She blinked in confusion, but he was already walking. He led her to a steel door, and when she saw the stairwell behind it, her nerves started churning again. And when he headed down the stairs, she had to work to contain her fear. It was just the lower level. Not a big deal. It wasn’t like he was leading her into an underground dungeon.
In the basement level, the air was stuffier and the cement walls absorbed all sound, muffling their quiet footsteps. There was a hint of a scent in the air … something that smelled suspiciously like blood.
“So what did you want to see, specifically?” Lyre asked. “We have single-target, area attacks, covert offensive, weapon-based …” He waved in an all-encompassing gesture. “Do you want to just kill your enemies, or do you want them to die screaming and cursing your name to their gods?”
Her steps faltered. “What?”
“We supply weaponry for every sort of war. The ‘honorable’ kind, where you slaughter your way through witless soldiers until someone gives up, or the other kind.”
“Other … kind …?”
He glanced back at her, and the gleam in his eyes was cruelly mocking. “The kind where you and your enemy see who can commit the most horrific atrocities against the other. Would you like to blind them? Burn them alive? Melt their bones? Explode their skulls? Or would you rather shatter their legs and leave them to die slowly on the battlefield?”
She didn’t realize she’d stopped walking until he faced her, hands in his pockets and an icy smirk twisting his lips.
“If you can imagine it, we have a spell that will do it. And if we don’t have what you want—however unlikely that is—we’ll make it for you. So?”
Her pulse quickened. He was one of the weavers who made those horrible spells, so why could she see condemnation lurking in his eyes?
“So?” he repeated.
“So … what?”
“What do you want to see?”
“I don’t …” She drew in a shaky breath. She didn’t want to see any of those awful spells—burning soldiers alive, melting their bones, exploding their skulls. Who would do that, even to their worst enemy? But she was here to copy a spell frightening enough to stop a war before it could start. Didn’t that mean it had to be something horrific?
“Whatever you want,” she mumbled. “Whatever you think I should see.”
His gaze darted across her mask, trying to see through it, then he turned on his heel and started forward again. She forced herself to follow, longing to be back in her garden, her hands buried in the warm earth, surrounded by her plants instead of these cold, lifeless walls. She struggled to pull herself together. As repulsive as Chrysalis’s magic was, she had a job to do.
“The most economical option for your needs,” he said, the mocking tones replaced by dull indifference, “would be to invest in large quantities of area attacks. These single spells come in numerous varieties—force expulsion, fire bomb, shrapnel—and depending on the type, they can be lethal up to twenty-five yards from the detonation point. The larger the damage radius, the more expensive the spell, obviously.”
He rounded another bend into a wider corridor. On one side was a row of doors. On the other, a long window revealed the interior of a spacious room. Inside, a dozen daemons in lab coats bent over sturdy tables, busy with their work.
Ignoring the window, Lyre moved to a door and tapped it to unlock the wards. OF – AA Explosive 1-5 Surplus declared its sign. He pushed the door open to reveal another storage room, this one full of smaller crates loaded with marble-sized steel balls.
Clio stopped in the threshold, her mouth hanging open in horror. These … these were all explosive “area attack” spells? Every one of those steel balls held a spell that could kill everyone within a twenty-five-yard radius?
Hundreds. No, thousands. Enough to supply an army. Enough to annihilate an entire enemy force.
She’d never been more thankful that Ra was their enemy, and not Hades.
She stepped past Lyre into the room, squeezing her eyes shut and concentrating. When she opened them, light blazed all around her, emanating from each crate. She turned to the nearest one but the spells were competing in her vision, making it impossible to pick out the details of each one.
She lifted a hand, then glanced questioningly at Lyre.
With her asper focused on him, she could see the golden shimmer encasing his body—the magic of his glamour and the aura of his power. Golden spots flashed brightly in a ring around his neck where a silver chain poked out from the neckline of his dark shirt, the source of two dozen different spells. Similar spots glowed in the general vicinity of his pockets. He wasn’t as well armed as he’d been on Earth, but he was still packing a lot of magic.
“May I?” she asked.
He shrugged. Taking that as permission, she plucked a steel marble out of a crate and held it on her palm.
The spell compressed into the small steel orb was unexpectedly simple. The layering of runes and geometrical lines unraveled in her mind’s eye, showing her each individual part. She recognized the trigger point of the spell, the constructs that gave it shape and purpose—something involving fire—and an additional structure that determined the delay between activating the spell and the actual explosion. In its center, a formless spot of glowing light revealed the stored magic that would fuel the whole thing.
She smiled. She could duplicate this spell with no trouble at all. It wasn’t what Bastian needed to prevent a war with Ra, but it would still be useful.
She set the spell down and chose another at random from a different shelf. After a moment of study, she returned it to the crate and walked slowly down the aisle. The farther into the room she ventured, the more complex and powerful the spells became, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t duplicate.
Lyre followed a few steps behind, watching her. He had to know she was studying the weavings, but he had no reason to believe she could understand what she was seeing, let alone copy it. Without asper, only the outer layer of the weaving was clearly visible, and each spell was composed of at least four layers.
