“You are no more than four days from the site,” the devil said. “I trust you can find it.”
“Of course,” the woman said. “As much as I trust you’ll be there to see the ritual through and claim your prize.”
“A prize for all the Hells,” he corrected gently. Unctuously, Lorcan thought. Oh, this one would be trouble. The necromancer said something else that Lorcan couldn’t hear, then she and her macabre retinue disappeared into the ancient wood, their way lit by globes of floating light.
Magros turned, and before he could wake the portal once more, Lorcan dropped to the ground in front of him, earning a gratifying cry of surprise.
Lorcan sketched a little bow, marking the hooves, the small horns, the oily expression-a misfortune devil. Smug bastards, he thought. “You’re Magros, I presume,” he said.
“You have the advantage of me.” The misfortune devil’s eyes flicked over Lorcan, resting a moment on the flail-shaped pendent he wore. “A Malbolgian?” He narrowed his eyes. “Did Sairché send you?”
Lorcan smirked. “In a sense.”
“Ah-you’re the brother, aren’t you? The resemblance is uncanny.”
“I doubt that,” Lorcan said. He was supposed to ask, supposed to wonder why it was uncanny. But he didn’t.
“Word was Sairché made short work of you some time ago,” Magros said. “I take it I shouldn’t be expecting her to keep our appointment.”
“She’s indisposed,” Lorcan agreed. “So I have the pleasure of taking her place.”
“Is it a pleasure?”
“It could be.”
“I doubt that if you’ve seen what a mess your sister left behind.”
Lorcan smiled-Magros must have driven Sairché mad. He was hardly trying to provoke Lorcan into defending his position, revealing what he knew. “Is it a mess?” he said. “The site looks quite. . sharp.”
“Do you have a better leash on the wizard, then?” Magros asked. “Or the armies?”
Lorcan gave him a pitying look. “Did she tell you there were armies involved? How adorable.”
Magros considered Lorcan a long moment-likely Sairché had said no such thing. Likely Magros was simply trying to trick Lorcan as much as Lorcan was trying to trick him. But there would be no chance his erinyes half sisters would not have had plenty to say about Sairché’s handling of an army. The wizard who wouldn’t behave was a better bit of information.
The out-of-place Thayans better still.
“I can tell from her notes that she doesn’t care for you,” Lorcan said. “So we should get along very well.”
“She does have quite the little temper. Takes after your storied mother?”
Lorcan smirked. “You’ve obviously never met Invadiah.”
“I have little reason to travel to Malbolge.” Magros sat on a boulder at the edge of the clearing and crossed his hoofed legs. “If you’re here in Sairché’s place, I assume you have some information. Have you gotten things back on track?” He gave Lorcan a wicked smile. “Or are you the one who’s going to fall in your sister’s place?”
“Please,” Lorcan said witheringly. “Unlike my sister, I know where I stand. If you decide to step on my neck to advance, you’ll have to clamber down the hierarchy to do it. I’ve long since realized there’s nothing to gain by rising above my station-if I could escape this honor, believe me, I would. If there’s any devil in the Hells you can trust-for the moment-it’s me.”
Magros smiled politely, and the effect made Lorcan want to shudder. “You’ll forgive me. I wasn’t promoted yesterday.”
Lorcan shrugged. “And I wasn’t born a fool. There’s a great deal more going on here than it seems. More than even our archlords would ever say-more than my sister was ever going to be foolish enough to leave written. Why would I try and overtake you, Magros? I have enough to do trying to make sure this looks like it was all Sairché’s fault.”
“Will blaming a corpse catch your mistress’s eye?”
“Corpse?” Lorcan said. “I said indisposed. Not dead. Why would I waste a perfectly good piece?” He took a risk and sat on the ground near to Magros. “And why would I care about catching the eye of a mad witch who dragged me right out of my comfortable life?”
Magros raised his eyebrows. “Your words.”
“Indeed.”
“So you’re looking to cross layers?”
“If you threw in the furs, perhaps I’d consider it,” Lorcan said. “But at the moment, all I want is room to make sure whatever collapses lands in Sairché’s hands and not mine.”
Magros tilted his head. “His Highness can offer many perquisites for a little assistance.”
And all the same dangers, Lorcan thought. Stygia might be as far from Malbolge as a mind could imagine-a frigid sea, encased in perpetual ice, the waters below stirring only for hungry, mindless beasts. Its master, Prince Levistus-leagues from beautiful, terrible Glasya with her voice in every devil’s ears-present only in mind, his body sealed in a massive iceberg.
But there was no layer of the Hells where Lorcan’s situation would truly be improved.
“In exchange for your indulgence, I could consider it. What is it he wants?”
“A trifle,” Magros said. “I need someone who can get past the wall your sister’s wizard has around that fortress and take care of my own agent.” He stood once more and gathered up his furs. “Do it right and we shall neatly entrap Sairché. All I need is for you to use this.” Magros suddenly held a gleaming knife, the length of a long bone in one hand. “Shadar-kai make. Run my little traitor through and leave it near. Or better still, run that troublesome wizard through as well and put the weapon in her warlock’s hands. Sairché hasn’t prepared her nearly enough-Lords of the Nine know. . she might snap.”
The blade’s hilt didn’t warm in Lorcan’s hand, but the center of his chest burned hot. “So that’s where her warlock is,” he murmured, hoping it would cover anything else his face showed. He would have to go there next. He would have to face her. And a wizard who wouldn’t behave.
“What’s the wizard’s name?” he asked idly. “She didn’t mark that down, I’m afraid, and I’ll have to go sort him soon.” Magros gave him an oily smile, and for a heartbeat Lorcan thought he might be wrong, the wizard might be some other nuisance. Sairché might have been lying.
“Rhand,” Magros said. “Although Sairché doesn’t know I know that.”
Even though Lorcan had been expecting to hear the name, his temper threatened to make Invadiah blush.
“Well,” he said. “That should help.”
Draped once more in fur robes, Magros gave him the sort of smile that shone politeness but oozed condescension.
“At least you don’t need to recall it long. Here.” He pulled a bundle of cloth from a pocket hidden in the robes and held it out, peeling back the cloth to reveal an iron cube, its sides etched with frost. “When you’ve taken care of things, let me know. Just squeeze the cube tight.” He dumped it into Lorcan’s hand, and the cambion bit back a cry of pain at the sudden, intense cold. Magros chuckled and dropped the cloth on top. “You’ll have to get used to that.”
The portal gaped and exhaled a frigid breath that made Lorcan fight not to shiver. The misfortune devil vanished, along with the obvious markers of the portal.
He hadn’t mentioned what his agent was doing, Lorcan thought. He hadn’t mentioned why he wanted that one dead. He hadn’t explained about the Thayans. Worse, Magros clearly thought he was an idiot if he was going to go around murdering his pieces and taking the blame.
Lorcan pieced through the details he knew of Sairché’s plan, of Glasya’s. Of Asmodeus’s. There was nothing that would suggest the best course of action lay in allying with the followers of Szass Tam. If rumors were true, the calculating lich was keen to repeat Asmodeus’s feat of snatching the divine spark away from a god and canny enough to manage it. Not the sort of being to hitch your fortunes to, if you were concerned with hanging on to your own ill-gotten gains.