingly wide and white as she shook her head.

He gestured encouragingly with the parchment.

Ember shook her head harder.

“Take it,” he said carefully, “and read it aloud to the council.”

She swallowed and whispered, “You know I can’t.”

“Just try.”

Ember finally took the offered page, the roundness to her eyes narrowing until that familiar frustration bubbled up like a pot on a stove.

She snorted through her nose, but turned to the council anyway, angry eyes flicking down to the words.

Her mouth opened and worked until the first correct sound came stuttering out.

She struggled through the second sound, and tentative pride swelled in his chest when she managed to pronounce the word, “Dear,” but triumph actually struck when she utterly botched the next.

Ember made a frustrated noise, a cross between a growl and a whine, and thrust the parchment back at him. “I can’t.”

“Ember,” he said with the patience he should have been using all along in the exact tone he knew she hated, “I am asking you to try .”

“I am trying,” she snapped, glaring at him in that way she had so many times, the one that was ferocious but never really violent. “You know I can’t read.”

“But I’ve been teaching you.”

“Only for a few weeks!” She had become equally helpless and enraged as she thrust a finger at the parchment. “I can’t remember what this squiggle is or this one either. And I’ve never even seen a word as long as this one! ”

Severath raised his brow and peered at where she pointed, nonchalantly telling her the beginning sound. He knew she especially hated when he did that.

She clicked her tongue and tugged the parchment back to her face.

More sounds, perhaps right, but she was too unpracticed, and Ember’s predictable anger won out.

“I don’t know this one either!” Fury flared in her brown eyes as she glared at Severath, and then they went glassy.

Her grip on the parchment was tight, and he could practically feel that grip around his heart as his chest squeezed. “Please, help me.”

It was all Severath could do to extend a hand and accept the page, turning to the council instead of embracing her and promising it would all be all right. That would simply have to wait. “As you can see, Ember cannot read.”

“Yes, we’ve established that,” she huffed, dropping down into the chair again.

“Which also means she can’t write.”

At his side, his human made such an exasperated noise, he was sure if she ever forgave him, she would never let him forget.

“So there was no way she wrote this.” He held up the letter written to Zaiya. Whether it was fake or not, it didn’t matter when it came to Ember.

“Oh!” The pink councilor clapped looking truly pleased. “Well, that was most impressive, wasn’t it Tarzul?”

The Horn of Finance looked ready to burst, especially when the demon at his side elbowed him, but his mouth remained clamped shut.

“I do wish we had more information about Elliran’s disappearance, but I’m not sure we can be of any more help.

” Severath returned the letter to Zaiya, gaze never leaving the council.

He studied the three faces as they each considered things in their own way, through anger, through excitement, through practicality.

The Horn of Rudiments was first to exhale sharply and collect her stack of parchment.

“Clearly, we have more work to do, but this, while exhilarating, is not getting us anywhere new.” She gestured to the lot of them with a flicking wrist. “And I don’t think the human’s really capable, to be honest. I mean, look at her—she’s so small!

Get back to me when you have different evidence, I’d love to see where this goes.

And to find Elliran, of course!” The pink demon stood, readjusted her glasses daintily, and grinned at the rest of the chamber. “Toodles!”

Fineril sighed as the other demon left, quickly looking to Tarzul. “Well, we’re adjourned, I suppose. We will discuss the next steps, but I would like a moment alone with Ember first.”

Severath was hesitant to leave the chamber with the others, standing just outside the door and eyeing the slightly singed place he’d temporarily trapped Drolmoth, but he trusted the Horn of Arbitration.

He silently acknowledged Rosalind and Zaiya when they left, and counted the moments as he waited in the empty, short corridor until the door finally opened and Ember emerged.

Severath took Ember’s face in his hands, cupping it gently and studying it for distress, but she only smiled up at him, dark hair falling away from her beautiful face. “You’re unharmed?” he asked in a whisper, afraid his voice would crack.

“I’m fine. Fineril just wanted to make sure I was comfortable going home with you. She says I’m no longer being assessed, but I should remain with a guard until they’ve found Elliran.”

“Oh, thank the gods.” Severath blew a relieved breath over her face and rested his forehead against hers. His eye drifted closed, reveling in the comfort of her skin against his until it suddenly popped open again. “You did…you did say you wanted to stay with me, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did.” Ember’s hands pressed atop his own, her cuff no longer glowing.

He smoothed thumbs over her cheeks. “I am sorry I wasn’t here.”

“But you were,” she said. “You always are.” And she kissed him.