'Draconic?' Briar supplied, edging closer, his hands fidgeting. 'Elvish? Infernal, Abyssal, Primordial, Deep Speech, or perhaps-?'
'Gibberish, in fact,' Mara said, producing the tome, though she kept it far from Briarbones's reach. 'The archmage's handwriting is atrocious, rambling, and excited, but all that the skulls had to tell him, he did indeed put to paper.'
'Good,' Jinn said abruptly. 'Figure it out. Look for references to souls, special ones. Sathariel is after them, and I want them first.'
'And in the meantime, you will be…?' Mara asked.
'The skulls have more allies,' Jinn replied. 'Tallus is dead, the Loethes are dead, so someone else is helping them, giving them the power to possess.'
'Any leads?' Mara asked, gesturing at Dregg with a raised eyebrow and a vicious smile.
'Callak Saerfynn,' he said. 'He may know enough to finish the spell, if nothing else.' He paused, a thought occurring to him mid-stride. 'How do we know the ritual isn't already finished?'
'We are still alive,' Mara answered absently, pages turning in her deft hands. 'The completed spell will not be an event one would wish to witness, unless Tallus's descriptions of widespread destruction are wrong.'
Her words, cold and humorless, took hold in Jinn's thoughts, evoking images of burning homes, bodies in the streets, and a city's mourning, all over the ambitions of a greedy few. The idea of continued murders sounded almost appealing compared to the alternative.
'Are you ever going to rest?' Quessahn asked, sitting in the dark just beyond the pale light from above. Jinn did not move, fearful of seeing her face again, fearful of the memories she might arouse within him.
'I've grown accustomed to long nights over the years,' he answered. 'It makes things easier. I find that people tend to be more honest in the dark.'
'I'm curious, then. What would you have done, had you slain Sathariel two nights ago?' she asked. 'Would you still be here?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'It never crossed my mind.'
'What did he do? What did he take from you?'
Jinn sighed under his breath, attempting to cool the sudden anger that raced in his heart, but he could not deny it its due course, just as he could no longer accept Quessahn's deliberate avoidance of what they both knew.
'Another of my kind. A deva,' he replied. He turned to her, narrowing his gold eyes to fine points as he found hers in shadow. 'A woman I loved.'
She remained still as he studied her, watching for some reaction, seeking some quiet admission of guilt from the eladrin.
'He-he killed her?' she asked at length, a barely perceptible catch in her voice.
'No,' he answered. 'He corrupted her, confused her, and made her soul as black as his own. In the end, she took her own life.'
Though he said the words, he found that he no longer felt them, unmoved by the gruesome truth of Variel's death, despite the hate that had taken root within him. Of all his time with her, the peace he'd once known, he had spent far longer tracking down the angel. He realized that the place in his heart where he'd once kept her memory had been filled by his hunt for Sathariel… and the attention of Asmodeus.
'Now he corrupts you,' Quessahn muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.
Jinn looked up to the surface, tiny shafts of light beckoning him to leave the eladrin in the dark with her righteousness. He smiled, a forced grin.
'What about you?' he asked. 'Was my death not closure enough? Did my grave, assuming I had one, not suffice your mourning so much that you felt inspired to bring your grief to this city? To find me?' He turned, voice rising as he confronted her. 'Is it comforting to find me somehow less than what you knew? To judge me with your every breath?'
'Oh, gods,' she whispered, breathless and shaking, a single choking sob escaping her as she covered her ears and shook her head in her hands. 'No…'
Jinn stopped, her tears stabbing into his chest as he turned away, unwilling to witness what he had done.
Quessahn's hope for a lost love sat bitterly in the pit of his stomach, crushed by his words and devoured by a petty rage that melted away as swiftly as it had come. He took hold of the ladder, his arm heavy and the climb to the surface seeming more difficult than before.
'I–I cannot be the man you once knew. My kind, no… I do not work that way,' he managed, his voice softer as he climbed. 'You should not have found me.'
He slid the sewer covering away and rolled into the street, covering the entrance and staring blankly up at the gray sky, the damp cobbles soaking through his clothes. He listened for her voice, wondering if she might stop him to scream and curse his name. He imagined her again as he had in Tallus's tower, smiling and surrounded by an ocean of waving green, the faint memory of a bygone life reaching out to torment him.
Only silence kept him company on the cobbles of Seawind Alley, even the ghostly whisperers did not break the stillness that held him.
At length he stood and dashed into the streets, losing himself in the cold and racing against the harsh light of sunrise, bending his focus back to the hunt, to Sathariel, and to all the things that his immortal blood demanded of him, a fool of long-lost gods.
A swift wind swept through Pharra's Alley, its soft moan fading into a chorus of groaning voices that swirled together, a whirlwind of wails and roaring, green flames far below the wings of Sathariel. Empty eyes spun in slowly dying circles as the Nine gathered in their places, bobbing and regarding one another in silence. With as much emotion as fixed bone and lipless teeth could convey, they glowered at one another for several breaths, slowly turning round and round the place where they'd been bound, appearing as a tiny, green ring from the angel's place in the sky.
'We should have killed the deva,' said one abruptly. 'He is too close, too unpredictable. His witches are-'
'Be silent, Graius,' another said. 'The deva, while misguided, shall be our failsafe in the end. He has no choice.'
'Then the angel shall kill him if we do not,' Graius replied.
'Better that Sathariel is kept busy elsewhere, no?' the other responded as the rest of the circle nodded. 'We have managed to evade the angel for centuries; no doubt we can fool him a few days more.'
'One day, in fact,' Sathariel added from above, his large wings beating as he descended into the alley. Out of the range of their green flames, he hovered between the buildings, capturing their attention in his cold eyes. He enjoyed the fear he inspired in them and wished nothing more than to fulfill their every nightmare, but he was powerless over them as of yet and attempted a note of diplomacy. 'In one day Tallus will attempt to betray you and steal all that you have worked for.'
'He lies!' Graius shouted. 'He only speaks in traps and snares, much like his master.'
'Why, angel?' another asked, the circle turning to accommodate the speaker known as Effram. 'What does your lord gain from telling us this?'
'No, my old friends,' Sathariel answered. 'It is you who may gain, should you desire to survive what is to come. It is my understanding that survival is quite important to you, yes?'
'Do not listen, brothers,' Graius grumbled. 'Honeyed words and half truths, his tongue is silvered with deception.'
'Indeed it is, dear Graius,' the angel replied as he edged closer to the circle. 'But not this night, not here. Now I speak of old words and ancient oaths. Your words, in fact. Contracts that you nine have yet to fulfill.' A low growl passed through the skulls at the mention of their neglected obligations, the sins that had made them what they are. 'I only offer you your own lies, and I offer you a chance to make amends. Give to me the souls that Tallus would steal, and my lord shall be lenient.'
'Nonsense,' Graius scoffed, an amused chuckle passing through the circle that threatened to destroy Sathariel's attempt at civility, the skulls' paranoia evident in their denial of anything that wasn't their idea first. The angel could not blame them.
'Asmodeus has certain… interests in the ritual to be performed,' he continued, his voice rising above their
