Page 35 of Each Their Own Devil

“Garm! Lead us to the camp,” Aleja shouted. Or, at least, she tried to shout. The words were raw and painful, as if the fire had crawled up her throat as well.

“What are you doing?” the enormous hellhound barked. “You won’t be able to outrun them!”

“I know. That’s why I need an Avisai,” she said, as the Umbramare took off and the air in her lungs seemed to be dragged out of her. “Most of the Astraelis are still alive. That will hold the other Dark Saints back for a moment.”

“Why did you do that?” Garm barked, running beside her. It wasn’t the first time she had heard him sound angry, but it was the first time that it had been directed at her. “Even the Knowing One agreed it was our best shot at averting this war.”

“I’ll explain everything, I promise, but right now, we need to get to the palace and free Val.”

Garm’s only response was a deep grunt of disbelief. Aleja expected him to fall back, to return to the Knowing One and reveal her traitorous plans to both him and the Dark Saints. But when Garm picked up his pace, pulling a few yards ahead to guide the Umbramare to the field were the Avisai waited, Aleja’s relief was so keen that tears sprang to her eyes.

As they hit her cheeks, they seemed to boil.

7

THE PATH IS LOST

“The path to darkness is paved by the footsteps of those you once followed.” —The Book of Open Doors, Book IV: The Dark Passage

Aleja did not stopto see who else lingered around the field where the Avisai grazed. She spotted Bonnie at its edge, tending to her forest, but when Bonnie shouted her name, she did not respond.

The smaller dragon that had carried her to meet the Messenger fed on the body of an enormous owl. It looked up, eyes wide and resigned, as Aleja dismissed her Umbramare and stumbled across a ground pocked with enormous footprints.

“Meet me at the palace,” Aleja whispered furiously to Garm. “Don’t stop for anything. If Taddeas or Bonnie tries to get in your way, tell them you’re on a mission for Nicolas. You do not talk about what happened. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Garm replied with a nod that caused his helmet to slip a little lower on his brow. “But this is foolish, Al. You should go back. You know Nicolas will argue on your behalf.”

“We’re not staying in the Hiding Place. I’ll explain everything later. Go, Garm.”

Aleja’s body ached from the uncontrolled use of her magic, but with adrenaline pushing through her, it was easy to lift a leg onto the Avisai’s stirrup and pull herself up. Bonnie finally stepped closer to the field, her rye-and-wheat crown shining gold in the setting sun. But Aleja was already urging the Avisai into the air.

She would never make it through the Astraelis realm by herself. She didn’t even know how to get through the wards. Taking Val back to the Astraelis realm, where the mutineers evidently wanted him dead, was risky, but there was no longer any chance that the Dark Saints would allow him to study the Second—and the Messenger had the Third. Perhaps he could make do.

“The palace,” she snapped to the Avisai. “As fast as you can.”

The Avisai returned a frustrated grunt, but they were in the air before Bonnie was in earshot again, banking sharply to the left. Their direction would be obvious, but Aleja wasn’t planning on lingering at home to see how long it would take for word to spread among their armies that the Dark Saint of Wrath had soured a peace deal in favor of their Astraelis prisoner.

“Faster,” she urged, as the Hiding Place blurred below them. This Avisai might be small, but this only lent it speed and maneuverability.

The palace was illuminated by the last reddish-gold streaks of sunset, turning the gothic turrets into licks of flame that reached toward the roiling clouds overhead. The sight sent a deep pang into her chest. It was the only true home she had ever really known; somewhere near Nicolas’s office, in the painting he had commissioned for his wife, Persephone’s hands and mouth were bloody red with pomegranate juice. In another room, in a painting the Knowing One had donehimself, Eurydice’s face was twisted into shock and grief as her husband glanced back during their ascent from the underworld. And above it all, in a high tower that led to a dream, Aleja’s grandmother spent her eternity in the ruins of a mansion.

If Aleja had done the right thing, the palace would survive.

If Aleja had done the right thing, she might never be welcome to return to it.

“Land as close as you can and wait for me,” she told the Avisai. “Do not take off for anyone else, understand? When Garm gets here, don’t let him follow me.”

The Avisai responded with a nasal whistle, swooping toward the garden, where a cluster of rabbits digging in the soil scattered. With most of the Otherlanders stationed at the army camps along the border, the palace was nearly empty. As Aleja slipped in through the front door, she begged the building silently,Please help me find the path to the dungeons.

Aleja finally let herself think as she raced toward the long hallways with peeling wallpaper, adorned only by the occasional painting that didn’t fit elsewhere. She was grateful she had packed her backpack thoroughly before leaving for the borders; the fig and the chunk of bone she had used to communicate with Violet were still inside.

It felt as though she had taken a sharp turn at the crossroads and traveled so far in one direction that the way back was lost. For a moment, she wasn’t sure she could take another step, even though she’d found the sloping path that led to the cells below the palace, momentum pushing her forward.

Her hand shot out to grip the wall as her knees threatened to buckle.What have I done?She had been a Dark Saint for less than three weeks, but in that time, she had managed to betray the others and put the Knowing One in a nearly impossible position.

Breathe. Are you convinced you can save them or not?The words sounded so much like the woman who had once lived behind a locked door in Aleja’s mind that she pushed herself upright.

It wasn’t long before she reached the ornately carved door depicting the descent into hell, absorbing the heat as she pressed her palm against the flat spot Taddeas had pointed out to her. The roar of blood in Aleja’s ears was so loud that she could only feel the vibration of the wards opening to let her through—like the distant thump of a heavy bassline.

---