She looked around the modest cabin. A single room, spare furniture, the basic necessities, but nothing that suggested the inhabitant was an immortal lord of hell.

“And all your treasures?”

“They will keep. Besides, they are nothing when my greatest treasure is here before me.”

She ran a hand through his hair. “I would like nothing more than to stay, but Mariel’s trial is at noon.”

He stilled. “You still plan to be her advocatus?”

“Of course. I gave you my body, Abraxas, not my soul. Mariel still needs me.”

She could tell he didn’t like that. “And what will you say in her defense?”

She turned to face him, pulling him up so that they were face-to-face. She had been thinking as they lay there, and she had decided. She did not know if he would approve, but it was the best way she could think of to save Mariel.

“I have a plan. Do you know Lilitha?”

He shook his head.

“She’s a saloon girl at the Eden, one of Hypatia’s passing fancies. She was there Aventum night, and she knew Daniel. She said he made eyes at her, and maybe he did. But she was jealous of Mariel, tried to turn me against her. And she’s a healer, knows her way around the human body.”

He frowned. “What are you saying?”

“She could have done it.”

“But she didn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” she countered. “She could have. That’s the point, right? And she said something about being responsible for people getting sick on some tonic she’d brewed up. They may have even died. She’ll never pass the Virtues’ spiritual fitness test.” She hadn’t been sure when she started to explain, but the more she talked, the more confident she became that it would work. That perhaps it might even be true.

Abraxas shifted away from her, and she immediately missed the heat of his touch, but she did not pull him back. “You want Lilitha to take the blame for Daniel’s murder?”

“It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

“She would never confess.”

“She will. Because we will make her.”

His face clouded over.

She said, “Do you remember the first time you came to the Eden? You brought your lovers.”

“Thralls. Whom I gave up for you, by the way,” he said, giving her a long look.

“Can’t you do the same to Lilitha?”

“They gave themselves to me in exchange for something they desired.”

“I know what Lilitha desires,” she said, thinking of how the girl had wanted so badly for Celeste to notice her, to think of her as her equal. “So all you need do is make the bargain, and she will be your thrall.”

Abraxas shifted, uneasy. “Even if I do this, it will only gentle her. I cannot compel her to confess.”

“I will wear the gloria.”