I wish I could sleep.
Other than the few hours where my body literally shut down after Artemis got me into bed and cleaned the blood away from my face, I haven’t slept a wink.
I lazily stroke Kincaid’s cat’s fur, pausing to scratch him behind the ears how he likes. His rumbling purr calms me enough that I can continue reading the leather-bound books I have set into two towers next to the high-backed chair in the library.
I’ve managed to start a fire on my own, which I’m pretty proud of. I even have a hot mug of long-expired tea that doesn’t taste half bad sitting on the little table I dragged in from the next room.
The books did not disappoint. Some seemed to be ledgers of some kind, but a great many more are filled with all kinds of demon-privileged information. I doubt even mortals in command on the other side of The Hinge know half this stuff.
Of course, more than half the books in the library I cannot read at all, which I’m sure is why Kincaid agreed to allow me access to them. Those volumes are in a language I can’t even identify, let alone understand.
I’m just about through a book that is basically an encyclopedia of daemonica and lists the names and traits of at least fifty different breeds of demon, when something in the air shifts and the scent of sulfur tickles my nose.
Shutting the book, I gently lift the cat and set him on the ground. He swats at me when I do, and I give him a look that says not to mess with me or he won’t get any more pats.
“Kincaid?” I call, keeping my voice fairly low. It’s nearing midnight if the clock on the wall can be trusted and Artemis said goodnight well over an hour ago. I don’t want to wake him. Something tells me he still has some catching up to do with his sleep.
I’m about to go investigate when I hear his light footsteps approaching. Strange, but I’ve already grown accustomed to the sound of them. For a brief second, I consider taking up the fire poker as a weapon in case I’m wrong and it isn’t him, but then he appears in the doorway and I relax, if only a little.
Dark circles claim the skin around his eyes, and his clothes, still in tatters, look to now be singed as well. He looks…
I can’t think of the word right away, but then it dawns on me and something in my chest pangs.
He looks sad.
Terribly, painfully, sad.
That’s when I remember how Malphas called Kincaid his brother. Whether by birth or choice, clearly learning of his death has hurt the demon before me.
It’s an emotion Kincaid hasn’t shown me before, and I don’t like how my own belly yawns open with a pit of despair, forcing an empathetic response.
“Na’vazēm, what are you doing awake? It’s late.”
His tone is faraway. His gaze sweeps the carpet, never landing on any one thing.
I gulp, unsure of what to do with my hands and wishing he would stop looking like a man going to his doom. “I—I couldn’t sleep.”
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and approach him cautiously. “What happened, Kincaid?”
His gaze flicks up for an instant at the use of his name, a curious gleam in his eyes that sputters out too quickly. “Hmm?”
“What happened?” I prod again, working to keep my tone level.
I’d been starting to wonder if he would return at all, and if he didn’t, where that would leave me.
Where that would leave Artemis.
I can’t help feeling glad he’s returned from the bowels of Hell in one piece. “Why did you go?”
“I had to find out for myself if it was true,” he replies in a whisper-soft voice.
“About Malphas.”
He gives a tight nod.
“And?”
When Kincaid looks up again, a terrible tremor skitters down the length of my spine. His eyes are hard. His jaw is set.
“He’s gone,” Kincaid says. “Without a trace.”
He sighs and bows his head. “Malphas is dead.”
My hand lifts from my side, and I’m not sure what I was about to do, but I lower it again, cursing the desire to comfort him. Monsters don’t need comforting.
Demons don’t cry.
Kincaid breathes in deeply and his shoulders roll back. His brows lower as he surveys my piles of books and the fire burning low in the hearth.
“I see you’re making good use of your end of the bargain,” he says, and for some reason, the words sting.
Kincaid brushes past me to flip through the top few volumes on the twin stacks of books and then sets them back down and goes to the shelves.
He brushes his long fingers over several titles, before pulling one out from the second to top shelf—one I couldn’t have reached on my own—and splays it open between his hands.
I’m afforded an unobstructed view of his back through the tatters of his shirt. Two large horizontal tears in the fabric reveal a smooth and densely corded torso, but also…
Scars.
Two near identical scars mar the otherwise perfect masterpiece of his body. The large crescent-shaped burn scars mottle the flesh along the inner ridges of his shoulder blades.
He turns before I can get a better look, and I snap my gaze back to his face, not wanting him to know I was staring. Kincaid comes to me with the heavy book still spread between his hands.
“Here,” he says tonelessly. “This is what you should be reading.”
I take the proffered book, twitching when our fingers brush beneath its spine.
“But…it’s a book on necromancy?”
Looking at the words on the page, I can see it’s a handwritten text, as many of them are. In one hand there are small passages around a skeletal drawing in English. And in another hand, there are small bits of what I assume are someone’s notes in a language I assume to be demonic. At the top of the page, it clearly reads, Necromancy.
Kincaid only stares in reply.
My skin bristles. “Is that what I am then?” I ask, hating how my voice cracks on the last word. “A necromancer?”
Kincaid’s placid expression does not change save for the tiny jump of a vein at his temple. “I’ve never seen anything like what you did last night, Na’vazēm…but this is the closest label I can come up with.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
He must see my confusion, because he brushes a hand over the shadow of dark scruff on his jaw and says, “Not only is it near impossible to kill one of the seven lords of Hell…” he trails off, going to stand near the fire and stare into its warm glow.
“But demons…we don’t have souls, Paige. Diablim, yes. But not demons. You shouldn’t have been able to commune with Malphas’ spirit. It doesn’t make any sense.”
I consider what he’s saying even though it makes me sick to my stomach. “Is that why Artemis glows with light, and you don’t?”
His spine stiffens at that, but he makes no move to turn his attention back to me. “Yes.”
“Then why could I—”
“Can you hear him now?” Kincaid asks suddenly, whirling on me so quickly I drop the book from my hands. “Can you still hear Malphas?”
I flounder for a response. His sudden change in demeanor is disconcerting.
“No,” I stammer. “No, I haven’t heard anything at all since I woke up yesterday.”
It’s not exactly true. I did hear some strange whispers near the galley kitchen, but I’ve steered clear of the area since then and they seem to have gone.