Page 83 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

The shadows of his conjured world fell away, and we returned to the villa.

I stomped the few meaty chunks of his remains into the clay flooring.

“You lose.” I relished the victory, taking delicious and sweet breaths before I’d seek out Mora to assist with her demon foes. Then we could enter the engine room together, where we’d save our Mythic and mortal companions.

Perhaps she’d won the battle. Despite amplifying my senses, I couldn’t hear her rhythmic battle against the three demons Eligos had pitted against her.

I stared at the floor, the cracked tile flooring of a golem’s hide. This wasn’t the labyrinth.

Where was I?

I whirled around, studying the restored bars that had once held Wally. The cage that Novus used to trap Wally after tricking him into accepting a false offer of opportunity.

“It won’t work,” Eligos said.

I returned my gaze to the floor, where his broken remains had vanished.Dammit.

“Your measurements aren’t precise enough to account for the glory of Diabolic essence,” he continued; his voice came from the door leading out of this dungeon.

Eligos walked into the room adorned in his unblemished armor, aside from the single dent he kept for sentiment’s sake, alongside the noble Fae whose head barely fit between thethreshold, a literal representation of his arrogance. What was happening?

“You believe I underestimate your kind,” Novus said with a smile that consumed his bulbous head. “But I think you give far too much credit to Diabolics. For eternal entities possessing such veracity, you lot lack elegance and refinement, and honestly, it is only your base ability granted by devils that holds any value whatsoever.”

Eligos clenched his fists, golden eyes leering at the Fae, who waltzed toward the cage, strutting through me like a specter.

I was inside a memory. Fuck.

Eligos fed me his essence, pouring his consciousness into me, and I devoured it like an utter fool. This level of vulnerability was meant to be sacred. The most prying magics couldn’t peel away hidden truths without force, and I certainly didn’t attempt to delve into Eligos’ history. There was consent involved, even when I shared my mind, my truth with Wally, I knew more than anything I wanted him to see the sordid lies, frightened he’d reject me, and relieved beyond belief he had accepted me for all my flaws—no desire to fix or change them, but merely co-exist with a broken being that he hoped to grow with.

I loved Wally so much.

I missed him.

I needed to find him, which meant I had to escape this memory.

Novus stepped toward the cage, hand outstretched; his long snow-white fingers were bare without a single ring or jewel to accentuate his hand holding an orb. A Diabolic orb. I trembled in this memory.

Broken, bloody, beaten essence whirled toward the orb. I recoiled at the reminder of my own tattered flesh that’d peeled and fallen apart, sucked inside one of those awful artifacts once upon a time. All after I’d defeated a hateful magus who soughtto lay siege on the Fae domain in an effort to strengthen the Collective’s hold. It took everything I had to slaughter him and his many mages, but it was the onslaught of Seattle’s regiments striking at me under the guidance of the treacherous Abraham Remington who led them that had shocked me most that day.

This demon hadn’t fallen to betrayal or lesser beings. No. I recognized the injuries. I currently carried them outside this memory. The demon funneled into the orb had been defeated by Eligos and lacked the resolve or ability to resist the overwhelming force of a Diabolic orb siphoning their very being into an orb twice the size of the one which contained me.

Their essence shuddered within the confines, discombobulated, and floating like the frost of a snow globe. Purple lightning crackled inside. I cocked my head. Not once in my time spent locked away in my orb had I found it possible to harness my essence to resist and fight back. Perhaps I hadn’t tried enough, hadn’t proven I didn’t deserve life bound inside an orb.

I covered my ears, backing away, and unable to look at the demon fight for their freedom, a freedom Novus laughed at stealing.

“It worked.” Novus spun around, joyous and vile, and suddenly I wanted to smash his skull in all over again. No. I wanted to go back and drag his death out longer, make it hurt more, make him beg and cry and barter before I shredded every trace of his existence. I had refrained on Wally’s behalf, but a being as sadistic as Novus—one who used Diabolic orbs—deserved the pain only one taught in Hell could inflict.

“She’s putting up more resistance than you said Diabolics could,” Eligos said, his golden eyes studying the orb and flickering purple essence fighting against imprisonment.

“It doesn’t matter; she’s contained. We’ve successfully locked away our first demon,” Novus said. “Soon, I’ll create more ofthese, contain an army of Diabolics, and then we can capture the devil.”

“The fake devil.” Eligos held such venom in his words, more hatred acknowledging my impersonation than he ever had for the actual devil who punished all of us for our displeasing existence.

Novus wrapped his elongated fingers over the knight’s plated shoulders, a gentle embrace bringing the two closer. “I allowed you to follow your fancy, send demons to taunt and test thisBeelzebubroaming the mortal world. I can’t be held accountable for your dreams not coming true.”

“It’s not that,” Eligos said, practically spitting in his helmet. “I wasted resources, I deluded myself into believing I’d weakened a devil, and found a way to bring all of this carnage to an end.”

“Not an end, dearest.” Novus slid his hand up Eligos’ neck, resting it atop the knight’s head. “This is a beginning. A beginning for us. A beginning for the universe. A beginning for your dream. Soon, we’ll defeat the false devil, and it won’t matter what demons were lost seeking him out for a challenge.”

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