Page 59 of Each Their Own Devil

In any other army, Nicolas might have publicly scolded someone who was technically his subordinate, but that wasn’t the Otherlander way. This alone was an act of defiance against the Messenger. For a moment, a deep sense of pride burned in Aleja’s chest.

Well, if Bonnie was allowed to speak out, so was the Lady of Wrath. “What is Violet doing here, Messenger? We didn’t agree to host anyone but you.”

The Messenger picked a piece of stray fluff from the lower half of her mask. “Violet, as much as you would like to avoid her, is frighteningly useful to both our causes. And she is also, to my dismay, rather clever. It’s better she hear whatever Aleja has to say directly.”

“Wrath?” Nicolas said, his voice tinged with a slight question.

It was enough to make the next words stick in Aleja’s throat. If she sent Violet away now, it would mean that she cared. “Fine. She can stay.”

“So, how do we do this?” Taddeas asked quietly but steadily.

“It’s exceedingly simple. Aleja, you will eat the fig, be silent for a few moments, then tell us what knowledge you gained,” the Messenger said.

“If anything happens to her, Messenger, you will not be leaving the room alive,” Nicolas said. “Wrath, you can proceed whenever you’re ready.”

Aleja was miles ahead of him. The fig was already in her palm—she had known her hands might shake if she was forced to dig it out of her satchel. She brought it to her lips and took as much of a bite as she could muster.

Although she had never been fond of figs, it was much sweeter than she had imagined, bursting with liquid that made golden sparks dance in her vision. Horrified, she felt her tongue drop out of her mouth to lap at the juice on her face, no longer able to control her own movements. When her teeth sank into the fig again, she half expected—and fully wished—that this bite wouldn’t be as all-consumingly delicious as the first.

It was better.

So much better that Aleja understood she might not be able to tear herself away unless someone yanked the damn fig out of her mouth and forced her to stop?—

Aleja thought of every brushstroke of every painting, both finished and unfinished, and every message every painter had tried to convey through the centuries with a few globs of color. She thought of all the undelivered love poems and all the delivered ones too. She thought of every murder plot that had succeeded, and every one that had gone sour because the would-be murderer had made the mistake of looking at the would-be victim with fondness in their eyes.

“I would love you if you knew the secret name of every star,”Nicolas had said. And, by the gods, right now, Aleja did. She knew that, on a small planet that circled a distant red dwarf called Sitaraal, a sentient crystal was slowly falling in love with its neighbor, who had grown beside it for ten thousand years. Right now, in the human realm, a man named Marc was running and running and running from a beast made of flame and shadow. Though he had not tired yet, in two and a half years, he would grow so weary that when he spotted the creature over his left shoulder on a street in Istanbul, next to the shimmering waters of the Bosphorus, he would turn and open his arms.

This is not the information you want,said a voice that didn’t wholly belong to her. She knew this person. It was the woman from that little locked room in her mind. The Aleja ofthe nameless kingdom by the sea.You need to concentrate. You could wander here forever unless you focus.

I missed you,Aleja said back. And, with the sweet taste of the fruit in her mouth, she understood that this person in her mind had never fully left her. Aleja had simply opened that locked door, and they had become one.

Stop. There’s no time to get sentimental now. The Avaddon, Alejandra, concentrate. You need to find the First.

How do I?—

But it was as if the very thought of the Avaddon was enough to propel her. It felt as though she’d reached the end of a trail. Beyond it was a cliff, and if Aleja tumbled off, she would never stop falling. Distantly, she heard someone calling her name, but here, only one person could reach her.

You need to keep going.

I’m afraid.

If you’re afraid, that means you’re alive. Go.

Knowing she was so close to falling off the edge, Aleja continued forward.

Nicolas drewhis sword before she spoke.

“What’s going on with her?” he barked, gesturing to Aleja. She was pale beneath a curtain of dark red hair, cradling the violet fig in her palm. A bit of dark juice clung to the corner of her lip. She looked like Persephone in the Botticelli painting that hung across the hall from the office—but while Persephone’s gaze was tender, Aleja’s was frighteningly blank.

“Relax, Knowing One,” the Messenger said. “She ate from the First Tree. You should have seen me when I did this. I could hardly breathe for all I was vomiting.”

“She’s been like this for ten minutes,” Nicolas said, unable to stop himself from raising his sword arm slightly. Nearly everyone in the room shifted in their chairs, preparing to stand, except for Aleja. “How do we wake her?”

“Only she can do that. Lower your weapon. Alejandra Ruiz will be fine. Physically, at least. Mentally—well, you see what happened to me after a bite of those figs.”

“This is not the time for jokes,” Nicolas said. He had the advantage in this room, and the Messenger knew it. Her only ally was a human girl who hadn’t completed her Trials to become a Dark Saint, and there were no Authorities for her to control here.

“It’s not a joke. Believe it or not, I’ve softened toward your wife, Knowing One. In a perfect world, we could have it out in one glorious final argument of fire and blades and be done with it. But, as it is, I’m stuck with you. Be patient. Our Aleja will rejoin us when she is ready.”

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