Page 230 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“Definitely. A pixie is far more delectable than an elf,” he counters and I can’t tell whether this is a joke.

“Reassuring, really,”I grind out, rubbing my bare arms, still not trusting it. As if he felt it, his mood turns somber. Hells… I can feel that in my body.

“I am serious, little one. Things changed.”

“Because I’m wearing Caryan’s tattoo?”I ask. I just have to know. He scoffs, blueish smoke coming out of his nostrils and I stagger back.

“No. The tattoo does not matter, neither does Caryan’s magic in your veins. I accepted the bond because you earned my respect. It is not every day that someone is brave enough to threaten one of my kind.”

“The last one was Caryan,”I think automatically before I can stop it.

“Yes, the last one was Caryan, and no one after him,”he confirms. “And—I never ate someone I bonded before.”

“Encouraging. There’s always a first time,”I bite out.

He scoffs again and a wave of amusement washes through me at that.

I bonded a demon. A demonwith humor.

“Yes, I am a demon with humor. Still more common than a half-elf around here, I assure you,”he snaps back into my head.

Of course he heard.

“Lock me out if you don’t want me to listen,”he reminds me again before I get another nudge with his snout, pushing me further towards the cliff.

“And grumpy,”I add, stepping up to where the wall of magic waits, invisible to the eye but all the more deadly. So close I can clearly feel the traits of its even deadlier creator. A tiny part of its essence now flows through me too.

“A tiny hole will be enough,”the demon rumbles, as if there was no easier thing in the world.

I draw in a sharp breath while I try to remember what I did the last time I broke out of Caryan’s Fortress. Back then, my body acted of its own accord. But this here… this is much, much stronger. I can feel a complicated pattern, like a thousand different strands of magic intricately woven together and pulled tight. Sealed with bristling spells.

Way more complicated than the shields of the Fortress. Much stronger. Like a current that would rip me away and draw me under if I so much as tried to find a way in.

“Of course it is stronger. It is the wall that seals his kingdom,”the demon snarls into my mind.

“Not helpful,”I shoot back.

“You broke out once.”

Right, I can do this. I take a deep breath and lift my hands, my magic probing upagainstthis.

“Want to tell me what the fuck we’re doing, human? Wasting precious time?” Blair’s voice behind me makes me startle. She’s jumped off the demon’s back, too, and approached, silently as a ghost.

The demon’s warning growl fills the air, followed by his words in my mind. “I do not trust her.I never did.”

“So, you two go back a long way?”

“Define long when you are ageless,”he snaps, but his sharpness is not directed at me, I know.“But definitively too long for my taste.”

I turn to Blair. “The demon wants me to break through that wall,” I explain.

“Are you kidding me? We have to fly north. No one can break through a fucking wall, certainly not you.”

“Of course she wants to go north. And deliver you up to her witches on a silver plate,”the demon growls in my mind.

“I must at least try,” I say.

Her white eyebrows shoot up, and she scrunches up her face. “Wait a second—did you just sayitwants you to?”

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