He and the rest of the council feared a return of the bad old days if the barrier keeping their opponents out of our shared universe ever fell. He feared it so much that he was even willing to work with the daughter of the greatest demon hunter ever in order to prevent it. My mother’s name was still feared and hated in the hells, despite her change of heart and her success in ridding them of the others of her kind. And despite the fact that the barrier currently protecting them was something she had made.

I guessed one good deed didn’t really make up for scouring a few thousand worlds.

But demons were practical, and the past was less important to Adra than the future, specifically his future. He didn’t want to die, and as one of the most powerful demons out there, he’d be a fat prize for some hungry god. So, he was putting up with us—the Circle, the Senate, even me—since he knew the demons couldn’t win on their own.

I trusted Adra—to a point—because I knew what he wanted.

The question was, what did Pritkin’s incubus want?

Because I didn’t think it was merely to help us in the war, as he’d claimed.

He’d said that he wanted to convince Pritkin to use more of his demonic powers against our enemies. Or, to be more precise, that he wanted me to convince him. “He won’t do it for anyone else, but he would do it for you.”

And maybe he would. But I wasn’t planning to test that theory, and not only because I wasn’t stupid. The more Pritkin used his demon side, the more control it gained over him, something I might have overlooked considering our current situation.

Except for one thing.

I had been warned.

“It is a simple question, is it not?” Artemis asked. “You are proposing to risk much for him.”

“He would do it for me.”

“Would he? They are self-serving creatures, demons—”

“You could say the same about humans—or gods.”

An eyebrow raised. “Perhaps. But we are not talking of them. But of a creature who is struggling against his very nature. Sooner or later, he will give into it. Perhaps it is best if it is among his own kind.”

“They aren't his kind! They're—” I thought about the demons I knew, from the mostly benign to the frankly terrifying. None of which reminded me in the slightest of the man downstairs. “He's human.”

“He is part human. It is his other half about which he has yet to learn.”