Page 58 of Wings of Lies (Daughter of the Seven Circles #1)

“Your price for that question,” Magda said, pausing. She pursed her lips, rubbing her necklace. “Tell Lucy your deepest, most coveted desire. That you would do anything for.”

He squinted at her. “Why’d you make that sound dirty?” Oliver snorted. “I’m pretty sure, Lucy, and now everyone, knows what I want most. It’s my sister.”

Magda softened her expression. “Yes. The Mother of Demons has her. ”

Oliver flew at Aspen. I jerked to a stand and held out my hands to stop his approach. Aspen may be vile and cruel, but I couldn’t help but feel the urge to protect him.

“He doesn’t know of her, Nephilim. He never has,” Magda said after a tense moment.

My stuttering heart slowed. We both settled back into our seats, eyeing each other.

“How?” Oliver whipped back to the witch. “How could he not?”

Magda slid her hand from her necklace up to her mouth, rubbing her dainty lips and exposing her white pendant, which turned pink. “Is that your next question?” she asked.

Oliver shot Aspen a scathing glare, fingering the tiny knife sheathed at his side. “Yes,” he said, green eyes flashing once before returning his focus to Magda.

Magda rubbed her pink, slowly turning purple, pendant. “What lengths would you go to rescue your sister?”

“All of them,” he answered immediately.

“Would you kill for her?

Oliver looked at Magda like she suddenly turned into an old hag.

She smiled. “You’ve never killed anyone in your life, have you? So would you kill for her?”

“It depends on who I’d need to kill. Marcus, yes. The princeling, maybe. Lucy, no.”

Magda pouted. “I suppose that’s a fine enough answer. Yes. The prince doesn’t know about her because she’s kept in a secure location only the queen knows about.”

“Where?” he demanded.

“That’s a question.”

“I’ll pay the?— ”

She waved her hand. “Don’t bother. My amulet won’t show me. Next question.”

Oliver ran two hands through his hair and nodded to me.

It was my turn.

“How do you get rid of a Hell Rune?” I asked, avoiding the big question and the reason I was in Elora. But faced with the prospect of learning what my mother had done and where she was, stole the air from my lungs. I wasn’t ready. And I needed to fix Aspen.

Magda’s eyes glittered. “Your price is to tell the prince how you feel about him.”

Every muscle from my toes to my jaw tensed. I shoved at the flush threatening to overtake my face. “What do you mean?”

Magda smiled big and bright, almost like she enjoyed my discomfort. “You know exactly what I mean.” Her smile dropped. “Tell him.”

Needing a moment to think, I dropped my gaze to her chest, ignoring the creaking of wood and rattling chains.

Her lavender pendant changed colors again, darkening to blue.

At first, I thought the pendant changed colors with each question and answer, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Something else triggered the color change, though that detail seemed irrelevant as I avoided the question.

“What if… I’m not sure?”

Magda lifted a brow, lips flat. “That’d be a lie. Lies are not part of the deal, darling.” Her pendant flickered between purple and blue as her nostrils flared. “Do you want your answers?” she threatened.

I did, but I could hardly deal with my emotions myself. And telling him… It didn’t feel right. Not now. Not like this. But I haven’t asked about my mom yet, and we couldn’t get kicked out now .

Oliver grimaced like he knew exactly what I was going through. Magda sat and stared, waiting with a severe expression. And Aspen, I didn’t dare look behind me at the sneer or disgust waiting on his face.

“I—”

Damn it.

The tips of my ears burned, along with my neck, cheeks, forehead, and pretty much everything else.

Shutting my eyes, trying my best to ignore everyone, I spoke. “I always thought he’d be the handsome prince to steal me away from my life.” I scoffed. “In a way, he was. His dimples, touches, and actions all got under my skin.”

The day he called me sweetheart, his mantra of protection, stay here, stay put, stay safe , even when he warmed my leg to help the pain as he sewed me up, it all got under my skin. I opened my eyes, gazing at Oliver with a sad, resigned expression, remembering his words.

“I have feelings for him, for the male I met in the forest. But not for the male ruled by the rune who takes helpless females to his queen,” I finished with a terrible ache in my gut and a cement house on my chest. Part of me wanted to be swallowed whole by a Hellhound right about now, especially feeling the heat from Aspen’s hands inches behind me.

Magda’s face transformed with a brilliant smile. Her pendant shone a steady dark blue, no longer flashing.

“Mmhmm,” she moaned, shutting her eyes. “I quite enjoyed that answer.”

I glanced at Oliver, who mirrored my what the hell expression.

When Magda opened her eyes, they were the same shade of color as her pendant .

