“Just because you’re Felix’s brother doesn’t make you immune to court law,” Elric said. “If you should bring any unpleasantness into my castle, don’t think I will hesitate to throw you into the dungeon. And I don’t mean your brother’s morbid little chamber of pain and pleasures. I will throw you into the real dungeon if you commit any crimes tonight.”
“What are you talking about? Do you mean Felix tortures people?” Lucifer knew his brother was an emo weirdo, but that was about all he knew about him.
“Oh, I suppose you don’t know about that. Forget I mentioned it.” Elric laughed airily. “Tell me, Lucy, that ratty old blanket on the bed made with Amni Plandai magic and your Red affinity . . . does it have something to do with those books Clarissa keeps under lock and key? Something to do with our darling Abby?”
Lucifer’s mouth when dry. He couldn’t tell if Elric was an ally or foe. Would he try to stop Lucifer if he knew what he intended?
“Vega mentioned it was unlikely Baba would allow you to attend the ball unless she had an ulterior motive with Abby.” Elric’s lips curled up into a sly smile. “So what did she make you agree to do in order to permit you to come? What agenda does that witch have that might interfere with tonight’s festivities?”
“None. Baba couldn’t care less about your ball.” Though she had told him she would only allow him to attend if he had learned certain spells. He assumed she had a reason for that, and her reasons were to ensure his survival, not for selfish reasons.
Then again, wanting the Ruby of Divine Wisdom to give her immortality wasn’t completely unselfish.
Elric leaned in closer. The man was smaller than Lucifer, but the magic emanating from him was so suffocating, Lucifer edged back.
“What is it Baba most desires?” Elric inhaled deeply as if he could smell Lucifer’s fear. “She asked you to steal my wife’s scepter, didn’t she?”
“No,” Lucy said quickly.
“I can smell the lie on your breath.”
Lucifer held his breath. He forced himself to think of the truth, to fuse that into his words. “She didn’t ask me to steal a bloody scepter.” That was the truth. She’d only wanted the ruby.
“You won’t be the only one after the Ruby of Divine Wisdom tonight.” Elric leaned back on his heels, eyeing Lucifer with distrust. “Unfortunately, you haven’t thought this plan through. Baba wants you to commit her crimes for her, but one step out of line, and you’ll lose something far more precious.” His grin widened, exposing startlingly white teeth.
A chill settled in the pit of Lucifer’s belly. Did he mean Abigail? Would he keep Lucifer from seeing her? He wouldn’t be able to restore her soul if Elric banned him from court.
Hurried footsteps sounded in the hall outside.
Elric nodded, as if suspecting the secret fears in Lucifer’s heart. “Speaking of the little angel. . . .” Elric lifted an eyebrow.
Abigail rushed back into the room, tugging on the sleeve of a small woman with pointed ears that were too long and large for her diminutive frame.
“I hear there’s a dance emergency,” the woman said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Let’s Get This Party Started
Lucifer would have preferred time alone with Abigail rather than a dance lesson. He tried to use his affinity to feel her soul, but he struggled to concentrate on magic and footsteps at the same time. He had so much to accomplish and only one night before he would have to return home.
Some of Abigail’s friends dropped in during the lesson to meet him. All they actually did was gawk at him. Her friends were all children from her classes, some of them eight or ten. A few were older. The classes were organized by competency rather than age, so it made sense that her peers in Amni Plandai skills were teenagers like she was since she was advanced in that area.
Lucifer was glad she had friends. From her initial letters he had been afraid she might have felt alone here. He could see now how she fit in, even if it had taken some time to adjust. He didn’t want to ruin any of that for her when he restored her soul. She might become a different person.
Nor did he want to make her life difficult with her friends after he stole the ruby. It was up to him to see to it that she remained innocent and separate of the crime he would commit that evening.
“I always thought Lucy was a girl when she talked about him,” one of the children whispered.
Lucifer laughed at that.
“I had no idea he was sooooo old,” someone giggled.
