Page 61 of Each Their Own Devil

Violet interrupted her. “They’re afraid of herwithouther memories. They think it makes her more unpredictable. We should trust her judgment.”

If she hadn’t been a traitor, she would have made a decent Dark Saint of Pride, Nicolas thought. The Messenger’s gaze was scathing, even though he couldn’t see her eyes. The flash of her upper teeth was enough to show her displeasure.

“Aleja?” Nicolas pressed, ignoring the Messenger. “All you need to do is find the right question. Where can we find the First?”

Aleja tilted her head, as if carefully considering Nicolas’s words. “She’s in the roots. No. Sheisthe roots.”

“The roots?” the Messenger said. “Does she mean the roots of the First Tree?”

“Yes,” Aleja said. “The First was the seed of the First Tree. We follow roots, we get to her. There is a—there was—a statue. It doesn’t look like the ones that Otherlander carved for the Second. No, I don’t think that it was made by anybody. I think it just…came into existence. It’ll look like a boulder now. That’s where we’ll find her.”

“I know the place,” the Messenger whispered.

“That’s where she is,” Aleja muttered. “That’s where Val needs to do the ritual.”

She fell silent for a few moments.

When she opened her eyes, she was entirely surrounded by flames.

13

THE FIRST COUNCIL

“All alliances are but sand upon the threshold; they hold until the tide of ambition washes them away.” —The Book of Open Doors, Book VII: The Return to the Threshold

Lately,fire had been a comfort. When the flames engulfed her, Aleja almost let her body relax, until she remembered that this wasn’t one of the palace rooms full of marble statues she could simply dust down later. A lot of people she cared about were in this room, and she could keep them alive for at least a few more days if she didn’t panic.

“Even if you kill the First, your troubles won’t be over,” said the woman who looked like her but with serpentine red eyes.

Aleja’s fire crackled around her. She was vaguely aware of her audience, watching what must have seemed like a one-sided conversation. “I ate a fig from the damn Tree of Knowledge. What was the point of that if you won’t tell me what I need to know?”

“Fine, Lady of Wrath. Many, many, many, many,manyyears ago, the first Knowing One—Lilith—was recruited from thehumans, as all Knowing Ones have been since. Lilith was clever. The Second would have had no less for his protégé. And when she had access to the tree during the war, she ate, and she ate, and she ate, gathering as much knowledge as she could. She realized that the Astraelis were not her only enemy.”

“What do you mean?”

“The First and the Second should have shut their eyes and slept forever the moment they had given away life and will for all to share freely. Once the First and the Second had minds and desires of their own, it was inevitable that they would become as selfish as all creatures. It was inevitable that power would corrupt. There was just nothing anyone could do about it, until this, the First Council, was formed.”

“The First Council?” Aleja echoed.

But it was already too late for an answer.

Aleja exploded,which was unfortunate.

She was vaguely aware of people scrambling away from her, one of them wearing an enormous, winged mask. The smell of burnt hair filled the air before Aleja could rein herself in, hoping the burning embarrassment in her cheeks would be hidden by the overall sense of burning in the room. Luckily, both the Dark Saints and the Astraelis were hardy. Only Violet, peeking out from behind a chair in the corner of the room, looked genuinely rattled by the inferno.

Nicolas was at her side before her flames fully disappeared, waving them away with a swarm of shadows that tingled coolly against her skin. “Aleja?”

“I’m all right. I…”

“Take a deep breath. Then tell me what you need.”

Aleja squirmed in his grip to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Is there any chance you can send Garm to fetch blue Gatorade from the human world?”

“Garm, do as the Dark Saint of Wrath says!” Nicolas ordered, before Aleja could say it was a joke, dammit. Then she realized, yes, she could actually use a blue Gatorade right now. If Garm managed to acquire one without committing murder, she’d forgive petty theft.

The hellhound disappeared into the shadows, leaving one less thing between her and the faces staring her down from behind the room’s most fireproof objects. With the marble statues, now streaked with soot, Aleja’s audience seemed much larger than it was.

“Wrath?” Nicolas’s voice pulled her back.

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