Chapters (42)
- Title Page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Acknowledgements
- Also by Kim Harrison
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
- Cover
Emotion crossed his face, too fast for me to read. “There’s the other half,” he said, letting go of the other wrist and settling himself more comfortably beside me, our shoulders touching. “One that I deem hogwash, but if you believe it, I’ll allow it.”
Feeling less penned in, I shifted my half of the blanket up around my shoulders. “I want to know what you did for the coven to kill you,” I said, then hesitated. “Why you’re still helping me when you know I’m demon kin. You kill demons. Or try to, anyway.”
He stared at the rock wall across from us. “You don’t know how to play this game. Those are wants, not truths.”
My wrists were fine, not even red in the dim light as I rubbed them, and I could feel his warmth on one side of me, though space was between us. This was okay. We could share a blanket. I guess. “How about playing my game, then,” I said. “The more you talk, the longer I’ll sit here under your blanket.”
He smiled at that, but it faded fast, and he stared at the stones and into his past with his hands laced over his shins.
“Did they kill you because of Eleison?” I asked, pulse fast. Please don’t let it be bad.
“Eleison wasn’t why, but it was the beginning of my end,” he said, voice soft in the glow of his magic-made light. “You know I destroyed it? Every last living soul?” he asked, his expression haunted, and when I nodded, his gaze became distant again. “They forgave me for that. What came afterward …”
The blanket slipped from my shoulder when he shifted to find a more comfortable position, and I tugged it back up, sending his scent over me along with the blanket. “Eleison was a small town, rife with foul magic,” he said softly. “I was a minor coven member, young. Newly taken to my vow. I was the plumber, as Ivy would say, out among the people settling issues, fixing things so that the secret of our species might not be espied. I was sent to Eleison to evaluate and bring back word, but when I found a black coven with a demon and three girls in their circle … I swan, their fear was a powerful thing. It would have been a sin to Moses had I not done something. The circle broke when I made my presence known, and the demon made his escape. I expected to make a die of it, but he didn’t kill me. Not right off the reel.”
His voice faltered, and I felt a surge of pity, imagining it.