“Your side?” Mariel looked between Astaroth and Calladia, hurt shining from her hazel eyes. “I thought you were on my side.”
“I am,” Calladia said. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it,” Oz said. He put a protective arm around Mariel, and she leaned into him.
Calladia was torn between conflicting impulses. A longing for that kind of casual intimacy, the urge to scoot closer to Astaroth, and the guilt of having let down her friends. How could she have fallen so quickly for him? Seeing her friends’ horror was a blunt reminder that the demon she’d been fighting so hard to save had committed crimes against them mere days before.
Haltingly, she gave an overview of events, from finding Astaroth bleeding on the street to Sandranella’s concerns about the balance of power on the demon plane. “Moloch wants to eliminate half-demon hybrids,” she said, “or at least strip them of rights.” She looked at Astaroth, wondering if it was okay to share his secret.
He sighed. “Go on, then.”
“Astaroth has always supported hybrid rights,” Calladia said. “Among other reasons, he’s half human.”
That set off a flurry of questions. How and why, why he’d lied, what it meant. Astaroth was growing tenser with every moment, so Calladia did her best to answer succinctly. When she mentioned how Isobel had stolen his immortality to supplement her own life, she reached under the table to grip his hand. Astaroth looked surprised, then squeezed her fingers in return.
“So,” Mariel said when the explanation was done. “Where we’re at now is that Astaroth doesn’t remember the last few hundred years, but he apparently knows something about Moloch that might defeat him.”
“He was going to share what it was at the council meeting,” Sandranella offered. “Baphomet intervened.” She clenched the stem of her water goblet so tightly, Calladia wondered if it would shatter. “He must have been working with Moloch for some time. Why else would he have agreed to such an extreme punishment?”
“Today’s murder attempt was a bit suspicious as well,” Astaroth said.
“We need to remove him from the council. Him and Moloch both. But how do we do that without leverage?”
Themmie piped up from halfway down the table, where she was sipping on a sickeningly pink milkshake the waitress had sworn contained no blood but lots of sugar. “Make leverage.”
“That’s why we’re trying to recover my memory,” Astaroth said. “Were you even listening?”
“Don’t be a dick,” Calladia said, smacking his arm.
He gave her a half smile. “But I do it so well.”
Themmie stuck out her now–bright pink tongue. “You aren’t thinking big enough. So maybe Astaroth has some kind of leverage on Moloch. Cool. But he can’t remember it, and Moloch’s already making moves, so we need to expand our approach.”
“Our approach?” Mariel asked, looking askance at the pixie. “Are you suddenly on Astaroth’s side, too?”
“No, I’m on the side of justice.” Themmie tucked her green-and-pink hair behind her ears, revealing a scattering of piercings. “However you feel about Astaroth, there are countless other hybrids who might be exiled, oppressed, or killed if Moloch gets his way. That’s worth fighting for.”
“Oh.” Mariel frowned. “Good point.”
“Moloch made a speech the other day,” Sandranella said. “He went to a public square and declared our species has grown weak because we accommodate impure demons. He wants to close the borders and outlaw breeding with humans or other species.”
“Boo,” Lilith said around a mouthful of questionable meat, which she’d ordered along with the werewolves—other than Ben, who was picking at a wilted-looking salad. Blood trickled down her chin. “That’s no fun.”
“He and Tirana have been planting hateful posters around town,” Sandranella continued. “There was a counterprotest from a few hybrids, but it went poorly, and most were thrown in the dungeon for inciting violence.”
Themmie’s dark brown eyes widened. “Whoa, you have a dungeon?”
“What happened to a fair trial?” Mariel asked, looking distressed.
“Being more level-headed, we don’t have as many . . . incidents . . . as humans do,” Sandranella replied. “If an incident is serious enough to require imprisonment, the high council normally presides over a trial.” Sandranella winced. “Moloch wants to skip that though. He’s advocating for banishment or execution of all hybrids.”