“That’s good of you,” Havilar managed. She leaned into him again. “What would you have done if that was the case?” Marry the crazy noblewoman, she thought. Fall in love with one of those other three.
“Kept waiting?” Brin said. “I could love you from any distance closer than the Hells, and my life would be happier for it. But this. . I like this best.” He was silent a moment, before adding, “I would fight an army of devils to keep this.”
Havilar smiled. “Me too.”
She could have gladly stayed there, beside the fire, curled so close to her love. She could have sat on the cold stone for seven and a half years, for twenty-five, for an eternity. And then her thoughts started drifting-the Harpers were coming, Farideh was in trouble, there were still devils afoot.
“Water’s ready,” Brin said.
Reluctantly, Havilar left him there, so she could scrub the last of the veserab from her skin and dress in her still-damp clothes. She had mastered the glaive again, Brin was hers once more, and now they were going to save Farideh. Everything was going right again.
Unless. .
She stopped, midway through lacing her blouse, struck by a sudden fear. What if Farideh was the thing that would go wrong? What if Havilar got back everything she’d lost, except Farideh? She was still furious with her twin, but she didn’t want that.
It doesn’t work that way, she told herself. But her fingers suddenly felt stiff and shaking, and the sense that she’d somehow ruined things lurked in the back of her thoughts.
It wouldn’t go wrong, she told herself. She put the amulet of Selûne on once more, and slipped the ruby necklace into her pocket. It wouldn’t go wrong because she wouldn’t let it.
She’d finished braiding her wet hair and begun cleaning the corners and crevices of her glaive she’d missed the night before, when the sound of another group approaching from the north end of the ledge reached them. Havilar stood, peering out into the distance for some hint of who it was.
At the lead were the Harpers from Tam’s office that awful night, trailed by robed wizards and shambling ghouls. Elves, carrying bows and arrows. A litter hauled by horrible-looking beasts, and something straight out of one of Havilar’s worst nightmares. But she hardly noticed any of them, because Mehen himself broke from the group and ran toward her.
He caught her up in a fierce embrace, and Havilar found a part of herself wanting to weep all over again. She hadn’t realized just how badly she missed Mehen, how awful it had been to leave, until then.
“What were you thinking?” he muttered.
Shame bloomed in Havilar’s heart. “Sorry,” she said, but only for making Mehen worry, for leaving so abruptly. She would have done the same thing over again a second time, she felt sure-waiting in Waterdeep even a breath longer would have killed her. “But you found me,” she offered. “And now we can find Farideh.”
Mehen held her a moment longer. “If I could send you safely back, I would.”
“I promise to be careful.”
He gave a short laugh. “How long has it been since I heard that?” He let her go finally. She saw Mehen’s gaze sweep the camp, lingering on the bedrolls that were packed and set together, then finding Brin beside the fire. He narrowed his eyes. “How long were you waiting?”
“Just a night and the morning,” Brin said, not quite meeting Mehen’s gaze.
Mehen made a low growling sound in his throat. He looked down at Havilar-she grinned back.
“I killed a veserab,” she told him. “It’s a flying lamprey thing.”
“Well done,” he said, setting an enormous hand on the back of her head. Mehen looked back as the Harpers came to stand beside them. They introduced themselves to Havilar.
“Zahnya says the camp is at the top,” Vescaras said. “Unless we’re waiting for further instructions? From a demon prince perhaps?”
Mehen scowled at him, then looked up the last slope of the mountain. “Is there a path?”
“Don’t know,” Brin said.
“You didn’t scout for one? You had the time.”
“In the dark?” Brin demanded.
“It’s not steep,” Havilar pointed out. “Not that steep. And the trees aren’t nearly as thick. We can just climb until we reach it.”
“Daranna seems to have had the same thought,” Khochen said dryly. They looked back at the rest of the party, at the scouts disappearing up the slope.
“Watching Gods,” Vescaras swore. “This is why no one wants to work with Daranna.”
Lorcan examined his face in the still scrying mirror. Such a waste of a healing potion, and the cure had been worse than the broken nose, by far. But he’d weighed turning up bruised and battered, considered what Farideh would do when she saw, when she asked what had happened.
No, he thought. No sympathy from that quarter. Not yet. She’d take Mehen’s side right off, and everything he’d done to coax her back would be worth far less-the apology, the rescue, the kiss. . He hadn’t considered the consequences of that as carefully as he should have-but the memory of her shifting toward him in those last fractured seconds, changing from a body to a participant, boded very well indeed.
He looked around the room-still no Sairché. She was supposed to lock down the situation with Rhand, then sort out Magros, while Lorcan saw to their more heroic tools. They’d agreed to meet back here once they’d both discharged their duties.
Lorcan took the dark braid of hair from the pouch on his belt and rubbed his thumb over the ridges of purplish-black hair. He considered his reflection in the scrying mirror a moment longer, then sifted through the rings he still wore to find a familiar iron band. This one he pulled off the chain and placed on his left hand-Sairché wasn’t getting his scrying mirror back.
He waved the trigger ring over the mirror’s surface, one hand on the leather scourge necklace he wore-the necklace imbued with Farideh’s blood. The surface of the mirror shimmered like a slick of oil, before resolving into Farideh, looking as though she had never slept a day in her life and never intended to remedy that. A line of people moved past her, and she studied each with a pinched expression, waving them to one side of the space or the other.
Lorcan narrowed his eyes. She hadn’t said she planned to sort the prisoners-why? And what other surprises were going to crop up in his absence?
He looked around the room again-still no Sairché, and Lorcan needed to get to Farideh as soon as possible. He walked back to the room with the portal, but found no sign that Sairché had returned. He waved his ring before the scrying mirror again and got. . nothing. He cursed. Sairché would-of course-find a way to block her own scrying.
Or she might be in trouble.
“Shit and ashes,” Lorcan cursed again. Whether this fell under the terms of their agreement or not, he’d have to go after her. Acting without being sure of Rhand or Magros would be suicide. He opened the portal to the primordial forest, the same little grove where he’d spied Magros the first time. He took from his pocket the iron cube, and unfolded the cloth wrapped around it. Frost still etched its surface.
Despite his agreements in the interim, Lorcan found himself tempted.
Lorcan had never lived anywhere but Malbolge, never sworn allegiance to any archdevil but Glasya, and that only by virtue of his birthplace. He was not angry enough or foolish enough to think that Stygia would be a paradise, or really anything except a different sort of game, a different battle for survival. A different Hell.
But Stygia would not have Glasya-and how could he not want that? For himself, for his warlocks. .
Warlock, he corrected himself. The rest were gone. And whatever dangers fickle Glasya brought to Farideh, Levistus and his legendary appetites would be another world of danger.