Page 35 of The Demon Mark

“Envy?” she asked, her voice light and airy. “Can you perhaps take the children into the corner over there and entertain them while I speak with this young woman?”

He leaned down to murmur in her ear, “How does one entertain children?”

She shrugged. “Shadow puppets?”

He gave her a look that said he didn’t appreciate the sass, but then he pointed to the corner. All the children scrambled. They must know who he was, because he clearly terrified them. He only made it worse as he tilted his head to the side and cracked his neck. The snap filled the room and made the littlest ones flinch.

“Envy,” she hissed.

He gave her another look before striding over to the children and reaching for a tattoo at his neck. Peeling it out of his skin, he set down a small black cat. “It can eat anything. Give it something.”

The children hesitated before a brave one lifted a rock from the floor and handed it to the fuzzy black cat. Which promptly unhinged its jaw and swallowed the rock whole.

At the sound of marvel, she turned to the young woman.

“Sit,” Lilith said, her voice already deepening with the need for the future.

“Why?”

“Neither of us know yet. Isn’t that exciting?” She tried to smile, but then realized how unnerving the words were. So she kept her mouth shut and just gestured.

Mist was already rising from her skin. It stretched in little wisps toward the young woman, reaching for her even though Lilith tried hard to not let it. At least until the girl was sitting down on the cot opposite.

Haunted eyes stared at Lilith, the darkness in them having seen far too much. “You’re the oracle, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“How did you find me?”

“I didn’t. Your future did.” She held out her hand for the other to take, hoping that she would do so without hesitation. “Would you like to know what I see? I think it’s important.”

It was the first time she’d ever asked someone outside of a performance if they’d like to see their future, and it seemed... right. Like this was how it should have been from the beginning.

The girl didn’t respond. She just put her hand in Lilith’s and every ounce of her magic dug into the girl’s skin, sinking into the future that had been so important for her to see.

Words spilled from her tongue. A future that was powerful indeed. The most powerful woman in the underground of this kingdom. She was required to stay on this path, though, no matter how hard it was. To watch her siblings die. To see the people she loved most wither in front of her eyes.

But that rage, that survival instinct, all of what she would learn, was important. Because when she was older, she would run the most impressive brothel in the city. And with those women, ones she would give a home and a job and actual money, they would also kill all the men who treated them wrong. They would slit their throats in the beds where they came for pleasure. In doing so, she would make this kingdom a better place. From the bottom up.

And when she finished, the mist coming back into her body with one swoop that made her dizzy, she met the young woman’s gaze. They stared at each other, two powerful women, one who would be, and one who currently was.

Then the young woman smiled. “I look forward to the destruction, oracle.”

Lilith smiled in return. “I look forward to watching.”

14

Envy hated children. He hated them with every fiber of his being. Usually he avoided them at all costs, because their youth always made him wonder what they would become later on in life. Would their powers grow? Was he the monster for thinking about killing them when they were this small?

Not to mention they were always sticky. He didn’t like sticky things.

But as he kept them at a very far distance from the shadow creatures that he conjured from his skin, he had to admit this wasn’t as bad as normal. At the very least, they were behaving. They weren’t grabbing onto him with those slimy fingers or trying to touch the creatures that existed beneath his flesh.

The magic he harbored was more dangerous than they could fathom. Young humans were simple creatures, and he was the beast they needed to stay away from.

Until they giggled, at least, and then he thought perhaps they didn’t have to stay as far as he’d originally thought. That sound wasn’t so bad.

He entertained them, encouraging the light sound even as he kept an ear on what Lilith was saying to the young woman, who looked at her with rapture in her eyes.

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