Lucifer didn’t feel that old. Thirty years ago, when they both had been teens, he had only been two years older than she was. Once she’d been revived in her new body, he had thought she was fourteen or sixteen. Now he couldn’t tell. Time flowed faster for her while she was here, so she was aging while he wasn’t. She would soon catch up with him.
He didn’t know how much older she was cognitively anymore. Her mind was progressing at a rapid rate. She spoke like an adult.
Her soul was another matter. One that pressed on him as much as the oppressive clothes he had been forced to wear.
When it was at last time for Abigail to join the royal family to greet guests, Lucifer paced the stately room alone, considering all he had to accomplish.
Evaluate Abigail’s soul. Put the old one in. Steal the ruby. Use a portal to escape.
He could do this as soon as the ball was over. He had hours until morning. His hands were clammy, and he wiped them on his pants.
A few minutes later, Peter came to fetch him. Lucifer hid the woven blanket under the covers of his bed and directed Peter not to allow anyone to touch it.
Lucifer didn’t have any other choice unless he wanted to wear the blanket as a cape all evening.
“Yes, of course, Your Highness. I will lock these doors when I’m gone, and when I’m present, I shall guard your belongings with my life.” Color had returned to Peter’s cheeks. His snooty tone was in full effect now, though he didn’t project the same disdain as earlier.
If there was anyone in the castle Lucifer suspected he could trust, it was the valet, though that allegiance would only go so far. Clarissa was still his master.
Peter walked Lucifer down the stairs and up another flight to the grand staircase that led to the ballroom. Classical music and the distant murmur of voices drifted toward them. Lucifer tried to swallow the knot of anxiety in his throat.
Peter clapped Lucifer on the back. “Good luck, Prince Lucy. And do try to enjoy the party.”
Lucifer supposed the grim determination on his face gave his apprehensions away. “It is required I attend, then? There’s no way of getting out of this?”
Peter actually laughed, more of his stuffiness disappearing. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you have need of my assistance finding your way around or need me to escort you back to your room for a fresh set of attire or anything else, just whistle. No matter where I am in the castle, I’ll hear you.”
“Whistle?”
Peter made a low whistle that sounded like a songbird.
Lucifer did his best to imitate the sound. All the times he had spent entertaining Abigail with the sounds of animals in the past finally came in handy.
“Very good, Your Highness.” Peter bowed. “I will hear you if you should call.”
Lucifer was grateful for the servant’s kindness.
Lucifer stood in a short line to be announced, listening to baroque music drift up from the room below. He could hardly believe the ballroom was the same place Vega and Clarissa had battled the previous Raven Queen and destroyed her and her evil entourage. There was a chance for Witchkin half-breeds to survive and be treated as equals in this new world order. With not one, but two, Witchkin queens reigning and fighting injustice against their people, Abigail would live in the kind of world he wished she could have seen in her previous incarnation.
Everything was so bright and cheerful, the walls sparkling with crystals and reflecting the l
ight of chandeliers. He didn’t remember the floor being a checkerboard pattern of gold and white tiles before. It had been too gloomy to see more than shadows before.
At least two hundred guests milled around the elegant ballroom at the bottom of a set of stairs. The royal family sat on thrones on the far end of the grandiose room. He supposed Vega wanted an impressive number of guests to receive him so they could gossip about him all evening.
When Lucifer came to the front of the line, he handed the man at the top of the stairs a card with his name on it. The man spoke with a voice that was amplified over the murmur of people and music, magic sparkling around his lips. “Prince Lucifer Thatch, Great-Grandson of the Late Queen Morgaine of the Raven Court, Brother of King Felix Thatch of the Red Court, and Apprentice to Baba Nata, the Witch of Nightmares who is great-grandmother to Queen Vega Bloodmire of the Raven Court.”
Lucifer didn’t particularly like that all his titles relied on his relationships to people he resented. Couldn’t they have announced him as “Beau to Abigail MacQuillan” or better yet, something that was his very own? Healer of Witchkin Patients?
