Mentored in Fire by K.F. Breene

Three

“What do you want to eat?”I asked Cahal. Two days had gone by, and I was feeling much better. Those snakes really did work wonders. They didn’t even try to get into any orifices, which was probably the greatest news. I’d been a little nervous I’d end up with a reptile enema.

“It doesn’t matter. The food here isn’t great.”

He turned a page in his book. I might be allowed to wander the castle, something I wasn’t in any shape to do yet, but he wasn’t. It certainly seemed like there was bad blood between him and Lucifer, but he got evasive every time I asked about it. The good news was that Lucifer seemed to have an incredible supply of books. Whatever either of us asked for, we got, hand-delivered by a creepy little demon that didn’t seem to like either of us very much.

Hamburger. I blasted the thought for Cahal’s order, like yelling through the walls. With lots of French fries.

“That’s just because you got used to Darius’s cooking when we were on the island,” I replied, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed. The white hospital gown I’d been wearing to recover rode up my legs and split open along the back.

And my clothes, please. Bring my clothes. I’m ready to check this place out.

“Very likely. He is exceptional.” Cahal turned a page.

“Has this place changed much since you were here last?” I asked, rotating my ankles. Only a small twinge of pain vibrated up my calves.

“Some things. Not others.”

I stared at him for a moment, knowing he wouldn’t offer any more information, and contemplated whether I felt like dragging it out of him. But really, what help would it be? It was all new to me regardless, except for the outskirts I’d already seen.

The door started to open but stalled halfway through. The hunched little creature I’d grown accustomed to peered around the wood, its bald and leathery head coming to about thigh height. Its large yellow eyes sighted in on me, and I could just see the edge of the tray it carried.

“Come in,” I said, rolling my shoulders and then my head. “What about my sword?” I asked Cahal, ignoring the demon. If you showed it too much attention, it wigged out and curled up into a ball until your focus went away. I was pretty sure its function was to be neither seen nor heard as it carried out its duty.

“What about it?” Cahal replied.

“Is it still with the elves? Did someone grab it?”

“Yes.”

I waited for a moment. When nothing else came, I scowled at him. “You’re torturing me because I cannot physically beat your ass, is that it?”

“You could magically beat my ass, if you were so inclined.” He licked his finger and then turned a page.

“Gross, you’re getting your spit all over someone else’s book.” I lifted a leg so I could bend and straighten it, working my knee. The demon froze, its long fingers wrapped around the edges of the silver tray, halfway to the desk at the side of the room where I’d given it a mental push to leave the food.

“No one is noticing you,” I told it.

Its head turned very slowly until its chin was even with its shoulder, looking straight at me. When it saw me looking back, it slowly swiveled its head away and then crouched down a little lower and froze.

I rolled my eyes and looked back at Cahal, working my other knee. Only a small ache.

“Yes, it is still with the elves, or yes, someone grabbed it?” I pressed.

“Both. You don’t need it. There is no point in lugging it around.”

“Says the guy with the enormous curved blade.”

“I don’t have the same magic as you. I need my sword.”

“You can kill a man with your thumb. Why do you need a sword?”

“A sword is faster.”

“Speaking of…” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the demon was on the move again, creeping across the floor. The food would be cold by the time it got out of the room. “Where is your blade?”

“In Lucifer’s private quarters, I imagine. He doesn’t want me to have it.”

“Why is that? Surely he doesn’t think you can take on a kingdom of demons…”

“No. But I know the demons that he values most, and I could kill those if I felt so inclined. It seems he’d rather not chance it.”

I stuck out my lips while nodding. “Good call. Right, okay.” I clapped once and turned back toward the demon, now setting the tray on the desk. “What about my clothes?”

The tray of items clattered to the table, the porcelain jiggling. The demon set it down and scampered away as though burned, the long nails on its feet clicking across the wood floor. The door closed with a thud and silence reigned in the room.

“Does that mean no clothes? What the hell is the deal with that thing, anyway?”

“The service staff, as we will call them, are the invisible workers.” Cahal closed his book and stood, crossing to the desk. “They are low in power and have zero status. It’s best if you don’t speak to them, and they would never dare to speak directly to you. Don’t notice them. To do so…stresses them out. The last heir would curse them for any misdeeds right before killing them.”

“He sounds like a real peach.”

“That’s the way it was.” He bent over the food. “Mystery meat. Great.”

