Page 55 of Each Their Own Devil

“We keep them isolated in the palace. We send everyone else away?—”

“The Astraelis will need to be housed. They will need to be fed. Their presence at the palace will not be a secret, no matter how much we try to keep it so. A worst-case scenario, Aleja? Otherlanders march on the palace, and we’ll have two choices: fight our own people or let them break our alliance.”

“That’s why we need to explain what’s at stake?—”

“Dove, half of the Dark Saints still believe you’re being duped by the Messenger. And we’re talking about the Hiding Place. As a whole, Otherlanders are natural rebels. The Knowing One and the Dark Saints have remained for so long only because we have always lived by the Second’s principles, valuing?—”

“Knowledge and free will,” Aleja finished for him. “Iknow. But whether we like it or not, Val is the only one who can figure this out in time, and the Messenger has the Third. So if you see some other way out of this, Nic, please, tell me.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Aleja didn’t think she’d seen him look this tired since the curse of his unfulfilled bargain had been eating away at his heart. The snake’s tail—the only part of his tattoo visible above his collar—seemed to writhe in mockery. Nicolas sighed.

“I’ll be able to convince Taddeas; he’s young, doesn’t remember the last war, and he believes Val. Amicia trusts you too. She’ll be on your side. Orla is a skeptic through and through, but if I can persuade her that the Messenger will be vulnerablein the Hiding Place and that it will place the Astraelis under our control, she might think it’s a good strategic move.”

“That’s good,” Aleja breathed. “That just leaves Merit and…”

“Merit will do whatever Orla tells him. It’s Bonnie who’s going to be a problem. I know she’s your friend, but she is the oldest of the Dark Saints. She has seen the cruelty of the Astraelis. And more than that, Bonnie has been the main driver of the food supply in the Hiding Place since time immemorial. There is no Dark Saint more trusted and loved by the Otherlanders.”

“What are you saying? Bonnie wouldn’t starve us out. She wouldn’t turn the Otherlanders against the other Dark Saints.”

“Of course not, but war makes people do strange things—makes people say things they don’t mean... Fuck. I can’t believe I’m about to agree to this. There’s no guarantee that the Messenger and I won’t kill each other before the world ends and leave the rest of the wicked business to you.”

Aleja’s relief had a weight to it, but it seemed to settle more deeply into her chest. Nicolas reached for her hand, threading his fingers between hers, but there was no comfort left in the bond.

“I’ll go talk to the other Dark Saints,” he said quietly. “We just took down two Authorities, and I doubt we’re going to catch them in a better mood than this.”

“I need to get back to the Messenger,” she replied.

Nicolas winced as if the words pained him. “Don’t eat the fig without me. I want to be by your side when you do it.”

“Of course, Nic,” she whispered.

With a fierce kiss to the side of Aleja’s mouth, Nicolas spread his wings.

She watched him until his silhouette disappeared over the hills, then turned to return to the enemies’ armies.

11

THE THRESHOLD

“A secret unearthed often demands a price greater than it’s worth.”—The Book of Open Doors,Book VI: The Crossing of Worlds

“We have a problem,”the Messenger said from atop her elk as she approached Aleja.

This required the Messenger to break away from the head of her troops and make a wide arc around her remaining armies—fewer soldiers than Aleja had expected. She didn’t know whether she should feel grateful or horrified, but either way, Aleja did not trust having the Astraelis at her back.

“Another one? How boring,” Aleja said. Riding this stupid elk made her ache in a way she had never experienced with the Avisai or the Umbramares. She was sure her inner thighs were chafed from groin to knee.

“My commanding officers inform me that all of the Authorities have sided with the mutineers. Violet can still tap into their minds from a distance, but her ability to control them will be limited.”

Aleja knew Violet was somewhere up ahead, at the front of the convoy with Val and the cage containing the Third, but she hadn’t wanted to think about it. Pettiness aside, the figs in her backpack were occupying nearly as much of her mind as the impending apocalypse. What would it be like to eat one? Or two, for that matter?

She’d had her fair share of wine, but her experiences with drugs amounted to the rare times Violet had tempted her into taking a few puffs of weed—which had not mixed well with Aleja’s childhood trauma. Neither the Messenger nor the snake had explained what eating the figs would feel like, but that didn’t stop her from imagining the scenes from every weird psychedelic movie her Pacific Northwest college had shown at the community theater.

“Lady of Wrath, are you listening to me?” the Messenger asked.

“Yes, of course,” Aleja replied. “Authorities gone. This is a bad thing.”

The Messenger tutted, her lips parting beneath her mask. “The Authorities may not be the highest-ranking in our armies, but they are our greatest weapons. Fearsome nature aside, they consume the minds of those they swallow, remember? From this moment on, we need to keep the circle of information closed tight. You, me, and the Knowing One.”

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