reached the tiny landing, she gave Josef and Eli one last terrified look before Pele ushered her into a brightly lit room and shut the door behind them.
“They won’t be long,” Slorn said, moving across the room with surprising lightness for such a tall, broad man. “We need to move quickly. The manacles were never meant to do their job alone.”
“I thought the coat was just a cover,” Josef said, standing up. “A front to hide what she is so the spirits won’t panic.”
“That’s part of it,” Slorn answered. “But demons feed on all parts of a spirit, including fear. In the absence of its cover, the seed has been gorging, and not just on the fear around the girl, but on her own as well. As it eats, it grows, and as it grows, the girl’s fight to keep her mind becomes harder and harder.” The bear-headed man knelt down by a chest that opened instantly for him, the lid popping up of its own accord. “I cannot undo the damage that has already been done, but I can slow down the process by hiding what she is, cutting off the demon’s food source and allowing Nico to regain some measure of control.”
He stopped searching through the trunk and turned to look at them, his bear eyes dark and sad. “You understand, of course, that this is only a delay. No matter how many layers of protection we swaddle the girl in, so long as she lives, her seed will continue to grow. Whether it comes tomorrow or a year from now, the end will be the same. The demonseed will eat her, body and soul, and there will be nothing you can do.”
He was looking at Eli as he spoke, but it was Josef who answered, and the vehemence in his voice made them both flinch.
“Nico is a survivor,” the swordsman said. “When I found her, she was a breath away from death. I waited for her to die, but she didn’t. She kept breathing. Every breath should have been her last, but she always found another. She’ll beat this, too, bear man, so make the damn coat.”
Slorn stared at him in abashed silence, but Josef ignored him and stood up. “I saw a bath on the way in.” He slid the Heart of War from his back and dropped it on the table with a resounding gong from the iron and a painful shudder from the wood. “If Nico asks, that’s where I’ll be. If anyone else needs me, they can wait.”
With that, he turned and stomped off down the hall. Slorn watched him go, looking as astonished as a bear could. Eli just watched from his seat at the table, grinning like a maniac.
“He certainly doesn’t mince words,” Slorn said, turning back to the chest.
“No,” Eli said and grinned wider. “That’s why I like him.”
Slorn shook his head and turned back to the chest.
Eli watched him for a moment, but he could see the work settling on the bear-headed man’s shoulders like a vulture, and he decided it was time to move somewhere more comfortable before Slorn forgot him completely.
“I’m going to freshen up as well,” he announced. “I presume the guest bedroom is still in the same place?”
“More or less,” Slorn said. “Top of the stairs, third door on the right.”
“Third door, much obliged.” With a gracious nod, Eli gathered his bag and set off up the stairs, leaving Slorn alone in the great room. On the broad worktable, the enormous pile of gold glittered in the fire light, forgotten by everyone.
CHAPTER 3
Gin was asleep in the flower bed that surrounded the low building where Miranda kept her chambers when she was in Zarin. His legs kicked in his sleep, sending the well-turned dirt flying, and his shifting patterns swirled in strange, spiraling shapes across his body, all except for the patch between the shoulder blades. There, the wound from his fight with the demon girl Nico stood out like a red brand beneath the dried layers of green polluce the stable master had smeared over it. It looked better than before, but it would never be part of his patterns again. Even in his sleep, he seemed to favor the wound, cringing away from it whenever he rolled over.
Suddenly, his dream running stopped. He lay perfectly still, except for his ears, which swiveled in quick circles, each moving independently from the other. The night was as quiet as a city night could be, but