The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,27

like an ant. Never mind that I made the veil first, and that was when I felt the problem."

Nick just reached up to massage the bridge of his nose. "Sia, the fact that the dragon's aether burned should tell you something. You've pulled from multiple angels and didn't feel that. It means your conduits are raw, singed, or damaged. You need to slow down and let them heal. We have time, dove."

"But planning takes time," Ron said, as if he'd just found the solution. "Nick, how long would you feel comfortable asking her to wait before performing any more significant workings?"

"A week, at least," Nick said without hesitation.

I looked over to find Ron nodding, the unfocused look in his eyes proof that he was thinking quickly. "So, let us plan this? Not execute, but plan it. We all know that locking the Angelis veil is going to be much more complicated than building a new one, and it took a week to get ready for Vesdar. Considering how easy Sia made that look, well, I think this is actually possible."

"And we have hoped for it," Bel pointed out. "For the first time, it is a very real possibility."

"What if she burns herself out?" Nick asked.

Bel smiled. "Do you really believe that she would no longer be able to slip through worlds? That she would lose all ability to touch aether? I do not. She might become less powerful, but if the angels are no longer a threat, would it matter?"

"I, uh..." Luke sighed before he could finish his sentence. Then he tried again. "Nick, I don't think that will be her problem. It's more likely that what she's feeling are growing pains. See, I think Sia's something we haven't seen before."

"A new sentient?" he asked. "So you don't think she's human?"

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Being human was an inherent part of my identity. Yes, I liked being special, but they were talking about something a lot bigger than that. Less "special" and more "freak." Besides, if I wasn't human, what would I even call myself? Yet I couldn't ask. All I could do was watch them talk, my head bouncing from one side to the other as if following a tennis match.

"She's a child of all five planes," Luke said. "She aged at the pace of a human, so clearly she is one. That doesn't mean she can't be anything else, though, right?"

"Like a Muse," Bel said.

"Or more," Luke suggested. "How many times have we talked about gods? What they are, what they were, and where they went? It's like that." He tilted his head my way. "Sia's more than just a Muse. She's Ayala."

That word caught my complete attention. "That's the name Kacira gave me."

"And she didn't know how right she was," Luke said, his eyes flicking over to Nick before returning to me. "Sia, when you were born, your mother thought you were a child of four planes. She didn't know about your great-grandfather until later. But when she chose your name, it wasn't because of how it sounded, but because of what it represented."

"Luke," Nick said gently, "she won't understand."

"So we'll explain it to her until she does." He looked back at me. "Back when I was still leading Heaven, a dominion - which is one of the ranks of angels - researched a theory. He suggested that a creature born from all five realms of existence would be exceptionally powerful. A creature like we'd never seen before."

"So that's why Michael wanted me?" I asked.

Luke tilted his head slightly. "I don't think Michael knows what you are. We do, and your parents do. Thankfully, Uriel's not talking about it. My point, though, is that if you are more than a Muse, then maybe your abilities aren't as fragile as we fear."

I sat up, needing to swallow so I could ask, "Am I a god?"

"No," Luke assured me. "Just a trick of cross-planar evolution."

"A new type of 'magic-user,'" Nick teased. "Sia, the angelic theory of Ayala is more about the attraction of aether to resonances. From what I understand, the idea is that the blend of the planes inside your body means that you can alter resonances easier than the rest of us. We saw this when you sent all the angels back to Angelis. It means aether should be drawn to you like a magnet. We saw that with your pull on the veils. With that said, you did not create the planes,