And yet Corinthia’s voice cut through it all. Perfidy?

Mmm?

I am here.

Whut is goin’ to happen? Perfidy thought, her words taking shape despite the muddled miasma that was her mind.

We’re going to fight, Corinthia said, and then she growled, the sound just as muffled as everything else. Perfidy’s eyes flashed open, vision returning just in time to watch the demon land and be immediately ravaged by the bloodpanther, who slashed him across the face and then grabbed his arm, tearing at his scaled flesh.

With a hiss, he backhanded Corinthia across the face with his other hand, following up the blow with a clawed kick that sent her sprawling back. Lying still.

“We…fight…,” Perfidy murmured, trying to move. Her body refused to obey, even as a shadow stood over her, fangs bared.

“Enough,” the demon said.

Ludo

Moments earlier

“No. He’s here. My father,” Bryony said, voice weak and slurring. She looked like she might pass out at any moment.

Ludo frowned, turning his head. Landing on the face of a man who he hadn’t really paid much attention to earlier because he’d only seen him from behind and what he’d seen wasn’t very impressive, just the hunched-over form of someone well past their prime.

It was the face of the monster from his nightmares. “Fire Eater,” he said.

“That is what they called me, yes,” the man said. “You know my daughter?”

“Our paths crossed a while back.” The fire, built of dark tendrils of flame, was slowly surrounding them, but Ludo couldn’t tear his eye away from his adversary.

“You want me dead then too?”

That word…‘too’…didn’t make sense to him. How could it? Why would Bryony want her own father dead, unless…

His thoughts were cut short when the man spoke again. “You lost your eye during the fire, didn’t you?” He gestured to his own eye, as if pointing at his own undamaged eye was at all representative of the sightless pit dug into Ludo’s face.

“I lost a void of a lot more than my eye.”

“Who?”

“My brother. He was just a child. I was too.”

The man stepped forward, his gaze tightening, searching Ludo’s face for…something. “You…I know you.”

Ludo’s jaw tightened and he felt the urge to hit something—this man’s face perhaps. “You know my face because my brother once wore it too. He was my twin.”

“Incredible. I didn’t know…”

“Would it have mattered if you did? Or would you have tried to murder me too?”

Whatever response the Fire Eater might’ve uttered was lost as one of the dark fireballs ripped over his head, crashing down at Ludo’s feet and sending him airborne. He clung to Bryony’s weakened form, angling his own body to protect her.

They came thundering down, the impact punching the breath from his lungs as he absorbed the worst of it.

“It’s me you want,” came Cainan’s voice. Through the smoky haze, Ludo saw the winged demon standing over a lifeless form—the girl who’d knocked Bryony’s knife out of her hands. The massive panther was down, too, lithe body curled about itself, unmoving.