to curse him but couldn’t—not while we were playing the game.
I glowered with squinted eyes, but none of my annoyance leaked into my words as I presented my case. “As you are aware, I discovered that a previously unknown planet, Earth, has been expunged from our records and blocked. It is full of forgotten essence and beings that have not had a new soul inserted.”
He nodded along, biting his lip to keep from interrupting me.
“King Lorian formed a temporary branch of the Investigations Ministry to deal with the task of reaping the souls and inserting fresh souls into those that we can. Our target date for completion is Puxnal 2 Helia. I am here to seek your assistance in extending that date and possibly to have you on a retainer for other subsequent tasks within the political domain.”
“Helia?” He scrubbed his face with his palms, breaking his royal character before leaning back and looking at the ceiling. “It's Istran. How many souls are on Earth?”
“About ten to twelve times as many as are living on Delon, at least. Maybe more. Additionally, the Angels may not initiate their assignment until Noulian. We are authorized to pull six Grims and six Cherubs to serve in our department.”
“Six? Fuck. That's not much time. Certainly not enough staffing.” He hummed for a moment and began to murmur, mostly to himself. “What is he doing? He has to realize that won't work. So why does he wish to fail? Hmmm.”
I glanced at Grace and found her staring at him with giant, rounded eyes. Reaching over, I peeked at Corin, who was still seeking answers from above, and my hand darted out to push her chin up. She jerked and twisted, spotting me. My body bounced with subdued laughter, and her cheeks deepened to a golden color. When her gaze dropped and her shoulders bowed a bit, I tapped her chin again, drawing her attention.
I tilted my head towards him and mouthed, “Pretty, right?”
“Okay, I'll try to get it pushed back. What are you doing, Zella? Never mind, I'm sure I don't want to know. The problem will be finding a reason good enough to persuade him to postpone that date.” He hopped up, clasped his hands behind his back, and started pacing. “I'll need to think on that. Maybe… no. We could… no, that won't work, either.”
He kept mumbling to himself as he paced, dismissing every idea that popped into his head. I elbowed Grace. When she didn't speak, I nudged her harder, widening my eyes to a ridiculous proportion.
“Prince Corin?” she whispered.
Of course, he couldn't hear her, and I heaved a sigh.
“Corin, stop the back and forth. It's nauseating. Besides, Grace is trying to tell you something.”
He jerked to a halt and spun on his heel, laying every bit of his awareness on the tiny Angel on his bed. While I still didn't trust her completely, I didn't distrust her completely either, and if I could speed up the inevitable while using it for a good cause, well, I would.
A cool trail was forged up my spine as Shadow returned to me early, apparently not finding enough to entertain her. Tap, tap, tap. A flash of disapproval scratched through my veins when Shadow gave me her opinion. Okay, Shadow seriously just came back to berate me. I have an aye-aye soul sitting on my shoulder, trying to be my conscience. My life is so weird.
Maybe it was a bit manipulative on my behalf, but nothing I'd done or had planned damaged or pushed either of them into something they couldn't refuse. Well, except making Grace speak to Corin, but as Liaison, that would be part of her job.
“Yes, well, we considered a celebration. If someone could convince him he deserved recognition, an honor of some kind, that, maybe, coincided with better weather, that may help. Perhaps something that might leak to Oscal.”
Corin had drifted closer as she spoke, no doubt lured in by her soft words and stained cheeks.
“And,” I announced as I got to be the bad guy. “Then I'm going to fuck up his backup plan, so he has no choice but to push back the date. After all, I'm going to hype this celebration up so much, he'd look like a fool if he admitted that we couldn't do it.”
“You believe he wouldn't replace you publicly?” Corin shook his head. “I'm not convinced.”
“He won't. Don't worry about that part. I have that under control.” The bright smile I slapped on didn't