And that was where the personal confusion had come in. Honest, genuine confusion. I did really like it here. I liked Lucifer. I didn’t want to leave. All of that was true.
The trick was honestly feeling it—getting lost in it—and then letting Lucifer see my reactions to it. He wouldn’t buy my confused mental state if I wasn’t genuinely feeling it. I had created an illusion with my emotions as surely as he could create one with magic. I’d let it progress naturally, responding to each new situation as it arose. And Cahal had been right there beside me, always playing whatever role the moment called for—the martyr, or the villain, or sometimes the much-needed friend.
He had played his part perfectly, spinning me up when I needed it. Confusing me a little more by mentioning how happy I seemed here, how fulfilled. Careful to only mention Darius and the others when I needed to be pulled back just a bit. He’d kept me on target like a champion, though it had been hard to forgive him the day of the dragons. The day that he’d thought was the most crucial, the butthead.
Ultimately, though, I owed this Academy Award to Darius. I never would’ve been able to keep everything straight if not for my crystal-clear memory from the bond, and I never would’ve been able to compete with a master manipulator like Lucifer if I hadn’t had a lot of practice with a cunning and intelligent elder vampire. I didn’t love the manipulation game, but obviously I could handle it when I had to.
And I’d had to, there was no doubt. My superpower was my drive to survive. I’d brought that to the table all on my own. I’d been surviving all my life—hiding my truth from people. The stage had changed, but the show continued on.
One day, maybe I could just be me. One could hope. But this wasn’t the time to get soggy about it.
“Did you reveal any part of the plan?” Cahal asked.
“No. He brought up Archion. Thank God I followed your advice and came clean with Archion. Apparently I picked out a dragon who is as good at lying and pretending as I am. He’s eager to finally see the Realm. And maybe the Brink if I can sneak him in. Roger has tons of land in California—he should be fine with me borrowing some… Anyway, we leave tonight.”
“Will you be sad to leave?”
I chewed on that question for a long time, needing to disentangle the game from reality.
“Yes. I like it so much, it hurts to think of never coming back. But I would never consent to staying here under these conditions. If I come back, it needs to be my choice, not Lucifer’s. I would never sacrifice my friends.” I pushed his arm from around me, trying to loosen up a little. It had been a tough few weeks as I purposely pushed away the things that really mattered to focus on the shallower pleasures and joys of my day-to-day existence. “Good thing we trained together, huh? I don’t need to worry about Darius or the king of the Underworld manipulating me, but you can clearly read my cues like a book.”
“I helped you do what you wanted. That’s the only reason my influence worked. If you didn’t want me pushing you around, you wouldn’t have allowed it.”
That was probably true. And it made me feel a bit better about letting him see me run the gamut of emotions.
“Right, okay. We need to get back in character, and then we need to sell the next leg of the journey. We don’t have any time to lose. We have to get to Penny and them before Lucifer does.”
“You’re sure you know where she is?”
“Yes. Her spells are like bright beacons in this place. They almost vibrate with magic. I thought for sure Lucifer would’ve noticed her concealment spell the other day, when we first flew over the kingdom. His magic is definitely different than mine. It must be because my mother was a mage with godly magic, but yeah, finding her trail hasn’t been very hard given how low we’ve been flying these past few days. I’ll need to talk to her about that. She needs to rip those down when she moves from place to place. Regardless, if they haven’t moved, I know where they are. And if they have, I can track her—it’ll just take longer. Worst case, I have a very foggy idea of Darius’s direction. The bond is still muffled, but there’s a wisp of direction. That might take too long, though.”
I moved to get up, but he didn’t follow. Given I had to escort him back in a terrible temper, I did actually need him to join me.
I sat back down.
“What is it?” I asked.