Page 92 of Cathmoir's Sons

“Queen Caileán says those will take us directly to Ceòfuar. Everyone should touch a bead.”

I nod and play out the beads between my hands.

“Give it a minute.” Baron Ash stretches out his hand. His long scythe appears and he leans on it. “I think the Skin Shredder wants a word.”

I look around but see nothing other than the clearing and the burning forest beyond. My Cait draw into formation around me again, even though I don’t think they sense anything more than I do.

A hot breeze blows through the trees, kicking up a tornado of ash, cinders, and smoke that surrounds us, choking and blinding.

Cold drafts of pure Air, clearing my eyes and lungs, soothing my skin, beat back Hell’s breath. Luca and Teddy’s Water Mage step back, spreading their arms, and creating a circle of Air around our small gathering.

Of all of the members of Teddy’s celebrated quaternion to have two Elements, I didn’t expect it to be the quiet one. I look at him with new respect.

Movement at the edge of the burning woods draws my attention. A lone, slender woman walks toward us. She’s draped with robes that move around her strangely, in long strips of ... skin?

Fuck, itisskin. Thousands of strips of skin in all the colors of man hang around her like a cloak. She sports a pair of black horns, just as big as Baron Ash’s, rising three feet above her auburn curls. Blood runs fresh and red from the tips of her horns, matting the hair at the base of each horn. The crimson’s echoed in her lips; the only color in her ice-pale face.

Baron Ash and the mohawked demoness bow to the woman. “Nimanes,” Jou says.

Nimanes, Princess of Furies. Has she come in response to the distress of her Erinyes? Or because Baron Ash is here? I know powerful demons don’t pass through each other’s realms without invitation, no more than powerful fae do.

“Son of Asmodeus,” she responds with a bow before nodding at the two demonesses. “General Ziporah. Herald of Raud.” She sweeps eyes such a pale grey they’re almost colorless across the assembled fae. “Princes of the Wood. What brings you to my lands?”

“Are these your lands?” Jou asks, his tone making it an assertion. “I was under the impression that this part of Olt was unclaimed after my seggurach destroyed the Tree of Pain.”

“My interests have expanded of late,” Nimanes says, without giving him a direct answer.

“I’m here with kin,” Jou says, nodding at Gabe. “Hunting a mortal who wronged the fae.”

Nimanes’ pale eyes flick to me. “Heir of the Cait, how did this mortal wrong you?”

Hearing a princess of Hell say my title sends goosebumps rippling up my spine.

“She killed my brother’s lover,” I say. “I claim a life-debt.”

Nimanes’ eyes shift to the burned bundle in Dex’s arms. “She sought to escape justice in Hell?”

“Yes,” I say. “I tracked her here.”

“Perhaps she was trying to seek asylum in the Court of Whips,” Nimanes says, running a clawed finger under her pointy chin.

Baron Ash extends his arm, his huge scythe creating a barrier between Nimanes and the burned woman.

“Whatever she was tryin’ to do,” Baron Ash drawls, “the fact of the matter is she didn’t make it to your court. She never got to make her case to you or offer you a soul trade. She’s not an oath-breaker. You got no reason to extend your hand over her.”

“I am not challenging the life-debt she owes, merely questioning why she came to my lands. If you are returning with her to Faery, perhaps I could be permitted to accompany you to satisfy my curiosity?”

Which is how I end up returning to Faery with two demons more than I left with.

Chapter 26

Of Moose and Men

RHODES

“Then Dittman got it with a shrinking spell I’d never even heard of,” Evan tells me. “Shrunk the moose down to the size of a cocker spaniel. Otherwise, we’d never have caught it.”

I chuckle at Evan’s tale of a rogue moose that terrorized Bevington during his first year as a crow. “I’d have thought moose-shrinking curses were part of the crow arsenal.”

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