She was almost at the end of the room when a voice broke the terse quiet. “Who opened this—oh, it’s you, Lyre.”
A daemon stood in the threshold, dark-haired and wearing a lab coat like all the other Chrysalis weavers. He glanced past Lyre and spotted Clio.
“Who is—”
“Client,” Lyre interrupted dismissively. “If you don’t need anything in here, keep walking.”
Clio blinked. Wow, rude.
“Er.” The daemon hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Since you’re here, could I trouble you to ask …”
Irritation snapped across Lyre’s face but he stepped closer to the daemon, listening to a question that got technical real fast. Something about weaving tetrahedron complexes into alloys?
Leaving them in the doorway, she walked to the far wall, surveying the shelves and the colorful glow of spells. Near the entrance, where the less destructive spells were stored, many colors were mixed together—reds, purples, blues, greens—reflecting the color of the magic possessed by the weaver, which varied depending on their caste.
But closer to the back of the room, predominantly gold weavings—the same color as the spells Lyre carried—filled the crates. Had he woven these? How long would it take one daemon to weave so many?
As she stepped up to the last rack of shelves, she realized she hadn’t quite reached the end of the room. Tucked beyond the last shelf was another door—solid steel with no visible handle or lock. Unremarkable to anyone else, but not to her eyes.
Her asper revealed exactly how well protected the door was. A web of magic crisscrossed the metal and complex runes filled four overlapping circles that shifted in a spiraling pattern. And, most surprising, was the top layer of the weaving—a simple lock spell with a mild electrical shock retaliation if touched.
That top layer was faulty—she could spot the miniscule gaps in the weave—making it a
clever decoy. Any other daemon who glanced at the weaving on the door would see only the decoy lock spell. Thinking they could break it easily, they would touch the door and …
She raised her fingers, keeping a safe several inches between her skin and the steel, and traced a glowing circle. That. She’d never seen anything quite like that before, but she knew it would react to touch. How it would react was another matter.
Intrigued, she leaned in closer, peering intently at the weaving’s underlayers as she tried to work out what it did.
“Don’t touch that.”
Lyre’s voice shattered the silence right behind her. A squeak of fright escaped her as she jerked backward from the door. But, with her sudden movement, her hand went the wrong way. And her fingers, already so close to the door, slapped against the metal.
She cringed in terror, fully expecting the door to explode or her bones to melt or her skull to burst open. Nothing happened—until she tried to pull her hand away.
It was stuck.
She yanked on her hand, but it was fused to the metal as though her skin had been superglued in place.
“I told you not to touch it.”
She shot a glare at Lyre, standing two paces away. “I wouldn’t have touched it if you hadn’t startled me!”
He tucked his binder under his arm and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Why would you touch anything in here without permission?”
“I told you—” She bit off the words. “Unkey the spell.”
“Hmm.” He rocked back on his heels and a downright evil little smirk curved his lips. “Not sure I know how.”
“What?”
“That lovely bit of work predates me. It’s pretty complicated. Since you fancy yourself a spell expert, with all that staring at weavings you just did, if you look here, you’ll see—”
He started to point, and she had no idea why, but she flinched back as though he might hit her. Her elbow bumped the door—and got stuck too.
Lyre’s hand paused. “Now look what you did.”
“I didn’t—you—get me off this!”
“As I was saying, you can see here that the weaving amalgamates anything that touches it, so it’s embedded into your skin now—”
“Get me off this door!” She jerked helplessly, her immobilized wrist and elbow twisting awkwardly.
“Well, I could pull you off, but you might lose some skin. Though, since the weaving is spreading into your flesh the longer you stand there, you might leave more than skin behind.”
Her heart kicked up to a full gallop from her growing terror. He, however, seemed perfectly calm. Amused, in fact. Humor danced in his amber eyes, softening the color to something closer to buttery gold.
He was laughing at her.
“Oh.” His eyebrows rose. “That’s quite the scowl.”
She gritted her teeth. “Get. Me. Off.”
Those irresistible lips curved up and her stomach dropped to her feet. The air heated. Why was she suddenly kind of dizzy? Shadows slid through his eyes, dimming the amber to shimmering bronze.
“Get you off?” he repeated, and his tones were all purring honey, warm and deep and sensual. “With pleasure.”
A hot blush swooped through her cheeks as she realized what she’d said. “I—I didn’t mean—I was—”
In a panic, she lurched away from him—right into the door.
Her right shoulder and hip hit the metal and fused to the spell through her clothes. She yelped, her arm bent painfully and the rest of her body straining to keep from touching the metal.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
At her shrieked profanity, his eyes popped wide. Shadows still clung to his irises as he threw his head back and laughed. The sound dove right through her and sparked a hot flare of desire in her center.
Oh, hell no. She was not getting all hot and bothered over a nasty Underworld sex fiend, especially one who was laughing at her while she was trapped in a spell, alone and helpless in an abandoned storage room.
She twisted her head toward the door, gaze flashing over the spell. She didn’t understand how it worked, but she knew what type of construct to look for. Somewhere in the weaving’s layers, there was a release. Somewhere, there would be a—
There.
