Page 59 of White Little Lies
I was once again slapped in the face by the thought that Lucas would no longer care if I lived or died, and we wereveryhigh up. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. This has to have something to do with the bounty,but why trick—um, convince you to kill night runners, and then to protect me?”
He narrowed his eyes at me for a long moment. Long enough for my pulse to nearly choke me. But then finally, he turned away to continue pacing, the wind gusting his white feathers. “That is the question, isn’t it?” He whirled on me again. “Where is Sebastian?”
It felt weird sharing information with an unpredictable crazy person, but he was looking for the female devil too. Exactly what Sebastian had been doing before he disappeared.
I explained as much.
His eyes widened again, this time with realization. “He would know her, of course.”
“He didn’t say that he knew her. He just went to find out more about her.”
“All devils know each other.”
Yeah, maybe I should have thought of that too. “She was involved with some nymphs. She made a contract with their leader. Do you know why?” Lucas definitely wasn’t on my side, but at least one of us needed to find this other devil. And probably kill her. Lucas was far better suited to that than me.
He waved me off. “She would want their well, of course. Devils only search for power. They make contracts for power. Wells are an incredible source of raw magic. That’s why they must keep them in other realms.”
I digested his words. We might be going entirelydown the wrong path, but could a coincidence this big ever really be a coincidence?
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “The well isn’t in another realm anymore. It’s in the middle of a park in the lower city.”
He went perfectly still. “How long has it been there?”
“I don’t know. Not very long.”
His feral smile sent a chill down my spine. “Get up.”
“Why?”
“You want to find this other devil, do you not?”
I stood, not because he had ordered me to do so, but because I was finally feeling steady enough. “Well yeah, I guess.”
“If the well is in this realm, that is where she will be. With you as a token, she will have to give me the truth.”
I took a step back, but since it placed me closer to the edge of the roof, it wasn’t really an improvement. “A token?”
“She wants you alive.” He looked me up and down. “Forsomereason. I will dangle what she wants before her, and she will choose if it is worth the truth.”
Before I could argue, he dove toward me, clamping his arms around me again. Seconds later, we were airborne, and this time I couldn’t quite stifle my scream.
22
The next timeLucas tossed me to the ground, it was a relief to land on grass damp with evening dew. I skidded across it, toppling against a tree that still wasn’t as hard as the building’s roof had been.
“Eva!” Aaliyah hurried toward me and started helping me to my feet as Lucas touched down gracefully beside me. She gave him an appropriately frightened look, then muttered, “Where have you been?”
I didn’t have time to explain it to her as Fiorus spotted me and marched in my direction, his white toga floating around him in a way so perilous that I hoped he was wearing underwear.
“You! You were supposed to prevent this from happening.” He gestured back toward a small copse of trees surrounding a massive iron cauldron glowing with blue light.
I winced. “I’m guessing that’s your well?”
He reached me, his anger so intense that I started to step back, but then Lucas was there, his hand around Fiorus’ throat, lifting him up enough that his sandaled feet barely touched the grass. “Where is the devil?” Lucas said evenly.
Fiorus sputtered, unable to speak. Aaliyah gripped my arm, trembling. I didn’t see Seraphina anywhere.
Lucas tossed Fiorus onto the grass like he weighed nothing.