“All of it?”
“I don’t want to, all right?” he snapped. “The knowledge is not good or evil, but Shade will put it to evil purpose and people will die by the hundreds. Since Tarchamus isn’t famous for his eruption beyond historians and maybe Shade, we have to assume that scroll never got out. And if we can’t find it, we have to make certain Shade doesn’t either.”
Farideh nodded, surprised by the outburst. “Lorcan will know what the rune means. He might know what the spell does. He might know if we can reproduce it somehow.”
Dahl scowled at the text. “I don’t want to treat with a devil.”
“I’ll treat with him,” she said sharply. She handed the diary back. “You could always ask the Book. It might let something slip.”
“No,” Dahl said urgently. “Don’t pick up that book.” He pulled another book from his jerkin, another slim leather volume. “I found this. Look at the dates.”
Farideh frowned. “Fourteen seventy-eight? They couldn’t …” She read the names. “Karshoj. Who made this?”
“Is it true?”
Farideh stared at the name bound in curlicues of stylized branches and marked with the number three: Lord Aubrin Crownsilver. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “He’s … someone. But he wouldn’t have just left this … or written it.”
Dahl studied her face, as if he were assessing how much he could trust her and how much she trusted him. “Let’s say you’re right,” he said, “Brin wouldn’t have left it. What if this is what those ghosts are doing? What if they’re driving us back to the Book so it can … pull things from our heads? Make new books? Hoard new knowledge? What if that’s what this place is? A trap, to punish Tarchamus’s rivals.”
“And then they feed us to the arcanist?” She closed the book. If this was what was locked in Brin’s head, it wasn’t her business. “Where did you find it?”
“Near where you were casting your circle,” Dahl said. “If I’m right … there might be something there about the scroll. If someone hid it or destroyed it, they might have given that knowledge to the Book.”
“Maybe the memories of whoever got that page out of here?” Farideh held out a hand. “Stay here. Give me the diary, and I’ll see about that first.” And see about my rod, too, she thought as she walked over to Lorcan.
“I need to show you something,” Farideh said. She opened the diary to the spell diagrams, the lines of Infernal letters arrayed around the center rune. “Do you know what it says?” He reached out to touch the center rune-the circle rebuffed him, and he flinched.
“Phlegethos,” Lorcan said. “The fourth layer.”
“ ‘The Heart of Flames,’ ” she said, recalling the scroll. “What would that do?”
“Everything would burn,” he said. “Perhaps even the caster. Phlegethos is hotter than a volcano’s heart.” Lorcan peered at the diagram. “Lords of the Nine, that’s complex. What under Beshaba’s wicked gaze are you doing with it?”
“Nothing yet. Could you cast it?”
“I’d be impressed if an archlord could cast that.”
Not the answer she wanted. She shut the book. “May I have my rod back?”
Lorcan straightened. “Trust me, darling, you don’t want it.”
“I certainly do,” she said. She held out a hand. “And it’s not as if you can return it to the Hells at the moment. So please?”
“You can’t just trust that I have your best interests at heart,” he said, his wings twitching as if they might spread wide and shatter the walls of the circle. “Maybe you should have called Sairche-I’ll bet she’d make a fine mistress.”
Farideh shook her head, biting back a bitter laugh. “You know I thought things were different. I thought you and I … I thought you were done treating me like some thing you shift and prod and toy with, but that was never so. I spent every night worrying over you. I searched high and low for a gate to get you from the Hells-I put myself in the hands of monsters for you-and you can’t even come up with a decent lie for why you want to cripple me?”
“This isn’t about crippling you.”
“Because you suddenly need a rod?” she demanded. “Because you’d rather I fight ghosts with weakened spells?”
“Because Sairche found you!”
“What?” All Farideh’s anger froze. “How? You said she couldn’t.”
“She managed to scry the rod. But if it’s kept within-”
Farideh pointed her bare hand at the rod. “Assulam.” A flash of light, a low pop, and the rod shattered into a rain of splinters. Lorcan yelped and curled away from the explosion. Her stomach clenched. The implement and its enchantments had saved her more than once, and casting with it had made her feel far more powerful and in control than reality had ever granted her.
Sairche found you. She managed to scry the rod-and then it didn’t matter what the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal had done or not done or could do in the future. It was a lodestone for Sairche, and that was all that had mattered.
“Are you mad?” Lorcan hissed. “Do you know what that was worth?”
The splinters scattered over the limestone tiles, spangled with chunks of the quartz tip and flakes of gold leaf. Whatever magic had been in the Rod of the Traitor’s Reprisal was gone. “Less than Havilar,” Farideh said.
“She doesn’t know about Havilar!”
“And now she never will,” Farideh said. “No matter how hard she looks. Unless you were lying about that too.”
Lorcan dragged his hands over his face. “Have you wondered why I’m the first devil to seek you and your sister out?” he asked. “The only one to offer either of you the pact? Your parents were likely wicked, but one of them may have had a change of heart-there is a spell laid on you, on both of you. A protection. You can’t be scryed, not by normal measures.”
She blinked, startled. “How long has that been so?”
“All your life, I’d wager.”
“But you could find me,” she said. “So how well does it work, really?”
Lorcan shifted. “Don’t be angry, darling. Do you still have the charm I gave you?” She took it from her pocket and handed it over. Lorcan twirled the little scourge between his fingers. “Do you know anything about sympathetic magic? Like calls to like, and there’s nothing more powerful for a sympathetic link than blood. The Weave, the planes, the scraps of wild magic that pulse in all manner of things-they cling to blood in ways only the gods can explain. That is how I found you.”
She recoiled as his meaning came clear. “You bastard. You had no right.”
“Oh come now,” he said. “A few drops off your brand? That’s hardly worth getting upset about. And without it I wouldn’t have been able to find you again. I wouldn’t have been able to give you those powers you’re so fond of.”
Whatever reasons he put to it, stealing blood from her was a step beyond everything she’d agreed to. He’s practically Lorcan without the devil-magic and wings, Havilar had said. All teeth and hands. All greed and self-regard.
Lorcan thrust the charm at her, skimming the edge of the circle. “Here. Take it then. You’ll have all your blood back.”
And he’d never be able to find her. Farideh rubbed her arm. “You could have asked.”
Lorcan lowered the charm. “And if I ask now? There is a part of the pact. An allowance. I can take a portion of the spells that are left affecting you. It’s meant to spread the effects of curses and such, but I think it will contort the protection. But it uses blood.”
“What do you mean,” Farideh said after a moment, “a part of the pact? How many parts are there to this pact?”
Lorcan cursed. “It’s just a little … perquisite.”
Farideh bit back her anger. “One you didn’t think I needed to know about.”
“It isn’t you. Look, do you think I want to deal with every lazy warlock thinking they can stroll through the world provoking each other without a care because they pestered me into being their shitting shield?” Lorcan demanded. “I would have brought it up if it mattered before. I’m bringing it up now. It should carry over part of the protection and keep Sairche from finding me as well.”