A hazy, distant memory danced in my mind—a dark-haired boy with brown eyes, leading me into the Elysian Wilderness. Older kids I’d once looked up to.
“Oh. A little.” But I didn’t want to remember that time.
“So many secrets,” Amon muttered. “Even keeping secrets from yourself.”
I had one other secret: I would love Rowan until I died.
And that was why I deeply regretted what I had to do next.
8
ROWAN
I didn’t need to follow Orion’s orders here. As a shadow scion, I could make my own decision about where to stay. But as much as possible, I wanted Orion to think of me as the clumsy mortal he’d first encountered. I wanted him to let down his guard and completely fail to prepare for the next trial. Which he probably would, because his ego would get in the way.
The palace’s lower floor had looked positively medieval. In the entryway, I’d found soldiers lined up on either side of a stone, each one wearing the blue uniform of a soldier, and the royal insignia of the king on their lapels—a crown with a star above it.
All the king’s men…
As I’d entered, the king’s men stared at me silently, still as statues on a floor of black and white tiles. Without a word, one of them had marched me up to my room.
When he’d shut the door behind me, I’d felt relieved.
My room faced the sea. In here, oak bookshelves lined two of the pale stone walls, and a few candle flames cast warm, dancing light over the room. A bed stood by the open balcony doors, covered in a cream duvet and enormous pillows. A wood table stood next to it, and a brass lamp for reading.
When I surveyed the whole room, my heart squeezed hard in my chest. On one of the walls hung two portraits of my parents, taken from their mansion in the Asmodean quarter.
In a daze, I walked closer to them, staring. Before me was the father I’d never known, Duke Moloch—the same red hair as mine, fading to blond around his chin, plus high cheekbones and dark brown eyes like mine. Next to him, my mother looked out over my head, her dark hair piled high—elegant in a way I’d never known her.
The gilded frames looked brand new.
Why, exactly, would Orion reframe these and bring them here? He hadn’t known I was coming tonight, I thought. He must have left the festival after the trial and rushed around to get this room set up.
I stared up at Mom. Of course Orion was trying to make me comfortable. He would do whatever he could to get me to let down my guard.
When I glanced at the bedside table, I saw a pen resting beside a small pad of paper, which seemed like an odd touch. But when I moved closer to it, I realized it wasn’t just any pen. In a daze, I traced my fingertips over the little glittery rainbow symbol on the side, slightly worn with time. Here it was—my lucky pen. I’d been carrying it the night I’d met Orion. Which meant, of course, that it hadn’t been very lucky at all.
Still stunned, I turned it around in my fingertips. He’d kept it all this time? I’d even asked him for it in the prison cell, and he hadn’t given it back.
All these charming attempts to win me over…
I dropped it on the table and turned to eye the rest of the setup.
On the wall overlooking the sea, light streamed through a glass door. When I looked outside, I had a view of a balcony made of sand-colored stone. Beyond a low stone wall, the dark silver-flecked sea stretched out forever, blending into the night. Gorgeous.
I opened the door and stepped out into the salt-tinged air. As a demon, my vision was so much better, and I could even see stony islands far out to sea, silvered in the moonlight. The waves pounded against the rocks below me. Tucked in one corner of the balcony, a small, heated pool released curls of steam into the dark sky.
When I peered over the balcony, I found soldiers lining the shoreline. Who did they expect to be coming out of the water? If I had to guess, Orion had probably told them to report to him if I flew off this balcony.
With a sigh, I crossed back into my new room and shut the balcony door, then ripped a piece of paper off the pad. I scribbled a note to Orion:
I don’t need this anymore.
With the note finished, I pulled the door open. In the dark palace hall, two guards stood across from me. I walked up to one of them and thrust the note and pen into his hands. “Please give my regards to the king when you return this pen to him.”
*
The morning sun washed over me as I walked through the meandering streets of the Luciferian Quarter, looking for somewhere to get breakfast. A servant had knocked on my door this morning, offering to bring me food, but I wanted to get out and stroll around in the daylight.