Chapter 3 The Universe Isn't Laughing

Nora

When I said whoever saved me could have my undying devotion, I was joking.

The universe, however, does not find me funny.

I’m in the Nether, which I can only assume is some version of hell because there is a demoness standing in front of me. Although she doesn’t look like a demon. I can’t see any horns or a tail.

I wonder how that works.

Okay, so either the Nether is real, and I fell into it, met a demon, and got covered in Kilan, which seems to be a hellish version of a moving shadow, or someone spiked my drink.

I’m really hoping someone spiked my drink.

“Hectevia!”

A man’s voice booms from the other side of the bedroom door, with heavy footfalls approaching.

Tee’s eyes widen. She catches my wrist and pulls me towards the bathroom. The strange current snaps through my skin again, making my fingers curl.

I go because I’m drunk, confused, and that zap gets weirder every time she touches me.

“Stay here, please.” She pushes me inside and grips the edge of the door. “Do not go anywhere.”

I nod quickly, swallowing down the rum trying to climb back up my throat.

Her eyes stay on mine, searching for any sign I’m about to do something stupid.

She has excellent instincts.

A fist pounds against the bedroom door. I jump, and Tee shuts me inside the bathroom.

The other door opens a moment later.

“What are you doing?” the man demands.

“Getting dressed,” Tee answers.

The bedroom door closes, and I let out a long breath.

What the fuck is happening?

I turn and find a normal bathroom. There’s a toilet, a black tub, a shower behind smoked glass, and a vanity crowded with bottles. The taps curve like horns, but they are still taps.

Apparently, hell has indoor plumbing.

That feels unnecessarily generous.

A small privacy window sits above the toilet. I climb onto the closed seat and shove it open.

Heat rolls over my face.

Everything outside is red. The sky burns beneath two low suns, one orange and the other white-hot. Trees twist above fields of crimson grass, and jagged buildings rise in the distance, their windows glowing through the haze.

Something large moves between the trees below.

It lifts a head covered in horns, sniffs the air, and opens a mouth crowded with teeth.

I lower myself from the toilet.

Waiting suddenly seems like a wonderful idea.

“Your Kilan spread across the entire floor.” The man’s voice comes again, close enough for me to realise they aren’t outside the bedroom anymore. They’re inside it. “I felt it from downstairs.”

“I was strengthening the room.”

“Why?”

Silence follows, and I press my ear to the door.

“I wanted privacy,” Tee says.

“You have privacy wards. What are you hiding?”

The handle drops beneath my cheek.

I stagger back as the door swings inward and a huge man pushes through, already searching. Tee follows close behind him, one hand locked around his arm as though she tried to stop him and got dragged along instead.

He has to duck beneath the frame, and I scramble backwards.

His black hair is combed away from a hard, sharp face, and charcoal-grey eyes sweep across the bathroom. Dark lines crawl from beneath his collar and curl along the side of his throat.

Now, he looks more like a demon.

The shadow coating my body tightens as I back into the open shower. It slides over my mouth, settles against my skin, and swallows the sound of my breathing.

The man’s gaze passes straight over me.

Every muscle in my body locks as he steps closer, but then he turns and closes the open window.

I catch myself leaning towards him for some dumb reason and quickly plaster my back against the shower wall.

His hand pauses on the latch, and his grey eyes narrow.

“Why was this open?”

“The room was hot,” Tee says from behind him.

He turns slowly, and his gaze crosses me again. My heart beats hard enough to shake my chest, but the shadow holds every sound inside it.

“Something struck the outer wards,” he says. “Then your Kilan woke hard enough to rattle the walls.”

“I felt it.”

“And?”

“And I handled it.”

His jaw tightens. “If something breached this house, you tell me.”

Tee folds her arms. “Nothing breached the house.”

That probably depends on how loosely we define breached.

The man studies her before looking around the bathroom once more. When his attention reaches the smoked glass surrounding me, the strange pull returns, and his nostrils flare.

Then someone else calls from downstairs.

“Zev!”

He looks towards the bedroom.

“Dinner,” Tee says. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

Zev’s gaze remains fixed on the smoked glass.

“One minute. I have to use the bathroom.”

He walks out, the bedroom door shuts behind him, and only then does Kilan peel away from my mouth.

I suck in a breath.

“That was Zevrion,” Tee says, closing the bathroom door. “He leads our Tetrad.”

She reaches up and locks the window.

“Would he really kill me?” I ask.

Tee looks at me through the mirror with a small, sad smile. “If he knew you were human, he would follow the law.”

“That sounds like a yes.”

“It is.”

I grip the edge of the vanity as the room tilts again. “Okay, so it’s time to send me home then.”

“I don’t know how.”

“You have…” I wave a hand at the shadows covering the room. “You know. Magic.”

“Not the kind that brought you here. Summoning a living being across realms is forbidden. The path collapsed behind you, and I need to learn who opened it before I can work out how to send you back.”

“How long will that take?”

Her silence gives me the answer I didn’t want.

“Fantastic.” I press both hands over my face. “I’ve been homeless for one hour, and I already miss it.”

Tee takes a glass from beside the sink and fills it with water. “Drink.”

I accept it and drain half. The water is cold and tastes metallic, but it settles the burn in my throat.

“I have to go downstairs before Zev comes back,” she says. “Kilan is woven through this room. It will hide your scent, your voice and your body while I’m gone, but it cannot hide you if someone touches you.”

My eyes dart back to the window as I wonder what my chances are out there.

Probably zero.

Tee follows my gaze. “I will find a way to get you home.”

She closes her hand around mine, and warmth races up my arm while the shadows ripple across both our wrists.

“I swear, Nora.”

Then she releases me and leaves.

Darkness slides across the bathroom door after her, sealing me inside. I sit on the edge of the tub with my water and listen to her footsteps disappear.

The room falls quiet.

I lift my hand towards Kilan… the Kilan?

The darkness peels away from the door and reaches back.

Strange…