some weak wizard. I'm ready to change things in this world, and you're ancient. Your ambition has run out. But I know the one thing you really do want."
"Jenny..." There was something almost touching, seeing Variel with his huge horns and blazing red eyes, taloned wings and the rough fur around his shoulders, looking at me like I made him weak.
I guess...I did make him weak. Bevan was able to take his power because of me...? Could it really be true?
“Jenny has some feelings for you,” Bevan said. “And I’m not going to hold her to me and only me.”
“I do want the sweet toad maid," Lord Variel said. "I want...to build you a new cottage, with my own hands, that has nothing to do with my father or my grandfather and has no dungeon or torture chamber at all." He bit out a curse, and growled, "That is my shameful confession. The powers of high demons can slip away all too easily when we lose our desire to cause chaos. So my father warned me."
"Please don't be ashamed," I said. "I'm...very happy to hear it!”
“This is truly how you feel?” Variel asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I realized that despite your many flaws, you really do care. And when I argued and called you dense, you never got angry at me, and…I want to keep arguing. But maybe, also, more. I love you, Bevan, and I want you to find the secrets of familiars. But I also...am finding you very hard not to like, Variel. I would love more than anything for you to build me a cottage. Can I make a request already? Just a small one?"
"Of course," Variel said, still sounding pretty growly.
"Two baking ovens...and a big long table?"
"That would benefit me as much as you, I'd say." He glared toward Bevan. "I know what you say is true. My father told me that demons are forged in ambition and ruthlessness, and for all I have tried to pretend I am full of those qualities, you have exposed me as a failure. I cannot lie that there is a little relief in it."
"I'm glad you see it that way," Bevan said. "It is the way of magic, and resisting the way of magic never comes to much, anyway."
I wondered if this meant Bevan was ruthless. Ambition was one thing, but...
"You will come to my bed tonight, then," Variel said. "Oh, I have dreamed of--"
I flung up my arms. "Wait. You have the right to woo me. That's it. I'm not just going to go straight to your bed! You really don't know how romances work, do you?"
"I know how marriages work," Variel said.
"Have you updated it much in the last nine hundred years?" Bevan asked. "Besides, it isn't just you. I'm going to tell Piers."
"Piers! Piers, too?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said.
“I should have known," Variel growled. "That prophecy never mentioned that I should split my wife three ways."
"No one is splitting me," I said, even as the word had some oddly exciting connotations. "It's just that bond marriages are a family, and I would love to have a family like Helena and Daisy do. But only if you can all get along, respect each other and me, and contribute to the family. I know you can do it. You're very talented, strong and brave, Variel."
Variel looked a little flustered himself to get a compliment from me, before he gave me a grimace. “I have been reduced to this…”
"Why are you talking to Piers?" I asked Bevan. "Shouldn't I be the one to do it?"
"No, no," Bevan said. "It needs to come from me or he won't make a move. Piers doesn't know how to woo anyone. I have to take control of the situation and be the friend who steers him into the right path."
"You're enjoying turning the tables on him, aren't you?" I raised an eyebrow at Bevan. "Maybe a little too much. I mean, I like the real Piers. I think he'll do just fine with being wooed."
Bevan laughed. "But you're our lady. We can’t have a bond-mates who doesn't know how to take charge. So I'll help him out a little, that's all.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Piers
"Can I come in?" Bevan called outside my door.
"Sure. I was just cleaning up. I left my bag open on the bed and everything spilled on the floor during that commotion on the ship..."
Bevan ducked through the door and I almost did a double take. "You did it. You took his power."
"I'm the