Lucifer descended the steps to the immense room. His affinity was assaulted by a landslide of sensations. He wasn’t used to being among so many people. Pleasure and pain rippled across the room, the force of it enough to make his footing falter on the steps.
When Lucifer was in the cottage, he was used to shielding himself from the constant ache of Baba’s arthritis or nicks and scratches Kelsie might have gotten gathering berries. At most, a patient in labor or severe pain might affect him, but this was far more people than he was used to. Lucifer’s knees turned to jelly as an onslaught of physical sensations assaulted him.
A bout of gout nudged at him from one of the guests, followed by someone’s irritable bowels somersaulting in anxiety. A tickle of a sore throat and a burn someone was attempting to hide crashed down on him. There were so many uncomfortable sensations to shield against at once.
Lucifer attempted to process the pain and transform it into energy he could use, but it was far too much. It took him several breaths to block it and numb the sensations. He should have prepared himself before entering the room. He’d known there would be hundreds of people here.
Lucifer forced himself to walk slowly and calmly to the railing. He leaned against it, pretending to admire the room and listen to the music. With a few more breaths, and focusing his energy, he felt more in control.
The last time he’d stepped inside the ballroom, iron cages had dangled from the ceiling, holding prisoners. For a moment, that was all he could see, the blood and shadows that had once haunted this room.
Lucifer could hardly imagine what the old Abigail had been through as a prisoner. He didn’t want to think about all the ways he had failed her. If he had been able to rescue her sooner, she wouldn’t have been so desperate that she would turn into a tree and lose her humanity. He wouldn’t be in this mess now after botching the job of putting her soul in her human body. He placed a hand over the bottle safe against his heart.
Lucifer blinked and saw the ballroom as it was now, shimmering and bright. The ornate wainscoting was filled with Celtic designs that danced and shifted, either an illusion of glamour or the stone enchanted by some kind of spell.
Lucifer had been prepped that he was to greet the sovereigns before taking his seat with the guests. He scanned the tables for Abigail in her pale dress, but there were so many people, and most of the women wore pastels. She was so petite that she would be lost among taller figures, even with her bright auburn hair.
The royal family sat on their thrones on a dais at the far end of the room, overlooking the crowd. The two queens sat beside each other, dressed in regal gowns, Clarissa in red ruffles that jarred against her hot-pink hair, while Vega wore black trimmed with feathers and beaded fringe. Elric had changed from his earlier silver attire and replaced it with all black like his wife’s. Elric greeted Lucifer with a smile that was probably fake.
Lucifer’s stomach twisted seeing his brother. He might have been best friends with Felix when he’d been seven, but he hadn’t forgotten how his brother had abandoned him the first chance he could get. It was still difficult not to blame Felix for that.
Felix sat beside Clarissa on the end, the only one looking like he hated being there. Considering how conservative he was, he probably loathed being dressed in all-red finery like his wife.
Out of the four of them, only Vega Bloodmire looked comfortable in her attire.
Lucifer’s eyes fixed on the three-foot scepter Vega held. The base was made of a spiral unicorn horn. Delicate metalwork wove around it at the head to support a faceted ruby the size of a goose egg. Vega caressed the scepter, leaning against it casually.
There was no way Lucifer could swipe it without her noticing. He doubted she would allow him to hold it either, even if he asked nicely with incubus magic. Surely there would be a point in the evening she would have to trust it to someone else’s care. When she was eating perhaps? Dancing? He tore his gaze away before anyone could suspect his intentions to steal it.
Lucifer bowed as the valet had instructed earlier, but he felt stiff and uncomfortable in his clothes. He would swear every eye in the room was fixed on him.
“How kind of you for coming to our quaint party to celebrate this glorious day,” Felix said with the bored formality of someone who had recited the line for the hundredth time. “We hope you’ll enjoy the ball as much as we shall.”
