fucking liked him as a person, demon, whatever. Maybe it was time to just accept that my fate was tied to his because right now, the urge to take action was a driving force in my limbs.
I shoved Cyril off and clambered out of bed. “I need to stop him.”
I pulled on whatever clothes came to hand.
“Too late. He left an hour ago,” Cyril said.
“What?” I glared at him, hair tie in hand. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”
Cyril’s head dipped. “He’sss gone for your protection, Fee … But then, I thought, what would Fee want …”
I wanted to hug him and strangle him at the same time. “I’m glad you told me, Cyril.” I tied my hair back in a messy ponytail. “Do you know where this witch lives? Did you get an address?”
He shook his head. “Her name is Annabeth, and they mentioned Rue Mort.”
Rue Mort … What the fuck was that? I’d never heard of the place. Fuck.
I called Nox.
“Fee, are you okay?” Nox sounded alert and awake. Hell, he was probably already on duty in Necro. The sun would be setting soon, after all.
“Annabeth is a bloodwitch. Do you know her?”
Nox was ominously silent. “Why do you want to find her?”
I couldn’t tell him the truth because it revolved around my ancestry and the protection charm. But I’d learned a long time ago that the lies that held were the ones sprinkled with truth. “I need to find Azazel, and he went to see her. He isn’t answering my comm messages, and I need to speak to him urgently.”
There. No lie in that. Plus, bonus point, he’d buy it because Azazel was the outlier liaison.
“Ah, okay,” he said. “She lives in Rue Mort, Hartley Street. The big house with the broken swing set in the garden. You need a ride there?”
“Please.”
“I’ll be with you in fifteen.”
Fifteen minutes was too long. Azazel had been gone an hour. Oh, God. I needed to get to him fast. I couldn’t let him pay whatever disgusting price this witch wanted. I had to stop him.
Nox made it to the pinnacle in ten minutes, and we made it to Rue Mort in twenty. We landed on a suburban street that looked like it belonged in the gothic era. The lamp posts were painted black and had actual lantern heads. The ground was cobbled, and the residences were townhouse affairs squished together like thick slices of ham in a club sandwich.
A street sign jutted out of the ground, and the words Rue Mort were painted on it in neat script. The street up ahead looked old-fashioned, like stepping back in time. The whole thing was quaint.
“Don’t let appearances fool you,” Nox said. “Look at the place with your demon eyes, not your human sight.”
“There are two sights?”
He looked surprised that I had to ask. “There are if you’re not pure demon. Your parents were human with a demon in their family tree, so you should have both sights.”
I stared at the street.
“Look deeper. Look beyond,” Nox instructed.
Irritation bloomed in my chest. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get to Annabeth’s.”
“And you won’t be able to if you don’t see. Humans who venture this way get turned around, and if they do slip through the net, they go missing. Rue Mort is a place for outcast outliers, built by outcast outliers. There is no place for humans here.”
“Fine.” I took a deep breath and stared at the street, taking in every detail until my eyes blurred, and then something shifted in my vision. A fog appeared hanging low on the streets, and the air took on a humid, wet feel. “It’s misty and foggy.”
“Yes, Fee, it is. Like I said, Rue Mort exists by its own rules. Come on.” He led me into the fog.
I jogged to keep up with him, trying not to slip on the wet cobbles. What was it with demon males and long strides?
“It’s not far,” he said.
We walked for a couple of minutes, past tall houses that loomed over me with dark windows for eyes and black railings that jutted up on either side of us like jagged teeth. There was a definite air of menace to this place, and I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder periodically because the sense that we were being followed was twin hot spots between my shoulder blades.
The fog swirled around my ankles and licked at my calves in a way that made me wonder if it was