Chapters (58)
- About the Author
- Title Page
- Imprint Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Map
- Contents
- Prologue
- 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
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Acknowledgments
- Endmatter page 1
“Mercenary spies, mostly. They sell their services to any royal House that has use for them. There are a few who are only loyal to Pride. They’re mostly incorporeal and are very hard to kill. Magic doesn’t always work on them the way you’d imagine it to.”
Very hard to kill wasn’t impossible to kill. A silver lining if ever there was one. “If it’s supposed to be spying, why reveal itself?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it, witch? They typically don’t speak at all.”
“Do you think Greed hired it?”
“Why would I think that?”
I looked him over for signs of deception. Surely he knew his brother was here. “Because I spoke with him in his gambling den right before my grandmother was attacked. And I may have tricked him into giving me more information than he’d originally agreed to. It’s not his sin, but I’m sure his royal pride was injured.”
“Funny.” Wrath gave me a dry look. “It is nearly impossible to fool a prince of Hell.”
“Well, unless he was lying about who he was, tricking him wasn’t that hard.” I couldn’t tell if Wrath believed me, and I didn’t care. “You said that some Umbra demons are loyal to Pride . . . do you think he sent them?”
Given the fact that it stole one of his horns, it seemed likely. But Wrath didn’t know that’s what I’d been after when I’d invaded the Viperidae nest. I was interested in his response.
“It’s possible, but not probable. Not when I’m here. An Umbra demon can’t transvenio to the underworld. They can only slip between realms if a prince sends them, or if they’re summoned. And even then that sort of power can only be used during specific periods.”
“How does traveling between realms work?”
“It’s like plucking threads of time, and weaving them in different places.”
Vague. “If someone was trying to summon the devil . . . would you be able to tell?”
Wrath cut a sharp glance my way. “He can’t be summoned.”
“What if someone had the Horn of Hades? Could Pride be summoned then?”
The demon prince went very still. His surprise only lasted a second before a slow smile spread across his face. “You’ve been busy.”
I had been, and I’d done a decent job so far of tracing my sister’s steps, but now I needed help. Wrath might be my enemy, but he’d saved my life. I hoped it meant I could trust him.