Lucifer wasn’t sure how to take his brother. He had never gotten used to his stiff and formal manner, nor the way he concealed his every feeling under an expressionless face that could have easily been a mask.
“Um,” Lucifer said.
“How are you, Lucifer? Were the accommodations satisfactory?” Clarissa asked, her smile deceptively friendly for someone who had stolen Baba’s spell books out of his room without explanation or apology.
He tried to keep the irritation from his face. “Indeed. How kind of you to inquire.” He was careful not to thank her. Lucifer didn’t want to owe Clarissa anything now or ever.
“I trust you are in good health?” Felix asked.
Lucifer nodded. He tried to keep his eyes off the shimmer of light reflecting on Vega’s ruby.
There was a long pause, the sounds in the room encroaching on the awkward silence, music and people murmuring. Lucifer suspected there were other formalities he was supposed to act out, but he’d already forgotten what they were.
Vega exchanged a smirk with her husband. “I suppose Baba probably asked you to come because she wanted a favor from me.”
“Um,” Lucifer said.
Elric smiled and waved at a guest, pretending not to have heard. Lucifer didn’t doubt he’d told his witch queen wife about their exchange earlier.
Clarissa smacked Vega’s arm with a red fan that matched her flamboyant gown. “Vega, hush. You’re being rude. Save your mind games for another time.”
“It’s only a matter of time before he asks for a favor. That’s why half of them have come. I’m making it easy for our Lucy.” Vega winked at him. “If it isn’t to forge alliances with our courts, it’s because they want something. All of them.” Her eyes narrowed as she smiled at the crowd.
Lucifer had always felt mixed feelings about Vega Bloodmire, a woman who kept her own agendas concealed. There were times she had helped him and Abby, but only if it suited her. He wondered why she had invited him. Was it merely to show him off? Or was there more?
If Vega had been less concerned with court business and appearances, she might have visited her grandmother more often. She could have brought her scepter to Baba instead of making the old woman fight for it. He knew Vega had left in a huff when she’d last visited. Surely that meant Baba had denied her something. It was difficult to imagine what the all-powerful, all-wise Queen Vega needed from Baba that she couldn’t acquire for herself with her Ruby of Divine Wisdom.
&
nbsp; “Baba is an old woman and in poor health. How kind of you to ask about her,” Lucifer nodded curtly before stalking off.
He didn’t look at their faces, though he heard someone tsk behind him. He marched away in a blind rage. He hated politics and formality. If Vega weren’t such a self-centered witch, she would have shared her bloody ruby and done whatever she could to restore Baba’s health. Instead she hoarded it for herself like a power-hungry Fae.
As far as he was concerned, Vega didn’t deserve that ruby. It wasn’t his morals that kept him from stealing it for Baba at that exact moment. It was the impracticality of it.
“Lucy!” Someone called his name, but Lucifer didn’t answer. He wasn’t Vega’s little pet.
Someone snagged Lucifer’s arm, and he was about to throw the hand off when he felt the familiar green plant magic tingle against his skin.
Abigail stumbled into him, gasping for breath. “Lucy! You walk so fast, and your legs are so long, I can barely keep up.”
“Sorry. I thought you were Vega.” Or worse yet, Clarissa.
She shook her head and laughed. “Oh! I can’t blame you for trying to escape.”
He didn’t know which was worse for Abigail, living in the cottage of a witch who cut off her toes, or having to walk on eggshells around the dangers of a Fae court.
He took her by the shoulders, staring into the vivid green of her eyes. “How can you stand it here? Between Clarissa and Vega and Elric—how do you manage?”
“It isn’t so bad. They’re all very nice to me. Except for Vega, but she isn’t nice to anyone. Except her enemies. In any case, you shouldn’t worry about her.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek before sliding her arm around his elbow. “Everyone else is kind to me.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Of course! I have friends and family. I love my classes and teachers. There’s only one person I miss.” She gave him a shy smile.
He liked the way her eyes twinkled as she stared up into his face.
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