Erin Evans - The Adversary

If she were like Temerity, Lorcan thought, you’d have a much bigger problem on your hands. For now, he needed space and quickly, before anybody got any more ideas.

“You’re interrupting,” he said.

When Farideh looked up at him, her expression was guarded-nothing for Temerity to see there. There at least was that. “Clearly.” She looked to Temerity and held out a hand. “You must be Temerity.”

Shut up, he thought. Shut up, shut up. There were too many things still hanging hidden in this conversation. Too many risks. And as much as he wanted to intervene, that might make things worse.

Temerity glanced at him, then crossed to take Farideh’s hand. “I should have guessed. Were you just going to leave her out there in the dark?” she asked Lorcan. “She can handle herself.”

“But can she handle Proskur?” Temerity considered Farideh. Looking for all the world as if she and the younger tiefling were about to be dear friends. Lorcan edged nearer.

Temerity turned Farideh’s arm up, revealing the fading streaks of dark magic tinting her veins. “A warlock,” she said, rubbing a hand over her forearm. “And so young.”

“Not that young,” Lorcan pointed out. “No younger than you were.” But the jab didn’t shift her attention, her growing ire back to him.

“Well,” Temerity said to Farideh, “then you still have time to grow wiser.” Still holding Farideh’s arm, Temerity looked over at Lorcan. “Whose heir is she?”

Shit. Shit . Lorcan sighed dramatically. “Can’t you guess? I feel as if every time I replace my Greybeard heir, they can hardly don their own clothes without instruction.” Lorcan shook his head, as if exasperated-not a lie, but the careful placement of truth by truth, and he prided himself on the difference. It was, after all, the sort of thing that separated devils from the cacophony of fiends howling throughout the planes. “What part of ‘sit outside and wait’ did you misunderstand?” he asked Farideh.

Farideh kept her blank expression, but her cheeks reddened and she wouldn’t look at him. Good enough, he thought. Fix it later. You’ll think of something.

Temerity held his gaze for a long time, as if she were trying to decide whether there was something to tease out of his comment.

“Don’t you have a little side room or something she could wait in?” he asked. “I seem to recall you do.”

Temerity rolled Farideh’s sleeve down over her wrist, any trace of her previous tractability gone. “Ten months is a long time,” she said. “I’ve had offers. Several. I won’t tell you it’s not tempting. But none of them said they could get me what I really want, so what was the point?”

“It’s hard to reclaim that sort of thing,” Lorcan admitted. This was going all the wrong ways. Four steps to Farideh. Twelve steps to the door.

“But not impossible,” Temerity said. “It sounds to me like there are plenty in the Hells who’ll consider a trade,” she said. “A soul for a soul.”

“Not many gods look kindly on that sort of trade,” Lorcan reminded her, shifting closer to Farideh, who was still watching Temerity cautiously. Good, he thought-she knew something bad was happening here. “You send another to the Hells, you might well end up unclaimed when your time comes. End up in the Hells anyway.”

“Better odds than I have now.” She stared at Farideh again. “Whose heir are you?”

Farideh glanced at Lorcan. “The Greybeard. Didn’t he say that?”

“It’s Titus Greybeard, dear. You’d know that if you descended from him.” Temerity shook her head. “You’re the Brimstone Angel, aren’t you? The heir of Bryseis Kakistos.”

“Would I walk the streets with such a valuable heir?” Lorcan scoffed. He slipped between the two women, pushing Farideh away from Temerity. Prod her, he thought, provoke her. Get her mad at him . “You knew I had more than one warlock. Just because she’s younger and-”

Temerity shoved him into Farideh. “Don’t play me. You don’t walk the streets with any of your warlocks. Not like this.”

“Necessity makes us all change paths eventually,” Lorcan said. He reached back to push Farideh toward the door, taking careful stock of Temerity’s expression. She’d likely try to scratch his eyes out-she’d tried it before. “You’re wiser than this. Or you were. Temerity, tell me you-”

Temerity pulled the rod from her apron so quickly he couldn’t react. But in the same moment as he spied the spell surging up the implement, Farideh kicked his knees in so that he fell under the bolt. He felt the magic sizzle across the edge of the spell that disguised him.

Before he could stand, Farideh grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, with a soft gasp of Infernal, through a vent in the world. One moment he was looking up at Temerity, at the rod pointed at his throat, the next there was a fold of darkness and brimstone closing over him, and when it passed, they were at the door. Farideh stepped in front of him, her own rod out and aimed at Temerity. Lorcan scrambled to his feet.

“If you don’t believe I’m no one,” Farideh said quietly, the faintest tremor in her voice, “then I think you know this isn’t a fight you want a part of.”

The dark powers of Malbolge crept up Temerity’s brand, clawing at her throat. “Little girl,” she said coolly, “don’t defend him. He’ll bring you to ruin in the end.”

“So will you, by the sound of it, and a lot quicker,” Farideh said, not lowering the rod. “Lorcan seems to have some fond feelings for you, but I don’t know you. I don’t like you. And your neighbors already seem to think I’m a criminal, so don’t think there is a thing stopping me. If I see you set one foot out into the street after us. .” She hesitated, no doubt sorting through suitable threats. “I’ll show you what it means to be the heir of Bryseis Kakistos,” she said.

Perfect, he thought.

Temerity didn’t falter, but neither did she come after them as they backed from the shop. The neighbors Farideh had mentioned were watching, and Farideh needed no prodding to hurry away from the shop, Temerity, and any rival Temerity might call down out of the Hells.

I should have cut her loose ages ago, Lorcan thought, glancing back at Temerity’s shop. She’d been easy to catch, young and disaffected and wanting so badly to rise above her grubby upbringing-and pretty enough to make it a pleasure to help her do so. And when the pact hadn’t done that to her liking, it had been a simple thing to trade her soul for a constant trickle of gold and the sorts of spells that kept the watch out of her hair. She’d thought him more a faerie story prince there to rescue her than a devil with his own desires. Age had made her wiser, but not enough to recognize that in her wanting, she was the author of her own fall. Lorcan was only the tool she’d used to make it happen.

And now she was looking for more powerful tools.

The streets were dark and poorly lit as they wound back through Proskur. From the shadows, cold, appraising eyes watched them pass. He kept Farideh pulled close. Try it, he thought at the sharpjaws lingering there. Oh, give me an excuse.

As they walked, Farideh didn’t say a word, and the longer she didn’t talk, the more Lorcan worried. The longer she was silent, the more she was deciding things for herself, not letting Lorcan explain and nudge her conclusions somewhere more palatable.

“You sounded ridiculous, back there,” he said. “Thundering around like some chapbook Chosen. Where did you get that nonsense?”

“One of us had to do something,” she said tightly.

“Darling, that wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Yes it was,” she said, still not looking at him. “I’m not an idiot. That’s how you talk to us. How you keep us in check.” She’d gotten much better at not wearing all her feelings on her sleeve, but not enough to hide the quiet shame and anger from the likes of Lorcan.