Page 212 of Bedeviled

The fairy hovers above us, the shadows gathering around him.

“What I do best: I’m going to head outside and make every last enemy who still lingers wish they were in hell.”

CHAPTER 50

It turns out we don’t need a map to find the conservatory. We simply follow the trail of bodies.

The hairs along my arms stand on end as Memnon, Nero and I pass dead and sometimes cannibalized fae. The silence is palpable, like something worse than the Bargainer’s shadows lurk in it.

Eventually, the bodies do end at the conservatory.

A haze of firelight from outside glitters down on the plants in here. It should be a breathtaking space, but right now the air carries the iron tang of blood, and more bodies are strewn across the stone pathway. There’s a narrow pathway that bisects the entire length of the conservatory, but the foliage is so dense that I only see a few individuals on the far end, beneath a domed glass ceiling.

But from somewhere beyond view, I can hear Eislyn’s terrible, lovely voice.

“…millennia I have moldered on that wretched plane. I bet you thought you were done with me, didn’t you?”

“I-I don’t know who you are.”

“I was Eislyn Alder, daughter of King Sable the Patient, the princess you once tended to.”

I hear someone’s slight inhalation.

“You remember now?” Eislyn says. “Do you remember how gleeful you were when I was captured? Sentenced? Banished? Because I do.”

Oh, this isn’t just a coup; this is Eislyn’s revenge tour.

“Two thousand years I’ve waited for this moment. Now to decide whether to kill you or banish you? Perhaps I shall maim you first⁠—”

A shrill, agonized scream starts up.

I’m about to dash forward when Memnon grabs my upper arm and drags me into one of the aisles that branch off from the main walkway of the building.

Wait, Empress, he says down our bond, pulling me against him. His eyes are everywhere on me, and he spends a needless moment tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. He pauses to press his palm against my skin. “Form impenetrable armor for my mate,” he breathes.

His magic fans out across my skin, and I soften at the sight of it.

I press a hand to his chest and repeat the ward, exhaling at the sight of that protection he now wears.

Even after the wards have set, Memnon continues to hold me fast, all while that poor fae’s tortured screams rent the air.

Eislyn doesn’t know for certain that you’re alive or that you’re here, Memnon says down our bond. Let me go first.

We already tried that plan, I argue, and it ended badly.

But Memnon’s magic releases from his fingertips, fastening onto my limbs and rooting me in place. He presses the same spell into Nero’s fur, the traitor.

I flash him a betrayed look.

He pulls me in close. “Just give me two minutes,” he breathes into my ear. “That’s all I ask.”

But he’s not asking, and that’s the problem.

I glare at him, which only causes him to flash me a feral grin.

Give me that look later tonight when this is all over, est amage, and I will give you everything your mind can conjure—and a few things it cannot.

With that, Memnon backs away, then turns and withdraws a blade. He disappears from sight, lost in the maze of foliage, but I can hear his sure strides as he heads toward Eislyn.