another question about demon kings.
“Your face is changing color,” he noted.
My hands flew to my cheeks and my gaze darted to his bare chest. I stumbled back a step, bumping the coffee table. He observed my reaction with a calculating gleam in his eyes that I didn’t like.
I hastily pointed at the last mini pie. “Hurry up and eat that. I want to wash the plate.”
He plucked the pie off the dish, but before he could take a bite, his jaw popped open in yet another wide, sleepy yawn—giving me a fantastically unwanted view of the inside of his mouth. No manners at all, but he was a demon, so I couldn’t really expect him to—
I blinked down at his face as he finished his yawn. Then I pounced.
He yipped in surprise when I grabbed his jaw.
“Hold up,” I said breathlessly as I tried to open his mouth. “Let me see.”
“What?” He twisted away. “No—”
As he spoke, his mouth opened enough for me to hook my fingers over his sharp teeth. “I want to look. It’ll only take—”
“Geh awh!” he slurred around my fingers, holding his mini pie clear as he pushed me away with his other hand.
I put a knee on his chest to hold him down and pried his jaw open. Leaning over his face, I peered into his mouth.
He shoved me off the sofa.
I landed on the floor with a thud but barely noticed the jarring impact. “You don’t have molars!”
He clamped his mouth shut and glowered at me.
“Well, okay, you have molars,” I corrected excitedly. “But they’re pointed like a cat’s, not flat like a human’s. You can’t actually grind up food. That’s why you never chew anything properly!”
“Dilēran,” he muttered under his breath. “Adairedh’nā id sūd, ait eshathē kartismā dilēran.”
I beamed, too delighted that I finally had an explanation for one of his strange quirks to let his insults annoy me.
Amalia’s bedroom door swung open. She stuck her head out and scowled at us. “What are you two freaks doing out here?”
“He doesn’t chew food properly because his molars are the wrong shape.”
She pulled a disgusted face. “Were you looking into his mouth? That’s gross.”
I shrugged. “It was for science.”
Zylas looked between us, eyes narrowed. Then, as though to make a point, he folded his mini pie in half, shoved the entire thing in his mouth, and swallowed it whole.
“Any progress?” I asked her.
“Define progress,” she replied drily, leaning against the doorframe and flipping her long blond ponytail off her shoulder. “I heard back from three of my stepmom’s relatives and they all claimed to have no clue where she is. Then I threatened to blackmail them. They still denied it, but I got four more numbers to call, including her former lawyer. I left a message with the lawyer’s office and I’m waiting to hear back from the others.”
“So … nothing,” I concluded.
“Nothing at all. Oh, but I’ve started asking around about Claude. No one seems to know him, but I’ll keep trying.”
She retreated into her room. Deciding to leave Zylas alone, I scooped up Socks before she could sneak under the coffee table and returned to the kitchen. Zylas tracked my withdrawal, then leaned back into the sofa. As I dried and put away dishes, his eyes slid closed again. Even annoyed with me, he was too lazy today to do anything about it.
Smiling to myself, I dried the baking sheet. How did you take a demon’s edge off? Why, simply feed him a dozen small apple pies.
It wasn’t that my home-baked offerings softened his mood. I suspected it was physiological. By my best guess, sugar wasn’t a significant part of a demon’s diet, and large quantities of sweet desserts made him sleepy. I’d used that knowledge to my advantage several times over the past few weeks.
Finishing in the kitchen, I collected my photocopy of the grimoire, scrap paper, and my laptop. Since Zylas was hogging the sofa, I sat on the floor, set up my stuff on the coffee table, and started translating the next paragraph of the grimoire page. Zylas dozed, his tail hanging off the cushions and the barbed end flicking in a relaxed way. I scribbled on my page, working through several sentences, all of them describing the generalities of a Vh’alyir demon’s appearance. Nothing shocking like the warning to never summon a Twelfth House demon.
Zylas didn’t know why, before him, no demon of his House had ever been summoned, or I would’ve asked if he knew what that