Eli winced. There was something horribly wrong with the man’s voice. It was far too deep for his thin frame, and there was something wrong with the tone. It was like an inner harmonic was missing, leaving only the shell of a voice. But even the strangeness could not mask the power that reverberated through it.
“You did an excellent job getting past my servants,” the man said. “Of course, since I knew weeks ago that you were coming, you needn’t have bothered. They had orders to escort you up.”
“How hospitable,” Eli said slowly. “And who are you?”
“Come, now,” the man said, laughing. “You know who I am. Your little lava spirit certainly does.”
Eli crossed his arms over Karon’s burn, shielding the terrified spirit. “Humor me.”
“My kind do not indulge in the conceit of names,” the man said, walking forward. “But my children call me the Master of the Dead Mountain.”
There was something horribly wrong with the way the man walked. It was jerky, unnatural, like there was something inside his skin moving just a hair faster than his flesh.
“Of course,” the man said, stopping a bare inch from the edge of the circle, so close Eli could smell his flesh rotting. “Your mistress gave me another name.”
“Yes,” Eli said, making sure he was firmly outside the circle of the Shepherdess’s seal. “Demon.”
“There.” The strange, horrible voice hummed with satisfaction. “Was that so hard?”
The demon smiled at Eli’s sour look and turned on his heel, marching back across the seal with that horrible jerky walk until he was at the opposite side of the cavern. “As I said, I knew you were coming, and I know why you’re here.” The demon put out his hand, brushing the wall where it touched the circle’s edge. All at once, the stone began to change. It sank away from his touch in places and rose to meet it at others, forming an intricate carving of tiny mountains, valleys, and seabeds across the curve of the wall. Eli watched in amazement as a perfect map of the world emerged from the dark stone, and not just the Council Kingdoms, but the Frozen Lands of the far north and the great realm of the Immortal Empress herself, far across the Barrier Sea. As the land took shape, other things appeared as well. Small, black shapes seeped from the black stone. Round, multilegged buglike things with shells like liquid tar. They rose from the stone and crouched on the continents, tiny antennae quivering whenever the demon’s hand passed near.
“Here,” the demon said, stretching up to point at one particularly large black beetle crawling far to the east of the great black point marking the Dead Mountain, somewhere in the coastal foothills of the Sleeping Mountains. “This is where you’ll find Sted. If you hurry, you might even catch him before that bear-headed friend of yours does.” He looked at Eli, his face all concern. “And I would hurry. Between the two of us, Slorn doesn’t stand a chance.”
Eli just stared at him, utterly speechless for once in his life. This encounter had taken a sharp turn from horrifying to bizarre. “Wait,” he said. “Wait, wait, wait, what are you doing?”
The demon looked hurt. “I’m helping you.”
“Yes,” Eli said. “Why?” He pointed at the map, so confused he almost stretched his arms over the seal before he caught himself. “Why show me this? Why tell me where Sted is? You know I can’t possibly trust you.”
“You came here specifically to see this map,” the demon said, dropping his arms. “If you can’t trust me, why did you even bother?”
Eli snapped his jaw shut. He couldn’t tell the demon that spying on the map would have made the information much more trustworthy than having the thing presented to him. But what was really getting under his skin was how much the creature knew. How did the demon know they were after Slorn? How had it known he was coming? It was a powerful, powerful creature with a wide network of spies, so he was willing to accept a certain amount of omniscience, but this was getting downright uncomfortable.
“Come now, Eli,” the demon said when the thief’s silence had stretched on too long. “You and I both know I’m your last shot. Old Gredit won’t tell you anything without payment. I’m giving you this for free. You can either take it and save your friend or go back to stealing kings and stocking that charming little museum of a town you keep as a monument to your own audacity.”
“How do you know all this?” Eli shouted. He regretted the words as soon as they were out. If there was anything he knew about demons, it was that you never showed them a weakness. But if all his secrets were hanging in the open air, he had to know how.
Across the blackness, the creature inside the puppet suit of flesh grinned wide. “My dear thief,” he said. “A father sees everything through the eyes of his children, and my children are very, very watchful.”
Eli’s stomach dropped to his feet as everything fell into place. “Nico.”
The creature smiled wider still. “First rule of thievery,” he quoted. “The last place a man looks is under his own feet.”
Eli took a step back. “I’m going now,” he said, keeping his voice carefully flat. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t thank you for your help.”
“I never expected you to,” the demon said with a toothy smile. “Good-bye, Eli Monpress. I’ll be watching.”
Eli’s mouth twitched, but he kept his face blank. He walked backward, his eyes locked on the demon’s glowing gaze until, at last, he reached the cave mouth. The afternoon sunlight hit him like a hammer, and Eli stumbled, blinking in the brightness. As soon as he could see again, he was off, sprinting down the mountain as fast as his legs could carry him with no care at all for how much noise he made.
“I don’t believe it,” he hissed. “She’s been playing us for fools this whole time. How could I have been so stupid? Awakening and going back? Skipping through shadows like it’s nothing? She’s been his little creature this whole time, and I ate it up. I believed that drivel about fighting for her humanity. She’s nothing but a little spy.”
“Eli,” Karon said in a warning tone. “Remember that the demon is a trickster. You can’t trust anything he says.”
“Trust has nothing to do with it,” Eli snarled. “He made his case clear enough.”
Karon’s heat flickered under his skin. “What are you going to do?”
“First, I’m getting off this mountain,” Eli said, slowing down to navigate the thin strip of path between the cliffs where he’d stopped before to gawk at the horrible destruction left by the thing that ate mountains. “Then, I don’t know. Nothing at first. Josef is going to be the linchpin in all of this. I’ll have to break it to him slowly.”
“I still don’t understand why,” Karon said. “Why would the demon put all this energy into spying on you?”
“Because I’m the favorite,” Eli said bitterly. “Because I’m the greatest thief in the world. Because spirits listen to me whether I want them to or not. Because I’m the key to Benehime, who locked him up in the first place.”
“Then why would he let you know he was watching?”
“I don’t know!” Eli shouted. “There are so many angles going on, I don’t know which way is up anymore. But trust me, I’m going to find out.”
“Just watch out you don’t break your team when you do,” Karon muttered.
Eli had no answer to that. He plunged ahead, racing for the tunnel he’d taken up here from the cultists’ encampment. He was so intent on getting off the demon’s land, he didn’t even notice the enormous storm clouds on the other side of the mountain, blackening the entire mountain range where he’d left Josef and Nico.
CHAPTER
10
When the Lord of Storms’ sword cut into Josef’s back, Nico lost control. She raged against the pressure holding her down, muscles burning as she fought to stand and attack the smug man made of storms who stood over Josef. She wanted to rip him open, to eat him whole, to punch that smug look off his face.
All she managed was to lift her head a fraction off the stone before the Lord of Storms’ command slammed it down again.
She turned her cheek against the ground with a frustrated sob. She was so worthless. Across the ravine