Baring her teeth, she slapped her free hand against the door and sent a shot of magic into the metal. The weaving disengaged, the glowing threads going dark and dormant. She fell away from the door and grabbed a shelf for balance before she crashed into Lyre.
Blinking, he looked at her, then at the door, then back at her. With as much dignity as she could muster, she tugged her long skirts back into place.
“How the hell did you do that?”
He stepped forward and she jerked away, but he brushed right past her and leaned toward the door, squinting at it with his nose an inch from the metal. He tapped the sleeping spell. Light flared in her asper as he reengaged it.
“Is it faulty?” he muttered. “It’s pretty old, but it seems …”
His mumbling grew incomprehensible as he slid his fingers over the metal, manipulating the complex weaving with casual ease. She watched the webbing of lines shift and dance under his touch, mesmerized by each smooth motion. His skill was … unbelievable. She could hardly follow what he was doing.
He straightened and turned to her, his brow furrowed. His stare flicked over her but he didn’t seem angry. Almost—almost intrigued?
“How did you do that?” he demanded, leaning closer and peering at her. “What are you?”
He reached for her. For a second, she watched his hand coming toward her face—no, toward her mask—and she couldn’t move.
She grabbed his wrist.
They froze like that—her holding his wrist, his fingertips hooked under the edge of her mask, about to lift it up. The backs of his fingers rested lightly against her cheek. His face was close, so close she couldn’t think.
Her heart fluttered in her chest like it had sprouted butterfly wings, and a slow wave of heat rolled through her middle. She hadn’t touched him since arriving—hadn’t touched him since their first encounter.
How could the warmth of his skin under her hand affect her so strongly?
Sex fiend, she reminded herself. Master of seduction. Incubus. He was born to beguile women. Everything about him was temptation incarnate. She had to be strong. She couldn’t let his magnetic allure compromise her.
She pulled down on his arm. He released her mask, letting her guide his hand away. When she forced her fingers open, freeing his wrist, he stepped back, his expression indecipherable. Then he turned and walked toward the entrance.
She shook off her daze and stalked after him, skirts rustling and long sleeves flapping. She caught up as he stepped out into the hallway. The long window across the corridor bustled with the movement of the weavers on the other side.
“You knew how to free me from that spell the whole time,” she accused. She’d seen him work the weaving. He’d known exactly what he was doing.
“Of course.”
“Why did you pretend you didn’t?”
He glanced at her and that hint of shadow passed through his eyes again. “Because I liked the view.”
Her mouth fell open. He’d liked seeing her trapped? Did he mean that in a “I liked seeing you suffer” way or a “I liked seeing you helpless” way?
And why the hell had her heart started pounding all over again?
“Plus,” he added with a shrug and a smile, “it was hilarious.”
“Hilarious?” she hissed, forgetting her traitorously racing pulse.
“Do you know how rare it is for anything funny to happen around here? I wanted to enjoy the moment.”
“At my expense!”
“Your point?”
She seethed. “You’re incorrigible!”
“Shouting insults now?” He tsked. “Please.”
“I’m not shouting.”
“My ears tell me otherwise.”
?
??You—you—” She flung her hands out, so frustrated she couldn’t even think of a comeback. Her knuckles smacked the window beside her with a loud, hollow thud.
The weaver with his back to the glass jumped about two feet in the air and spun around. At the sight of her on the other side—a masked woman in white and green robes—he recoiled. The metal disk he held fell from his grip.
She watched it drop, astral perception unnecessary to know that the red glow bulging from the metal was very bad. Lyre slapped his palm against the glass, and Clio dove behind him as gold light flashed across the window.
The disk hit the floor and exploded.
The boom shattered her eardrums. She clutched the back of Lyre’s coat as the walls rattled and the floor shook. But the glass, shimmering with golden light, held fast. Silence fell again as dust drifted from the ceiling.
Lyre craned his neck to see her cowering against his back. “Are you using me as a shield? No shame, huh?”
She jerked upright. “Better you than me.”
“Shameless and cold as ice.”
She peered around him. The golden light was fading quickly, and her asper glimpsed the fading weave that had reinforced the glass. He’d woven it so swiftly. Most weavings took minutes or even hours to complete.
On the other side, the table where the weaver had been working was a twisted caricature of its original form. A few other weavers had gathered around the smoking remains of something on the floor—probably the daemon who’d taken that explosion right in the face, or what was left of him.
Clio’s gorge rose and she swayed slightly. “Lyre?”
He looked around again. “What?”
“Is he dead? Was it my fault?”
She didn’t know why she was asking. She’d seen the spell unravel, the threads bloating with uncontained power as the weaver lost control of his unfinished work. She’d distracted him. It was entirely her fault.
“It …” Lyre glanced back into the room, then shifted over half a step to block her view. “His weaving was faulty. It would have exploded anyway. Not your fault.”
Her brow crinkled. He was lying, wasn’t he? To make her feel better? Why would he laugh at her stuck to a door, but lie to spare her feelings? She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand anything about him.