“More than enough. I’m not sure she’d survive anymore.”
“The synapses in her brain are unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” the man said, frowning before digging deeper into my mind, causing another lancing pain. Even still, I couldn’t pull away.
“Am I right?”
“Maybe. You’re asking me to identify something that hasn’t ever existed.”
“Force it out of her. She went incorporeal. If she takes that form here, I’ll know I’m right.”
The man pressed his lips together and yet another sharp pain consumed me, as if he’d poured molten lava through my head. After a moment he shook his head and released me. “I can’t.”
“Because it isn’t there or because you are unable to?”
The man rose, rubbing at his temples. “I don’t know. I feel what you’re talking about, but I don’t know if there’s enough of it to matter.”
Lucifer crossed his arms, looking less pleased. “I hope you don’t expect a full payment for this.”
The man turned his eyes toward me, a resistance there. “As long as I never have to go into her head again, I’ll take no payment at all.”
Lucifer waved him off, the man rushing away.
It hit me as hilarious. The whole situation, how even the devil couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of me. Wasn’t that my place in life? Or in the afterlife, it seemed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, tone sharp.
“Everyone wants to understand what I am, and no one can figure it out. The thing is that I’ve spent my whole life trying to be one thing—normal. Now here I am, at the other side, in hell, and it is that same question. It never goes away, never stops. What am I?” I laughed again, knowing my voice had a hysterical edge to it. “After everything I’ve seen and lived through, and I finally figured out it doesn’t fucking matter. I mean, if you and your brain melon baller there can’t figure it out, maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the end.”
Lucifer came forward and leaned in closer, as if he could peer through my eyes, into my head that this friend had dug through, and see something he’d missed. “It matters, Ms. Harlin, because if I’m wrong, we’re all fucked.”
Even if I’d wanted to say something back, even if I’d had something to say back, the ambrosia overpowered me at that point. The spinning room lost definition, and it was Lucifer’s dark eyes that haunted me as I passed out.
It seemed I was a girl who couldn’t hold her ambrosia.
* * * *
I groaned as the throbbing in my head made me wonder if I was actually going to die. When I cracked my eyes open, I was sure of it. The light stabbed at me like needles, and I decided dying was preferable.
“Why do you have a pair of boxers?”
I flinched at Gran’s voice, twisting to see her standing above me.
Above? I looked around to find myself on the ground beneath the large tree in the courtyard.
And sure enough, I clutched a pair of boxers I didn’t recognize in my hand. “Whose are these?”
“I figured one of your men.”
“None of them wear silk boxers.”
I pushed myself up to sitting, my stomach rolling.
Gran held her hand out and took them. “These are Lucifer’s.”
“What?” If I’d felt sick before it was nothing compared to now. “Why do I have Lucifer’s underwear?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“How do you even know they’re his?”
She held them up and showed the interior band where Lucifer was embroidered.
“He has his own name on his underwear? Why?”
“Maybe because people like you steal them.”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and filed that away for worry another time. “I thought ambrosia worked until I took one of those pills. I am feeling very much not drunk enough right now.”
“I put two of those pills in your mouth a few hours ago then let you sleep off the rest.”
“Why does my head hurt so much? I didn’t have a hangover last time.”
“You were drunk enough to try and climb the magic tree with Lucifer’s stolen boxers. I’m going to guess you had a lot more than you did last time.”
I frowned, then recalled before that had happened. “That man stuck his fingers in my brain!”
Gran patted her side. “Maybe I have another pill…”
I got to my feet and waved her off. “I’m not still high. Lucifer had some guy with a big red beard dig around in my mind trying to figure out what I was.”
“Good thing you were drugged then. That sounds like a lot rougher than you like your sex.”
I gave her a glare. “How long until the next competition?”
“They called for it a few minutes ago.”
I glanced around the empty courtyard. “So where is everyone?”
“Lucifer is holding the final round local-style. He set up a spot just this side of the dead zone.”
The loud, low sound that chilled me rang through the palace, telling me it had started.
Lucifer knew where I was because he seemed to know everything. He’d done this on purpose, which meant I had to get to the competition now.
I rush toward the doorway, Gran on my heels despite the fact that she looked far too old to be running that fast.
Please don’t let me be too late.
I made it to the top of a staircase that led down to the outer courtyard. The arena sat on the outer edge, between the palace and the dead zone.
All four men still stood, letting me pull in a rough breath. The short run had winded me, telling me my exercise routine was sorely lacking.
At the center, in front of the crowd, sat Lucifer in the same throne—or perhaps a replica. It seemed he rather liked the whole skull motif. At least he was consistent.
He turned toward me, a smirk on his lips that said he’d planned it all.
But what had he planned?
He looked far too pleased given that the night before, as far as I recalled,
