Amarantha and Focalor stared at me.
“Surprised to see me?” I asked.
“How did you survive the Maze?” Focalor asked, standing. “Where is Antares?”
“Antares is in the cage that used to hold Gabriel,” I said. “And I’ll be calling Azazel ASAP to pick up his wayward son, so if I were you, I would clear out of here before he arrives. You’ll probably want to pick the time and place for your groveling.”
Focalor came down the stairs toward me, and I actually could see steam emitting from his nostrils. I wondered vaguely if he could breathe fire. His breath stank of brimstone and I could feel heat emanating from his body. It was like standing too close to a furnace.
“I will not grovel to Azazel or anyone else. If you survived the Maze, then it was by trickery. Queen Amarantha assured me that no human could possibly withstand its powers.”
I raised my eyebrow at Amarantha, who actually cringed. “Did she, now? I’d hate to think that the queen purposely sent me into the Maze with the intention of killing me by proxy.”
“Of course I did not,” she said regally, but there was fear in her eyes. “You agreed to the terms of the contest, just as did Antares.”
“But you had no intention of actually negotiating with Lucifer even if I did win. It seems that while I was away you and Focalor have gotten quite close.”
“It is my right to do as I please in my own court,” she snapped.
“And it is my right as ambassador to Lucifer to call you false, to say that you have conspired against him and me from the beginning, that you have attempted to sow discord in my party using magic, that you have committed grievous offense by hosting Focalor under his own banner and accepting, even temporarily, a thrall of Azazel’s as your own prize. To say nothing of your other intentions,” I said, and let that hang unsaid between us for a minute. I didn’t want her to think I’d forgotten about her plan to have a child of Lucifer’s bloodline.
She stood from her throne, her face pinched and white. “You will not speak to me thus in my own court.”
I shouldered Focalor aside and strode up to her. “I will do as I please. You have broken the laws of etiquette of your own kingdom, you have risked the safety of humanity on a war for your own pleasures, and you have deliberately tried to murder me. Lucifer is not going to buy that you were a neutral party in all of this. He’s going to hold you responsible for encouraging Focalor.”
“I do not fear Lucifer,” she said through her teeth.
“You should,” I said softly. “If you don’t, then you’re dumber than I thought.”
“Leave this court, Ambassador. You are no longer welcome here,” she said angrily.
“Gladly,” I said and turned on my heel. Then I turned back. “Almost forgot.”
I slapped her across the face.
“How dare you,” she said, her face livid.
“I dare because your actions have betrayed you as a selfish, spoiled brat with no thought other than that of your own desires.”
“We will have a score to settle, Madeline Black,” Amarantha hissed.
“Bring it on, bitch. There isn’t anything you have that I haven’t seen before.”
Then I turned away from her and strode toward the doors.
The court was deathly quiet as I walked out, Samiel still carrying Gabriel and glued to my side. As I reached the doors, I suddenly heard the sound of applause.
I turned back to see Wade grinning at me and clapping his hands. He winked when I acknowledged him, and I gave him a little bow.
Then I walked out of Amarantha’s court, hopefully forever.
As soon as the doors closed behind me, I felt my body slump.
“You can’t collapse yet,” Beezle whispered. “Wait until you’re alone.”
“Right,” I said, struggling to stay on my feet. “Too bad I don’t know how to get back to our room.”
“I can help with that,” J.B. said from behind us.
It didn’t hit me until I saw him how scared I had been in the Maze, or how happy I was to be alive and not insane. It didn’t hit me until I saw his face, so reassuringly normal, and the relief that was evident there.
I threw my arms around him and pressed my face into his neck.
“Well, hey, there,” J.B. said.
I didn’t say a thing, just held on tight.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” he whispered.
“Me, too,” I said, swallowing so that I wouldn’t cry into his neck. I knew that eyes were still watching us, even if I couldn’t see them. I spoke softly into his ear, so that only he could hear. “Would you just hold on to my arm for a little while? I feel dizzy all of a sudden.”
“That won’t be a hardship,” he said, and then he looked at Samiel. “Who’s the new guy?”
I sighed. “Samiel.”
His eyebrows winged up. “Samiel, who tried . . .”
“To kill me, yes, but it was all a misunderstanding and it’s okay now, so can you just get me somewhere I can sit down?” I said.
“I’m so glad that you’re still you,” J.B. said dryly, and helped me to my room.
As soon as I entered my room, the connecting door swung open. Nathaniel stood there, looking utterly amazed. Then he seemed to collect himself.
“I don’t know why I am constantly surprised by you when all you ever do is exceed expectations,” he said.
He seemed like he’d healed up a little more in the past two days. I was still angry with him, even though I knew that at least part of what happened had been a spell of Amarantha’s. But that jealousy and anger had already been inside him, even if he would never have acted upon it.
And it was hard to look at him without thinking of what happened in the Maze. Still, I owed him a debt for giving me the sword.
“Thank you for the gift,” I said sincerely. “I wouldn’t have survived without it.”
“I am glad that you did survive. Although I see that you left something of yourself behind,” he said, indicating my hand.
“Oh, that wasn’t the Maze. That was something else,” I said, not wanting to get into it. Somehow I had a feeling that all the men in the room would think worse of Samiel if they knew he had chopped off two of my fingers. “Listen, are you strong enough to heal Gabriel? He’s in a pretty bad way.”
Nathaniel looked like the request did not thrill him, but he did as I asked. He seemed different now, somehow humbled. I wondered if it would take or if he would go back to being a pain in my butt once he returned to Azazel’s court.
I desperately wanted to sit down, to rest, but I needed to get out of Amarantha’s court more than I needed sleep. I asked J.B. to get us a car while I packed up.
Nathaniel managed to produce some clothing for Gabriel and Samiel to wear, since they were both clad in nothing but a strip of cloth across their privates.
Samiel seemed bewildered by the mechanics of putting a shirt on over his wings, and Nathaniel was oddly patient while he showed Samiel how to fold his wings through the openings in the back. Samiel was built on a wider, more muscular scale than Nathaniel so the clothing strained at the seams.
Fifteen minutes later all of us, including J.B., were squished in a car with Amarantha’s half-troll driver. I didn’t ask why J.B. was leaving with us when it was his mother’s court and she could probably use his support. I understood wanting to get away from a parent. It was exactly how I felt whenever Azazel was around.
I could tell that they all wanted to ask me what had happened in the Maze. Five pairs of eyes looked at me expectantly, but now that we were finally seeing the back of Amarantha and the stupid faerie court I felt myself drifting off to sleep.