She slipped the necklace on, over one horn and then the other. Karshoj to Farideh, if it had been Havilar that stupid Sairché wanted, she could have stopped all of it-with the amulet or with a spell or with her blade. She rubbed her thumb over the spiral carved into the back of the amulet, and imagined taking her glaive to Sairché the way she had the dummy.
Havilar took another gulp of wine, and considered the amulet again-it would make things even easier to fix, if Sairché came back again. Because if anyone was going to fix this, it would have to be Havilar, and it would have to wait for tomorrow.
Every tome and scroll in Tam’s library that so much as hinted at referencing devils or the Nine Hells lay open on the floor around Farideh. She’d even pulled down what seemed to be a chapbook in a memoir’s skin about traveling backward through time, just in case.
But all she could think about was Havilar saying, “I’m never going to be on your side again.”
Footsteps made her look up, and there was Brin, staring down the hall where Havilar had disappeared, holding a book under one arm. Farideh shut her eyes-so that was what made Havilar finally talk to her again.
“Well met,” she said. He looked over at her, surprised, but said nothing. “Or not,” she added, wishing she’d said nothing at all. “That’s all right.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Brin. I didn’t-”
“Of course you didn’t,” he interrupted. “You’re not a monster.” But he still wouldn’t look her in the eye. He held the book out to her. “Here. It didn’t fit in the box.”
Farideh took it from him-a thick tome bound in dark blue silk, smudged with dirt and marks of damp. Her ritual book. She leafed through it, skipping the first few pages instinctively, turning to the spells she’d written in herself, sitting in the back of a cart lumbering along the path between the Nether Mountains and Everlund. Havi and Brin trailing the cart, hand in hand, heads together. Dahl explaining how the components of the ritual fit together, rambling on and on, caught up in his own love of the magic more than any love of teaching her. Human-shaped Lorcan, sitting on the back of the driver’s box, close enough for Tam to bless him back into the Hells, and watching everything.
She closed the book and held it to her chest.
“You should have taken me too,” Brin said quietly.
Farideh looked down at the book beside her, the grotesque woodcut of a grinning devil that leered up at her. “I would have. If I’d known what would happen. You have to believe that.”
“So you say,” he replied, his voice too full of pain and anger to bear. “But I don’t.” She watched him turn and go, wishing she knew what to say, what to do.
You can fix this, she told herself. You have to fix this. She set the ritual book beside her and went back to her studies, skimming pages full of advice it was too late to take.
A wind came from nowhere, rustling the pages of the book. A wind out of the Hells themselves.
“Are you ready?”
Farideh did not turn to look at Sairché, did not give her the satisfaction of seeing the fear that no doubt raced across her features.
“You ask that as if I have a choice in the matter,” she said quietly. “If I say ‘no,’ will you give me time?”
“Don’t sneer at my courtesy,” Sairché said. “You might find you still need it.” Sairché’s robes swished as she circled around Farideh. “Have you found a way around our deal?”
“You know I haven’t,” Farideh said. “And I want none of your courtesy. Just tell me what I have to do and leave me alone.”
Sairché’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t respond in kind. She held up a golden ring and looked through it at the tiefling. “A portal,” she said, and pressed the ring into Farideh’s palm. “I would accompany you, but since you have no need of my courtesy I shall let you figure things out on your own. Gather your belongings, make your excuses, and go. We’ll see how well you manage things alone.”
Farideh turned the ring over in her hand. It was warm to the touch. “You like rings for portals,” she said. “You and Lorcan both.”
Sairché narrowed her eyes. “Your new master isn’t expecting you immediately, but get moving. If you aren’t there by deepnight, I’ll have to come find you.” She smiled wickedly at Farideh and brushed the tiefling’s hair off her face. “And you wouldn’t want that.”
Farideh ignored the threat. “No killing,” she said. “You promised. No stealing souls.”
Sairché shook her head, as if Farideh were an incorrigible child, and Farideh was suddenly aware of the thousands of things she hadn’t marked out. But it was too late, too late for any of that. “No killing. No soulstealing. But,” Sairché added, “if you don’t fulfill your promised services your soul is forfeit.”
“As if I care,” Farideh said.
Sairché leaned in to hiss in Farideh’s ear, “You should. You should care very much. Because if I have to, I will kill you and put your sister in your place.”
Farideh shut her eyes, but there was no stopping the fat line of tears that welled up at that. She rubbed her thumb over the ring-the link to whomever Sairché had promised her to, the only way to protect Havilar from Farideh’s bad decisions.
“There, now,” Sairché crooned, a perfect mockery of sympathy. “It will all be over in a trice. And then you can go back to dodging collectors and disappointing your family. Until I can redeem that second favor.”
Farideh said nothing. As much as she would have liked to turn the storm of Hellish energies that thundered along her pulse against the cambion, she knew too well the sort of magic Sairché would have access to. If she couldn’t kill her outright, it would be suicide to strike.
And worse, she thought: Havilar would bear the brunt of her failure. She closed her hand over the ring.
“A word of advice,” Sairché drawled. “When you arrive, try to pretend you’re not such an innocent. You’ll get eaten alive otherwise.” When Farideh looked back over her shoulder, the cambion was gone.
It was still three hours to deepnight, but with her nerves threatening to overtake her and ruin what resolve she’d managed, Farideh headed straight to her room and packed what little belongings she had into a haversack. Sairché hadn’t said where the ring would take her, and Farideh hoped a rod, a sword, the ritual book, a whetstone, and a comb would be enough.
Dahl’s deck of cards sat between the candles on the little table where she’d dropped it. She considered it a moment, then added it to the pack as well. She pulled her cloak closed, went down to the kitchens, and took the end of a loaf of bread and a few apples.
From the library, she’d snatched a bit of foolscap and a stylus, a little bit of ink.
I am so sorry, she wrote. I hope this makes things easier. She finished the letter and folded it up quickly, so that she wouldn’t have to see the words.
Havilar was sleeping, curled tight on her cot, her lips stained purple from the mostly empty bottle of wine on the floor beside her. Farideh stood in the door a moment, her grief and guilt trapping her feet like a heavy mud. She thought of all the times they’d fought before, all the fights that had seemed vicious, world-ending, but always, eventually, settled out, eased off. They always came back to where they’d started, or near enough to it. They would always be sisters.
Until this, Farideh thought.
She left the note on the bedside table, and piled Lorcan’s necklace atop it. As a peace offering, it lacked. But there was nothing Farideh could leave Havilar that would make much of a difference, and if Sairché wanted the thing, at least she knew Havilar would be stubborn about letting go of it. She kissed her sister’s head, just above her horns, fighting the urge to shake Havilar awake, to tell her once more that she was sorry.