Page 40 of Each Their Own Devil

“Yes, you can. Breathe from your stomach. Let it expand.”

She tried. When she looked up at Garm, she was no longer afraid that the world would dissolve in front of her eyes. “What did I do?” she whispered.

“What you believed was right.”

“Doyouthink it’s right?”

“Yes,” Garm said with a rumble. “Because the Knowing One believed you. I trust Nicolas.”

Aleja did not mention that Nicolas had been wrong in the past, as had she, but if she let doubt creep in again, she might actually collapse. Her fingers clenched around Garm’s fur as Val reappeared on the hill.

“We’re in luck,” he said. “My mother isn’t home yet, but she should be arriving soon.”

“Why is that lucky?” Aleja asked, desperate for good news.

“I know my mother’s house very well, dear Lady of Wrath. Her absence will give me time to protect ourselves should we not get the reception we are hoping for.”

“Areyou sure the wards won’t kill me?” Aleja whispered, as she crashed into Val’s back in an attempt to stay close to him as they entered through the front door. Garm seemed to have no such worry. As soon as there was space for him to maneuver his large body around Val and Aleja, he bound into the entryway, nails clicking against the wooden floors. His tail almost immediately hit a vase decorated with little painted yellow flowers on a wooden pedestal.

“I dismantled the truly nasty ones,” Val chided. “Control yourself, hellhound. That vase is over five hundred years old.”

“That vase is human-made,” Aleja said, finally finding the courage to raise her voice to a normal level. “Probably Turkish, from the first half of the sixteenth century. I see your mother only hates humans enough to slaughter them, but collecting their artwork is okay.”

“The Astraelis have never endorsed the needless slaughter of huma?—”

“Tell that to every witch that was burned because of a rumor that an Astraelis whispered into a human ear. I’ve been educated in your ways well enough.”

“The Astraelis have not engaged in such tactics for quite some time.”

“They haven’thadto. They built the machine, and the wheels are in motion, with or without them. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about the results of your plan to kill the Second.”

“Theirplans,” Val said. “When I learned that the Second’s death would cause the death of witches in the human realm, I escaped into your realm. We’re on the same side and, as you mentioned, not everything in this house will be glad of your presence. Stay close to me.”

Aleja was already so near him that his robes occasionally brushed her arms. She looked out into the room. Aside from the occasional human artifact, stepping into the Messenger’s home was akin to stepping into an alien palace. There were a few scattered chairs with almost cartoonishly tall backs. Their shapes made Aleja think of a sculptor working with a tree, who had followed the natural curves of the branches instead of carving them until they met his vision.

The walls were a soft gold, but there were no paintings—just a few scattered vases on tables similar to the one by the door and a small version of a statue she’d seen in her textbooks countless times:Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kissby Canova. Cupid, the angel, embraced Psyche, his human lover, havingrecently awakened from a death-like sleep. It was a new replica made of bleached stone, not marble.

“Why isn’t there anyone here? I figured your mother would have guards,” Aleja said, trying to picture how the Messenger could have possibly acquired the statue.

“There is no need. No one but me would be able to get in and that is only because I share her blood. That is how I knew she would be returning soon. The wards are… Oh, how do I describe it? Wobbly. Like jelly. She would never leave them in that state unless she was only away shortly.”

“Great,” Aleja muttered. “Shouldn’t she be on the front lines? She’s captured the Third and there are mutineers among her armies. I wouldn’t think this was the time for a vacation.”

“My thoughts exactly. I daresay we’ll find out more when we see her.”

Garm’s hot, damp breath hit the back of Aleja’s neck as they turned down a long hallway lined by elaborate sconces in the same spindly style, like enormous golden spiders crawling along the walls. “Stop walking. I smell something,” he said.

Aleja’s hand shot to the hilt of her stiletto, but Garm sniffed again.

“I…I know that smell, it’s?—”

Ahead of them, a small figure darted across the way from an intersecting hall. Garm pushed past Aleja, despite her wordless protest. “I thought you said this place was empty,” Aleja gasped.

Garm was too fast for Aleja to keep up, but he stopped running as abruptly as he had started, and Aleja barreled into his haunches. She caught a glimpse of dirty-blonde hair and skin paler than it ever had been in the human realm.

Aleja could not help the words that came out of her mouth. Garm’s skin was hot and shifting beneath her hand, as if he could barely contain the rage inside of him. “Give meonereason why I shouldn’t let my hellhound tear you to shreds right now.”

“You shouldn’t be here, Al. Even the Messenger isn’t safe from the Authorities now.” Violet’s voice shook.

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