Page 61 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

Bez descended to the floor, clutching his chest.

“What’s the matter?”

He ignored me, eyes darting about. Had he sensed Diabolic essence? Was it Mora? I held my breath. Was it Eligos?

Bez convulsed, falling to his knees. “Well, well. Might have a plan after all.”

“What’s going on?” I offered my hand to steady him, assist him up, but he remained on the floor, taking deep breaths and searching for something with each inhale.

“My essence is calling out to me.” He craned his neck, eyes looking past the portal and deeper into the villa. “I can feel it reeling me back, offering a chance to reunite before it fades.” He chuckled. “Surprised Eligos didn’t destroy my body.”

“The baron needed a devil’s essence for something. Maybe Eligos needs it, too.”

“I’ll be sure to ask him after I reclaim my essence.”

“Reclaim it?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

Bez collapsed onto the ground, eyes closed, and body as still as a corpse. I trembled. I needed to do something. Even if Bez reclaimed his lost essence, and that was a big if since I had no idea how or what he was doing, he’d still need magic to replenish his energy. Possession was out of the question since I was the only mage here, the only living being here.

Tony hissed, stinger pointing at Weather tugging at the fabric covering a stack of portraits.

“Don’t even make that suggestion.” I furrowed my brow.

Tony hissed again, jabbing his stinger at his cruel idea. I looked to see Sunny licking a painting while Stormy gnawed on the exquisite frame. Maybe Tony simply wanted to make sure I didn’t allow Weather to trash more expensive things. I pulled the pup away, cringing at the missing paint on Medusa’s face. Wow. An actual self-portrait of the original gorgon. That was probably priceless, and now basically ruined in all of five seconds, thanks to a hungry Cerberus.

“Wait a second, that’s it,” I said, gears clicking together to finally figure out something useful. “Tony, you’re a literal genius.”

We weren’t the only living people in the villa. There were those gorgon statues Tony and I had seen on the surveillance footage. I hadn’t mentioned them to Bez because he would’ve probably whined about me making a project out of restoring them, a mostly impossible task without gorgon magic.

“Or access to gorgon magic.” I pointed to my scorpion familiar, who helped me piece together the idea. “Which we have. There are the fresh gorgon eyes, fully intact thanks to Baron Novus’ obsession with collecting oddities and preserving all forms of Mythic magic.”

I picked Bez up, cradling him in my arms, and rushed to the portal door. Weather scampered underfoot, stepping on mine, and I paused.

I kneeled down to look all three of them in the eyes. “You have to stay here, Weather. It’s important, and I can’t risk endangering you any more than I already have.”

Sunny licked my face, playfully offering his protection, while Cloudy whimpered because I was making him stay, and Stormy bit the air, fire around his neck flaring up. Possibly his way ofoffering support or telling me to hurry up the goodbye—Stormy was hard to read.

“Tony, I need you to watch out for him.” I watched Tony scuttle away, ignoring my request. “He’s young and needs your guidance. I trust you.”

I set Bez down and crawled over to Tony, who hid between a stack of paintings propped against the wall.

“I trust you because you trusted me, saved me, and I know you think I’m looking for another familiar. But I need you to know you’ll always be the first animal I bonded with. I’ll carry you with me always because you’re precious and perfect and powerful. I love you, Tony. I love Weather, too. I hope you can accept that.”

Tony skittered out and crawled toward Weather, where Cloudy had already slipped one of Bez’s dress shoes off, chomping down on it. My scorpion perched on top of my grimoire and raised his claws until Weather moved next to him and sat.

“You two stay here—stay safe.” I grabbed Bez and darted for the portal. “I’m going to fix this.”

I raced through the labyrinth corridors, following the halls that led to the dungeon the baron held me captive in. The gorgon eyes were there. Once I got them, I could double back to the golden portal with the statues. I grimaced. It was pretty unethical to offer someone up to be Bez’s host, knowing they’d die. Then again, they were living an eternal frozen life, which they wouldn’t technically be freed from unless someone—such as myself—released them.

Whatever. It had to happen, and I could overthink the moral implications of how I was a terrible fucking person later.

I cut the corner and nearly knocked into someone, skirting around a haze of pink and blood splatters before tumbling onto the floor, holding Bez closely.

The pink Fae— the one from the Fae Divinity performance, the one who kidnapped me, the one who cruelly mistreated Weather—stood covered in blood, her clothes shredded, hunks of her flesh torn out. She faced away from me, likely dazed, perhaps fed upon by Eligos.

I gulped. “You’re the Fae who grabbed me.”

Eligos must’ve been incredibly fast because even Bez struggled to apprehend her given that butterfly teleportation she utilized.

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