No demons, no blood, no cotton candy–covered little boy. No oncoming demon horde rumbling over the street. Just a beautiful October day in New England.
Outside, the pink-haired woman pivoted, and her gaze slid to my window as she stroked her orange cat. Unease flickered through me. I’d seen her before, hadn’t I? I had the disturbing sense that she was spying on me, and I wondered if the demon hunters were finally catching up.
I slipped back out of her eyesight and dropped onto the sofa again. After another minute, I heard the sound of someone climbing the old, creaking stairs. Relief flooded me as the living room door swung open, and Shai stood in the doorway.
Her hair was a halo of brown curls, and a little leather bag rested against the houndstooth fabric of her skirt. “Hey girl. Are you just waking up?”
“Is it that obvious?” When I looked down at myself, I saw my tangled red hair hanging over wrinkled pajamas. I rubbed my eyes. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I passed out here sometime after the sun came up, I think. I just had the worst fucking nightmare about Orion.”
She crossed the living room to the kitchen. “I’m making us cappuccino.”
“I love you,” I called out.
“You’ll love me even more when you see what I brought back for you.”
Excitement lit me up. “Is it the iron gauntlet, by any chance?”
“Sure is,” she called out from the kitchen over the sound of frothing milk. “And I already started spreading the word that you’re not Mortana. The whole city is abuzz with the gossip.”
A few minutes later, she crossed back into the living room, holding two white coffee cups on saucers, and slid them onto the table.
I picked up my cup, delighted to see that she’d powdered the frothy milk with a dusting of cocoa. Gods, it was really nice to be taken care of. “How did you get your hands on the gauntlet?”
She sat in the armchair across from me but made no move to open her bag. “Are you sure you want to do this tonight?” she asked, ignoring my question. “It seems so soon to take on the son of a demon god.”
Any moment, that glorious buzz of caffeine would hit my veins, jolting me awake. “It’s never going to feel like a good time to challenge a demon king, and I don’t have a ton of time. There’s a woman with a cat who keeps walking past the apartment like she’s spying on me.”
“Okay…” Her voice trailed off, and then she said, “I know you’re the Lightbringer.” She didn’t sound convinced, though.
“Shai. Tonight’s the night.” I stared at the velvet book. “It’s the moonlight festival. It’s perfect. Everyone will see the trial by combat. If I win, there will be thousands of witnesses.”
She tapped the side of her cup. “Well, if you’re going to go ahead with it, let’s not say if you win. Let’s say when you win. Anything else is unacceptable and simply cannot come to pass. Do you understand?”
I had the sense that Shai was annoyed at me for putting my life at risk, but I didn’t have much choice.
“It’ll be fine.” I still had that little boy’s pink-sugared face in my mind. “I’m a Lightbringer, remember?”
She took a deep breath, her expression relaxing. “If you say you can do it, then I believe you.”
At last, she reached into her bag and pulled out an ancient-looking iron glove, a piece of carefully crafted armor. She gently placed it on the table next to the book. I stared at the hinges and delicate metal plates that had once allowed a warrior’s fingers to move, to grip the hilt of a sword. In a ray of honeyed sunlight, Lucifer’s star gleamed from the back of the gauntlet—a bright spark of gold on the iron. I reached out and traced my fingertips over it, surprised by the jolt of ancient magic that shot into my fingertips when I touched it. A smile curled my lips. That felt like a sign from the demon god himself.
“Shai, how, exactly, did you get the gauntlet? I thought it was hidden in a secret temple.”
“Legion helped me.”
His image flickered in my mind—the black-haired demon with golden skin and tattoos that twisted over his muscular forearms. “So the leader of the Sathanas Ward knows I’m coming in for the trials.”
“Everyone knows. The rumors already spread. They know Mortana is dead and that you’re her sister. Or whatever. They know you’re a Lightbringer.” She sipped her coffee, then licked the froth off her upper lip. “Everyone saw your mark when you were about to kill Cambriel. You have a claim to the throne. Any demon would try it.” She leaned back in her chair, peering at me over her coffee cup. Steam curled before her face. “Even if they don’t know you’re coming tonight, they think you’re either going to challenge Orion or marry him. Either way, if you live, you’ll be queen.”