Pierce sighed. “Disappeared after you passed out. I guess he was working with Prince Asmodeus all along.”
I should have known he would betray us. I was surprised that he didn’t rat on us earlier. It would have been far easier for Mother to track us down and have her way. I had to wonder if Dantaleon had hidden anything from her at all. What I did know was that he was going to be in a whole world of trouble when he returned to her service at the Palace of Veils. I seesawed between anger and loss, thoroughly unsure of how to feel about my mentor, even less sure that I would ever see him again.
“Here,” Bastet said, pushing a bowl into my hands. “Eat up. It’s chili. I’d say it’s good for you, but I’d be lying. It’s definitely delicious, though. And congratulations on staying alive.”
I shrugged, giving her a flat smile. “We tried our best. And sorry about your bed.”
She shrugged back. “No skin off my back. It’s the comfiest spot in the apartment, and you really did look half dead when they dragged you in here. I figured you’d need some proper rest.”
“Thank you. You’ve done so much, honestly.” I bit into a spoonful of chili, my eyes going wide at the spicy richness of it. “And thank you for this, too. Wow.”
“Best cook ever,” Pierce said, grinning up at Bastet, fawning over her like he was sucking up to his own mother. She fixed him with a brief, suspicious glare, then smiled widely back, flattered.
I smiled to myself, knowing how he’d always ached for some semblance of family, how he’d never known his own. Then I resisted a frown, remembering how the one person who’d ever come close to being his mother had willingly tortured him to make a point. My magic had barely made a dent on Asmodeus, but some day, I would be stronger. Some day, I would be powerful enough to make her pay.
The chili didn’t survive very long, though Bastet generously pointed out that there was plenty more where it came from. I was deep in conversation with Thoth as I worked through my second bowl. In the back of my mind, the awareness that we couldn’t leech off the gods and stay in their apartment forever lingered. I still had to find a home. But for the moment, I was content to focus on good food and good conversation.
We were discussing the hierarchies of the infernals, specifically, the names of the current Seven. Not a lot of occultists had gotten all their titles and stations correctly across the years. Some of the thrones had been usurped over the centuries: assassinations, duels, rebellions, all that fun stuff. Besides, news in the prime hells wasn’t the easiest to access from earth.
“John Wycliffe came closest when he wrote out the names of the princes in Lanterne of Light,” Thoth said, wiping at his mouth and mustache with a paper napkin. “Have you read it?”
“Of course I have,” I said, proudly puffing out my chest. “I own a copy. Well, I used to.” Thoth grinned, impressed. Nerdy stuff, yes, but extremely interesting to me.
Then came an odd tapping from the window nearest us. I looked over, puzzled, finding a bird with a long, narrow beak at the window.
“Is that – is that an ibis?”
Thoth nodded, smiling. “One of my own. I sent it out to do a little research. And look at that. It came back with some findings.”
He lifted the window, holding out his hand to accept the scroll clutched in the bird’s talons. Thoth whispered something to the ibis, and it flew off again. He unfurled the scroll, his eyes glimmering with curiosity as he read. Then he handed it to me.
I set down my bowl, taking the scroll suspiciously, looking over it myself. The paper was old. There was something familiar about it, about its scent, its feel, the power radiating from its ancient ink. My eyes widened as I recognized its essence.
“This is a page from the Testament of Spheres. But how?”
Thoth shrugged. “My children have their ways. Read it.”
My eyes scanned quickly across the page. The Testament had always been a treatise on traveling across dimensions. I’d wanted it specifically for the purpose of slowly training myself how to teleport. But this page was different.
“This is part of a ritual,” I murmured distractedly. “It speaks of how to sculpt a parallel dimension.” I looked up into the god’s face, confused as ever. “I don’t understand.”
“A parallel dimension,” Thoth said. “Your own private hell.”
“Surely you don’t mean that,” I muttered. “I never even imagined the possibility.”
Thoth nodded. “In time, perhaps you will learn enough to be able to infiltrate your old home, to find a way to retrieve the books from your – now, what was it called again – your Repository?”
I shivered, the hairs on my skin prickling as the very thought of finding my collection again excited me.
“But apart from that,” Thoth said. “Think back to what we discussed at the oasis. About carving your own niche. About finding your own place in the world. The world is open to you now, your future laid flat and empty before you. What will you do? Where will you go?”
My heart pounded with anticipation, my blood fizzing with excitement. I, Quilliam J. Abernathy, would one day reclaim my power and my collection of beloved books, and reawaken my gift of Inscription. But before all that, I had to process this bizarre revelation. I finally understood the very thing that Thoth was hinting at.
I was free from the shackles of Asmodeus. I had the luxury of choice. I could venture forth and find my own place in the world.
Or I could create it.
See how it all started.
Travel back in time and witness Quilliam’s first true taste of danger. Explore the prequel: Ex Inferis.
Need to read more?
Be the first to
