Page 23 of Each Their Own Devil

“Because they agreed with the Second? Because they found no evidence for the Avaddon?”

“Because the Second knew what they had found before I informed them. The librarians are in contact with him—feeding him information, at the very least.”

“Is that a bad thing, Nic?”

“Do none of you find that suspicious?” he said, unable to stop himself from raising his voice. “Or are you in denial? The Second has been sequestered for years in that cave of his. When was the last time he truly helped the Otherlanders? He could have stepped in at any time during the last war—he could have faced the Messenger himself. Yet he didn’t. He watched as our soldiers were killed, as the Dark Saints fractured, and as the Hiding Place decayed. He hides away while we fight his?—”

“Nic,” Taddeas interjected. “If you have a point, get to it.”

The words were kinder than the tone implied. Taddeas must have understood that Nicolas was only a few words away from losing the tenuous alliance of the Dark Saints, and Nicolas’s worst enemy had always been himself.

“My point is that we can no longer sit around and wait for the war to come to us. Nor do I believe we can trust that the Second has our best interests in mind.”

There was a long silence. In the Hiding Place, there was no such thing as heresy, but even the Knowing One occasionally said something that felt forbidden. When no one responded, Nicolas went on. “I think it’s about time I spoke to our prisoner myself.”

“Forget the Second. There could be an opportunity here, Knowing One,” Orla said. “If the Astraelis are desperate enough to launch a sloppy attack like that to retrieve Val, we might be able to bait them. Draw the fight here—on our terms.”

Aleja’s stomach churned at the suggestion, though she kept her expression neutral. The thought had crossed her mind too, but part of her felt too inexperienced to voice such a drastic idea. The other part couldn’t shake the image of Val’s mask tightening around his face, or the way he had seemed genuinely surprised each time he looked at his missing hand. He’d had the chance to flee to the safety of the Astraelis, knowing full well he wouldbecome a prisoner if he stayed in the Hiding Place—and yet, he had stayed.

“When I spoke with the Messenger, she told me the reason our last camp wasn’t completely decimated was because Val was among us,” Aleja said. Her voice sounded steady, but the words felt like they belonged to someone else. “If he’s killed, there’s nothing left to stop the Messenger from launching a full-scale invasion. Our armies wouldn’t be able to withstand that.”

Nicolas crossed his arms and tilted his chin in thought. “We’ll confer with everyone before making a final decision,” he said, his tone measured. “Aleja, come. Let’s see if our prisoner won’t offer us more insight with a creative line of questioning.”

She let Nicolas lead her away before whispering, “Creative? Do you really want to torture him?”

“We’ll cross the bridge when we get there.”

“I was telling the truth about the Messenger,” she hissed. “Even if the Avaddon isn’t real, Val is still our insurance.”

The journey to the dungeons seemed longer than the last time. Aleja wished she’d opted to forgo her armor, but the weight of it was familiar now; wandering even the Hiding Place without it felt like stumbling around in her pajamas.

“I agree,” Nicolas said, with a sharp glance over his shoulder as they passed into the hallway where the artwork slowly disappeared from the walls. “But if the Messenger has told us about a weakness, we’d be fools not to listen to her. Orla was right, by the way. You did good out there.”

“The Astraelis weakness was obvious from high ground,” she said.

“It wouldn’t be to everybody, but they won’t underestimate us again, especially now that you’re back on the battlefield. Every time you show up, they’ll be focused on taking you out as soon as possible.”

Orla had already told Aleja has much, and she didn’t want to acknowledge it again. She stayed silent as the hallway banked steeply downward and they returned to the door with the dramatic depiction of hell, with agonized bodies tumbling into pits.

Nicolas turned to her, and it was as if his expression had been split in two: on one side was the husband who had been devoted to her since their first human lives, and the other, the Knowing One regarding his future High General. “You have no option than to be better, quicker, and smarter than them, understand? You did it once before and you can do it again. Come on. We won’t resort to torture before we try some Otherlander trickery first. Follow my lead.”

The door peeled open for him as it had for Taddeas, wood splitting open with a creak like old bones waking from sleep. Val’s head whipped up as Aleja and Nicolas approached, but he did not stand as he had for Taddeas. The fingers of Val’s remaining hand twitched.

“Knowing One,” he said cautiously, looking between them.

“Astraelis. I’ve come to ask what you would like for your last meal. I’ve told the Dark Saint of Bounty not to bother, but she is less of a monster than I am.”

Aleja occasionally forgot how much Nicolas’s wings could fill a space with darkness. Val’s free hand moved again, grasping for the threadbare sheets. “I—I’ve donenothingworthy of execution, Knowing One, by neither Otherlander standards nor that of my people. Besides, my…my mother will not be pleased if you murder me,” he stammered.

“I thought we should keep you alive because you claim to be the only one who can stop the First from killing us all,” Nicolas said.

“That too!” Val stood up. His mask quivered around his face like his cell was full of wind. “See reason, Knowing One,please.”

“It’s difficult to see reason when your mother insists on committing war crimes on our territory. We’ve had enough of negotiations. Our response to her last aggression will be to return her son to her in pieces. Name your meal, Astraelis, before I decide to let you starve to death.”

“No,” Val gasped, approaching the reddish wards with such force that for a moment Aleja believed he was going to try to plow through them. His feet skidded to a halt a few inches away as his upper body struggled to keep balance. “I can still be helpful. I know things about the inner workings of the Astraelis armies. I can give you information.”

“You’ve had the chance to divulge that information for weeks. If you wanted to aid the Otherlanders, you’ve done a piss poor job,” Nicolas said. “One more chance. Name your meal so that I can indulge Our Lady of Bounty’s misguided attempt at kindness. I won’t ask again.”

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