I chuckled at his sarcastic tone and pushed up to standing, turning so Cahal didn’t get an eyeful of my derrière. I stretched to one side and then the other, working out the ache. Padding across the room, adding a little fire below my bare feet to combat the chill, I snagged a French fry and popped it into my mouth.

I crossed to the grand closet, which was completely bare.

I need my clothes, I thought, and then decided, since I was finally up, I might as well just take a peek out the door.

A demon fashioned after a human woman stood to one side of the frame, half my height but with jutting boobs far too big for its petite body. Red leather covered it from neck to ankles, one big jumpsuit without zippers, hinting that it never had to take the thing off to use the restroom. Hooves took the place of feet, and the hair on its knuckles curled up in soft puffs.

Standing with its back to the wall near my door, the demon stared at the lovely garden mural painted on the opposite side of the wide corridor. The ceiling soared above us, more than ten feet high, and a white carpet ran down the center of an otherwise dark wood floor. No gold adorned this area, which had a somewhat modern look and was painted and accented with deep earth tones.

I glanced back into the sea of gold from which I’d come.

“If it looks like this out here, why is my room so hideous?” I asked.

The demon turned to me, and I honestly wondered how it didn’t topple forward with the size of those breasts.

Its yellow eyes took me in for a moment, and I could feel its intense power thrumming around us. Glaciem magic—ice magic, as I thought of it—and a lot of it.

“Good evening, your highness.” Its voice was scratchy and deep like a drum, the perfect accompaniment to the bushy mustache on its upper lip.

“Don’t call me your highness. I don’t intend to take the post.”

“Unfortunately, I must address you by a title.”

“Your heinous will do just fine.”

“As you wish, your heinous. In answer to your question, your room is a hideous sort of gold because the Great Master wanted to see if you’d get the joke.”

“I didn’t.”

“Fabulous. I will let him know. You may choose your quarters whenever you would like. Clothes are currently being collected for you, and then I will show you the way.”

“I thought I could roam freely?”

“And so you shall, but the palace has undergone many changes since your insufferable druid companion was here last. You will get lost inside of a human minute.”

“I have an excellent memory.”

“Which will greatly help you in places that do not habitually change.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t plan to explore far today anyway. My body was getting better, and movement wasn’t too painful anymore, but I didn’t think I had a lot of stamina. Not yet. I needed that snake to work its magic for a little longer. The thing was currently slithering around my torso.

I retreated and waited for my clothes, and after the creepy demon placed them on the desk, removed the empty plates and tray, and scampered away, I changed into a new set of leather pants and a tank top. It felt strange not to have any weapons to strap to my person.

“Looks like I’m going to have to go commando. And braless. They didn’t bring underwear.” I palmed my boobs. “This is more comfortable now, but if I have to run, things might get dicey.”

“Yes, you’ll give yourself a black eye.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

Cahal picked up his book and faced me. “I’m free-balling it, too. They didn’t bring back underwear after they took my clothes, and I didn’t feel like explaining. My dick and balls won’t affect my running.”

I scanned his dark pants and black shirt, loose over his muscular frame. I hadn’t noticed they were clean clothes. Then again, I hadn’t exactly been lucid when he found me in the elves’ cell.

Something occurred to me.

“Where have you been sleeping?”

He glanced back at the chair.

I lifted my eyebrows, checking his chiseled face for signs of fatigue. No dark shadows pooled under his glacial blue eyes. The planes and angles of his bone structure, almost severe with a slightly hooked nose, fit with his aura of lethal confidence. They did not, however, broadcast any wariness or exhaustion. He stood tall, well over my height, with his shoulders squared and back straight, his bearing loose and agile.

“You slept in the chair?”

“I’ve slept in many places all over the worlds. Some more comfortable than others. I’ve grown accustomed to getting the rest I need in any given place.”

“Huh. What a terrible life you lead.”

The corners of his lips pulled upward. Many would think it was the beginnings of a snarl, but I knew it was his self-deprecating humor, only expressed once he got to know someone. The guy was like a block of ice. It took a while to thaw him enough to get to his personality.

“Right. Let’s go pick a new place to stay.” I headed toward the door. “This room is some sort of joke, it seems.”

“I figured as much.”

“My old man has a sense of humor, then?”

“That’s what he could call it, yes.”

“And what would you call it?”

