Sairché’s eyelid began to tic again. Ferrying prisoners out of the camp- that was not what she and Rhand had agreed to. That was not what Farideh was meant to assist. It would have to be corrected, and damn Magros for noticing it first.
“How is it your agent knows so well the count of the guards?” she asked coolly.
Magros chuckled. “Perhaps the guards were a guess. Still, with or without the loss of souls, your wizard seems to be working most inefficiently.”
Sairché bristled. Rhand’s unexpected speed at completing the camp had thrown her off schedule-for seven months he’d been acting as if he had all the resources he needed, sifting through his captives and singling out only a third of the ones with potential. She cursed the wizard’s willfulness to herself. “He’s done well enough. He’ll do better now that he has help.”
“So you say. She has a tenday to make things work more smoothly, remember?”
“We need to adjust the timeline,” Sairché said. “Give me another tenday before you act.”
Magros chuckled. “Is that why you asked me here? I think not. After all, this isn’t the only effort Prince Levistus is concerned with. You’ll simply have to catch up, cambion.” He smiled nastily. “You wouldn’t want His Majesty’s efforts to be in vain.”
Sairché held the misfortune devil’s gaze. “Of course not. So why not give me the time to be sure of her?”
Magros clasped a hand to his chest, affronted. “Are you suggesting Asmodeus has given us pieces that might fail?” He gave her another unpleasant smile. “Perish the thought. I have every confidence in you, Sairché.”
You have every confidence that I’ll be the one caught holding the bag, she thought. The longer she played a part in Asmodeus’s plans, the clearer it became that the archdevils who served him were using what was happening on Toril as an excuse to advance their own personal agendas. And that some of those personal agendas amounted to unseating the god of sin.
“His Majesty is indeed wise and powerful,” Sairché said. “But let us not forget the lesson of the Eighth.”
Magros’s attention was piqued. “What lesson is that?”
Sairché smirked. “Oh, didn’t you hear? His Grace, the Archduke, seems to have overstepped. He had claimed a fraction of a spark. He doesn’t have it anymore.”
“Everyone has heard that,” Magros said. “Have they found the spark?”
Sairché shrugged as if that weren’t the important part, but in fact, everyone was still scrambling to find out what had happened there. “His Majesty hasn’t. But he has specially tasked Lord Mephistopheles with recovering it or replacing it.” She gave Magros a knowing smile. “Since of course he and his agents have always maintained that it was an attempt to gain more power for His Majesty. Asmodeus would be sure they carry through.”
“So His Majesty’s attention remains on the Eighth’s efforts?” Magros said thoughtfully.
“His Majesty’s attention is everywhere,” Sairché said, an answer that was all but catechism for a devil in the Hells. “But I would not wish to be in Cania.”
“Hmm,” Magros said. “Is that all? I have much to do.”
“Of course,” Sairché said. If he looked into Cania, he would see she was right enough, and with any luck, Magros would be as incautious as he’d been with the first Chosen and do something stupid, thinking the god of sin wasn’t watching.
“Give my lord’s regards to your lady when you speak,” he said, gathering his fur.
“The same,” Sairché said, knowing he wouldn’t and neither would she. Sairché would have to go back to Toril, to lean on Farideh and make sure the tiefling wasn’t shirking her responsibilities. It could be done in a tenday if everything kept in place.
She returned to the skull palace of Osseia, bypassing her chambers once again and steeling herself before heading back to the portal room, all too aware of her half sisters’ eyes as she passed. She activated the portal linked to the beacon she’d given Farideh, swearing to herself if Rhand’s godsdamned barrier spell threw her off course one more time, she would vent all her frustration on the first person she saw. She hoped it was the wizard.
Sairché stepped out of the portal and saw Farideh at once-there was that, at least. The wizard must have fixed his blasted spell-
But then she noticed they were standing outside near a fire, beneath a scraggly bunch of trees on a riverside, Adolican Rhand was nowhere to be seen, and there was a young man with a sword standing nearby.
“You little idiot!” Sairché snarled. “Run away? You’re lucky I haven’t got time to go snatch your sister, because I would gladly trade today. What have you done to my wizard?”
Farideh took a step back, and glanced at the young man.
“What? All your bluster gone?” Sairché said. The gold-eyed woman braced as if she were going to lunge at Sairché again. “You’d better find answers for me. What are you doing out here? Where is-”
Gold eyes, Sairché thought. Lords of the Nine.
“Wrong twin,” Havilar said. She pulled an amulet out from under her shirt. “Vennela.”
Sairché’s shield shattered around her and the blood in her veins seemed to fill with crystals of ice. Bound, she thought. Lords of the Shitting Nine. She took a step back. “Well,” she said. “You’re quicker than your sister.”
“Much,” Havilar snapped.
Sairché turned on the young man, expecting an attack, but he was only watching, sword drawn. “You’ll have to forgive my outburst,” she said to Havilar, all calm. “I’m sure I’m not the first to make that mistake. I see your sister didn’t follow instructions. You have the necklace don’t you?”
“She left it for me.”
“You don’t want it,” Sairché said, eyes still on the sword. “Give it to me.”
“You tried that already,” Havilar said. “Lorcan gave it to her, and she gave it to me.”
“Lorcan didn’t give it to her,” Sairché said. “Give me a little credit. I only said that so she’d hang onto it-clearly that didn’t work as I’d like, so kindly hand it over.”
“Where is she?”
“Paying me back,” Sairché said. She turned back and smiled at Havilar, but the tiefling’s expression was hard. The necklace was in her hand, rubies glinting in the firelight. “Don’t worry-the punishment’s equal to all those lost years. I like things to be fair, too. Now, give that to me, before. .”
Sairché trailed off, staring at the necklace in Havilar’s hand. The largest ruby was missing. Lorcan had escaped.
The thought had no more gone through her head but the entire weight of her brother crashed down from the sky and slammed Sairché into the ground, driving all the air from her lungs. If the fall set him off-balance at all, he recovered quicker than Sairché, pinning her flat, one hand on the side of her head.
“Oh, you like fairness?” he crooned in her ear. “Let us see about fairness.”
Whatever weakness, whatever softness she had marked in Lorcan, it was nowhere in evidence as he set one red thumb deliberately below her right eye.
“She knows where Farideh is!” Havilar cried. “You have to ask her! You have to ask her first!” Lorcan didn’t move, didn’t speak. He smiled down at Sairché as if Havilar hadn’t said a word.
“I won’t tell you if you intend to kill me,” Sairché said. She might be able to throw him aside, but he wouldn’t let her go and she couldn’t hurt him back, not safely-she’d promised to protect him, after all. “You won’t find her if I don’t tell you where.”
Lorcan chuckled. “I think you mistake my goals.”
“If you wanted to ruin me, you’ve had chances already,” she said quickly. “Hells, if you’d just slit that one’s throat, you’d have caused enough chaos to make my life a slog through the Abyss.” Sairché tried to twist an arm out, but he held her secure. “You kill me, you make an enemy of Glasya.”
“Because she is such a friend to me these days.” He pressed against her eyelid, hard enough to distort her vision, and no further. “I have a lot to pay you back for.”