She raised an eyebrow and made a slight motion with her hand. In the shadows that lingered to the left of where I stood, torches appeared, their flames a bright and unnatural blue.
Azriel was caged. Literally.
It was a metal structure that resembled a fancy birdcage, but the steel was silver and glowed with an unhealthy green-yellow light. At the top of the cage there was an odd sort of haze that swirled in a lazy circle and, every now and again, sent a pulse of brown down the metal. Even from where I stood, the foulness of those pulses was evident.
Azriel sat crossed-legged in the middle of the cage’s base. He looked very relaxed, almost serene. But then, he was a master of concealing his thoughts and emotions, and I knew him well enough now to understand that the blanker his expression, the more he was trying to conceal.
In this case, he was furious. Murderously so.
At me, as much as at Lauren.
I switched Valdis from my right hand to my left and saw his gaze narrow slightly. Tension, anger, and perhaps a glimmer of understanding briefly rolled through the connection between us, but the brown haze pulsed and the connection was shut down again.
I frowned and returned my gaze to our sorceress. “What do you want, Lauren?” I hesitated, then added, “Or should that be Mike? Or even Harriet? What name do you actually prefer?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You can call me whatever you wish. I don’t care, because none of those names are mine.”
“So what is your name? And do you actually own a face of your own? Or has it been so long since you’ve worn it that you’ve forgotten?”
“I forget nothing.”
As she spoke, her skin began to ripple and move, rather resembling putty that was being pushed and prodded and remolded by invisible hands. Even though I was a face shifter myself, even though I’d seen Mom transform more than once, there was something quite revolting about the way Lauren shifted. When she’d finished, the woman who stood in front of me had thickset, almost manly shoulders, a thin face still dominated by a large, almost regal-looking nose, and short, colorless hair. It wasn’t white, wasn’t gray, wasn’t anything, really. Much the same could be said of her skin. It was almost as if she were an unwashed canvas, waiting for the arrival of paint. Even her eyes held so little in the way of color that her pupils seemed to be drowning in a sea of white.
I couldn’t help the shudder that ran through me, and a thin, humorless smile touched her lips. The shift magic crawled across her body again and, after a few moments, it was Mike who stood in front of me.
“Does this form make you feel more at ease?” he said, his voice almost mocking. “It is certainly the one with which I am most familiar these days, given the length of time I have held it.”
Amaya began to hiss, the sound fierce and angry as it echoed from my lips. I clenched my fingers against Valdis’s hilt and resisted the urge to throw her at the mocking figure in front of me.
Kill must, Amaya muttered. Taste her we will.
Yeah, but first we have to find out what sort of circle surrounds us, I snapped back. So behave yourself until we actually can attack her. We don’t need to tip her off that all is not as it seems.
Her muttering continued, the sound echoing through my mind. But she didn’t attempt to wrest control from me and, for the moment, seemed content to do as I asked.
“Actually,” I said. “Your current form does nothing more than increase my rage. I will kill you for all your years of deceit, you know. Mom deserved better than that.”
He laughed. The familiar sound itched at my skin and only made the determination to kill him stronger. “Your mother was a means to an end. And, may I point out, a jolly good fuck.”
My grip on Valdis became so tight my knuckles practically glowed. He laughed again. “Go on, throw it. You know you want to.”
“Actually,” I somehow managed to reply, “what I want is to thrust my hand into your chest, to watch the fear grow on your face as my fingers wrap around your heart, and then squeeze tight. I want to watch the pain grow, I want to taste your fear, and I want to watch the life bleed from your body. And then I want to rest content in the knowledge that you will never move on and never be reborn.”
He raised an eyebrow, expression still mocking. “It is always good to have ambitions, even if you will never see them come to fruition.”
He made a flicking motion with his hand, and the candles surrounding me shivered and danced. Magic settled around me, thick and cloak heavy. My knees buckled briefly under its weight, but I locked them tight and remained upright.
His gaze narrowed slightly. “Release the sword, Risa.”
My grip on Valdis tightened. I actually did want to release her, because until I did, she couldn’t make her way toward Azriel. But I also couldn’t seem too eager.
“Go fuck yourself, Mike.”
He made another motion with his hand. “Release the sword. Now.”
The weight of the magic increased. This time, I allowed my knees to buckle. They hit the cavern’s stone floor hard, and pain
slithered through me—something I was more aware of than truly felt.