“You don’t have a clue what’s coming, do you,” he said. “It’ll make those inferno cantrips look like a blessing.”
Too late, I recalled Devon’s words about those cantrips being deadly to anyone who laid their hands on them. Less violent than Adair’s usual methods, yes, but if the box of cantrips those mages had been carrying had contained countless copies of the same cantrip, they might be lethal to large numbers of people. Yet all my warnings to the House of Fire had fallen on deaf ears. This one would be no exception.
I did my best to keep my face blank as I addressed the cage bars. “I know what’s not coming. Lex and Roth. They don’t give a crap about you.”
At the sound of the names of our guardians, he roared in anger and rose to his face, and I turned away to avoid making accidental eye contact with him.
“Hawker will be here soon enough,” Adair called after me as I left the jail. “He’ll be the one who takes power from the Death King. Mark my words.”
A likely story. It was past time I found the Death King, wherever he was. He definitely wasn’t playing video games with the Elemental Soldiers, but his own quarters were the only part of the castle which were out of bounds to the rest of us. Regardless, Adair’s warning had awakened a sense of urgency I couldn’t shake. I entered the castle via the front doors and made my way to the far corridor, where a wooden door led to the private staircase belonging to the King of the Dead.
Before I could knock on the door, the Death King floated through the wooden surface. I stumbled back, damn near tripping over my feet. His cold stare sent a wave of chills down to my bones, and I swore the very fire inside me extinguished itself.
“Ack!” My voice sounded entirely too squeaky for my liking.
The Death King studied me. “If you’ve come to redecorate my quarters as well as the entrance hall, then I’d advise you to banish the notion.”
Oh shit. He’d noticed the improvement I’d made to the skulls in the pillars. “I thought you were out of the castle.”
Why had I thought redecorating his creepy pillars was a good idea again? I’d ticked off Striker to no end when I’d worked for him, but this was the first time I’d had a boss who could genuinely rip out my soul if he felt like it. For all I knew, that would be a permanent end even for the likes of me.
“You have an update for me, don’t you?” He drifted past me into the entrance hall, and I followed, relief sweeping through me at the notion that he wasn’t going to kill me after all.
I gave him a quick rundown of the events of last Friday evening, including my recent discovery about the House of Earth’s loyalties. He didn’t react with any surprise whatsoever to my pronouncement that several of their number seemed to be obtaining illegal cantrips from the enemy.
“So you knew,” I said. “You knew the Houses were being taken over from within.”
“I suspected there was a strong possibility.”
My hands clenched. “Then what am I supposed to do? I take it you want me to stop trying to pursue an alliance with them?”
“I didn’t have the impression you were having much luck in that regard anyway,” he said.
“Then why bother taking the House of Fire’s prisoner?” I said. “Why’d they let you bring Adair here if they didn’t want any kind of alliance with you?”
“Presumably, they wanted him off their hands,” he said. “I imagine it was a relief to be rid of him, one way or another.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. “For the record, I also figured out the jailor at the House of Fire was killed by a cantrip containing a magical virus. Devon worked it out.”
“Good for her,” he said. “I’m glad you found a way to entertain yourself which didn’t involve breaking the law or redecorating my property.”
Unbelievable. “Don’t blame me when the Family shows up on the doorstep to retrieve their missing member. Aren’t you the least bit concerned about the Houses?”
“Yes,” he said. “I am. That said, I suspected they’d be reticent to join forces with me. We don’t have a pleasant history with one another.”
“I’m not their biggest fan either, but the idea of someone like my brother, the Family, having access to their resources…” I broke off. “Cantrips that can kill at a touch and Elysium’s only supplier being on the enemy’s side ought to warrant a little more attention, surely. I can’t even convince the House of Fire’s guards there’s a problem.”
“Then they’ll have to learn the hard way,” he said. “Like the House of Earth did, I imagine.”
“You used to belong to the House of Spirit,” I said. “The Court of the Dead is all that’s left of the fifth House. Miles told me.”
“Your point?”
I threw up my hands. “I know you don’t like the other Houses, but can’t you… I don’t know, send someone else to give them a warning? I’m not the person to do it. We have too unpleasant a history.”
“As a matter of fact, I always thought you were uniquely suited to the job for a reason.” He studied me. “Maybe you just aren’t asking the right questions.”
What was that supposed to mean? He was being spectacularly unhelpful, considering he must know perfectly well there was a strong chance the Houses had already fallen under the control of the Family.
Unless… wait a moment.
My mouth parted. “You mean you want me to pretend I’m working with this… Hawker person myself, right? Or with whoever’s calling the shots? You don’t think that wouldn’t end badly for me?”
“That’s your risk to take,” he said. “If you ask the