“Unfortunately, there’s only one person who can remove a Hell Rune, and he is locked away.”

I frowned. That’s all? “Who? That shouldn’t cost extra. I gave you a good answer.”

Magda regarded me with a perfectly plucked lifted brow. “I don’t give out freebies. I give what I want. But I’ll meet you halfway and answer with, the general to the Mother of Demon’s husband.”

“Say what?” Oliver jerked back. “There’s a Father of Demons?” He held up a hand as Magda opened her mouth. “No, that wasn’t a question. My mind is currently blown and trying to reconfigure. Please give me a moment.”

He wasn’t alone.

Slowly, not wanting to but forcing myself, I turned to Aspen. He met my gaze, jaw ticking away.

“Your queen is married?” I asked.

“My queen is bound to the male, but they despise each other. I understand the feeling.”

I sat back, taking in his disdain, wondering how many more of these looks and hurtful words it would take to erase the Aspen who wiggled his way into an innocent female’s heart, wondering if it was all lies or if some of his words held truth.

“Not hard to despise someone like her,” Oliver muttered, bringing me out of my head.

Aspen clenched and unclenched his jaw. The queen’s disgusting Hell Rune swirled with black light, coercing his loyalty and infiltrating his mind.

Even if there was a slight chance Aspen wasn’t lying about what he thought of me, he deserved to be free of his queen.

His mom asked me to save him. I don’t know how it worked or how she knew I’d end up in the dream-walk, but she knew enough to tell me.

She anticipated the consequences before Marcus took her son, and she acted in his best interests.

I turned from Aspen and faced Magda, not ready but as ready as I would ever be.

“What else do you have for me, darling?” Magda twirled a lock of her golden hair.

Was it shinier than normal?

A jangling hand latched onto my shoulder. “One last question.”

I jerked around. “I have more than one.”

Aspen shrugged. “Should’ve asked the important ones first. That’s not my problem.”

“Go to hell,” I whispered forcefully, holding back tears at his indifference, wishing for his dimples and soft touches. “I’ve come this far, and I’m not leaving without knowing everything about my mother and the king in my head.”

His hand dug into my shoulder. “What king in your head?”

“Ask me, Lucille,” Magda said with a smile in her voice.

Aspen shot a glance at Magda before landing back on me. “One,” he repeated. By his tone and the way his fingers threatened to tear apart my chair, he meant it. Kicking or screaming, he would make me leave. Good thing we cuffed him.

“Did my mother poison me to protect me?” I asked, hating the wobble in my voice and the way my lungs seized.

Magda’s blue pendant changed to blood red, and the glee I witnessed on her face—like she somehow won the biggest prize—unsettled me.

“I’ll tell you that interesting tidbit if you tell me what you are.”

Why did she want to know that ?

“I believe I’m a born angel, the first of my kind,” I said. Oliver’s eyes grew.

Aspen scoffed. “No, you’re not.”

“I am,” I insisted.

Magda tilted her head, rubbing her pendant. “Yes, I sense you believe that, but that’s not all you are.”

“What else am I?”

She licked her lips. “Isn’t that the question of the hour? But to answer your previous question, yes. She thought it was the only way.” Magda crossed her ankles, smiling with shimmering hair.

Relief settled the queasiness in my stomach. There was a reason my mom did it. It wasn’t malicious, so she probably wasn’t working for Marcus, but why was he there, and where were they now?

“Do not ask anything else unless you want to be strangled,” Aspen snapped, digging his tingly fingers underneath my arm, trying to force me to stand.

I wrenched at my arm, but his fingers only gripped harder. So, I grabbed onto the heavy wooden chair. It didn’t stop him, but it made dragging me a little more difficult for him.

“Sweetheart, let go!”

I froze, twisting around to look at his chin, giving him the time to slide his arms over my head and haul me out of the chair and back against his chest. The rune remained black.

He tricked me.

Aspen gripped my chin, smirking as he pulled us to the door. “The only person who gets to maim you is my queen. So, keep your mouth shut.”

“Now you sound like Brock,” I spat before he covered my mouth. He flinched as the rune flickered, but it wasn’t enough. My presence, my words, my touch, nothing was enough to get him back. I needed the general to the queen’s husband.

Oliver stood, bouncing his attention from the scene we were making and Magda, who sat daintily smiling in her chair, golden hair gleaming.

I ducked, forcing Aspen’s cuffed hands to choose between muffling my words or keeping me close. He attempted both by pressing a hand into my chest and mouth, failing to silence me.

“Where is she? Where’s my mom?” I asked, voice muffled but strong.