“Usually? Dangerous.”

Tits McGee led us slowly down the hallway, pausing halfway down as the walls around us shifted. A door disappeared, a wall appeared in front of us, and another hallway opened to our right. The demon turned that way, and I glanced back at a dead end that no longer reached as far as the room I’d just left.

“And that’s why you grabbed your book,” I murmured, watching a table appear beside me and feeling the magic thrumming from it. It wasn’t real, that wood. That flower in the vase on top of it. It was an illusion made of magic, like the majority of the Realm, like the scenarios I could create myself. Well, kinda. On my best day, I couldn’t create something so detailed. Not yet, anyway.

Cahal was right: I needed to hang around until I learned how to properly wield this magic. If the war did eventually come, and I was the one in charge of stopping Lucifer from destroying the Realm, I had better figure out how to make that possible.

The demon stopped again, and this time I reached out around me as the landscape shifted, feeling the various fibers of magic, picking them apart to see how they were constructed. Much of the hall was real—real wood, real paintings, real wallpaper or paint—but magic added the occasional door or glowing light fixture. Sometimes false walls masked whole rooms, blocking them from passersby. Or was it just blocking me?

As we turned toward the left, I unraveled it all. Plucking illusions apart was easy for me—putting them back together less so. Making them solid was a total no-go, but it was clearly possible. The illusion fell away, revealing a high-arched ceiling with chandeliers hanging down, much more fashionable than the setup in the elves’ castle. Stately furniture was arranged on a large deep crimson rug, and each wall was completely covered in row after high row of books.

“Wow,” I said, angling my head up to see the top row, where the bookcases met the edge of the ceiling. Not a single ladder to help people reach the volumes at the top, so I figured anyone working in this area had Glaciem magic. They’d need to levitate to reach.

The demon waited until I’d had my fill of looking, saying nothing about my pulling down the illusion. When I turned, it began walking again.

“Emery would do just fine in this place. His jokes would be commonplace,” I mused, revealing a hidden pocket in the hallway and the creepy little demon that hid inside—not the one that had waited on me but of the same variety. It caught sight of me looking at it and took off running. When I found the next little pocket, I ran my hand through it first, making sure it wasn’t solid. They weren’t trapping the little critters in, they were just creating places for them to retain their invisible status.

I ripped it down and then grinned when another creature took off running.

“You think that is funny, but you didn’t get the gold room joke?” Cahal asked, not even glancing at my antics.

“How is sticking me in a hideous gold room a joke? The rest of this place is gorgeous—why even have a gold room? Is it a throwback to the elves’ gaudy decorating?”

“Probably, in a way.” Cahal studied a mural of a battle as we passed, a robust demon ripping a wing off an angelic creature. Blood spurted from the creature’s back. Fire crawled along the edges of the painting, near the frame. Bodies littered the ground.

“Salt-of-the-earth people around here, huh? Sugar and spice and everything nice,” I said, leaving the next little alcove alone. I didn’t want to stress them out too badly on my first day out of my room. I would give them a chance to get used to me.

“Is only Lucifer—” I stopped when Tits McGee hissed.

“When speaking to his underlings, you are to use his title,” Cahal instructed me. “Either the Great Master, his highness, or Father.”

“Is your Great Master the only one who can create these illusions?”

“No,” it answered in a disapproving tone. “Those in the top echelons of power can construct the designs laid out by the Great Master.”

We traveled up a wide, curving staircase, and then another, nearing the top of the castle now.

“Where is Father Dearest’s room?” I asked, marveling at the great decorating and elegantly appointed halls and rooms, dotted here and there with some lovely paintings, some sexy ones, and some incredibly gruesome battle depictions.

“The Great Master occupies the Northern Tower,” it said.

“That is a change since I was here last,” Cahal said, his eyes snagging on a painting of a type of flower I’d never seen before.

“A lot has changed since you were here last, druid.” The demon nearly spat the term.

“I don’t think they like you very much,” I murmured as we crested the last set of stairs and paused.

“They blame me for things that I did not cause,” he replied.

The demon hissed softly but did not comment. “This level has access to three sets of lodgings that would befit someone of your station.”

“Three? Luc—Father Dearest was hoping for a brood of kids, huh?”

“Once upon a time, elf royalty or other members of the royal court in high standing used to visit,” Cahal explained. “After the last war, though, the castle is only host to the lesser.”

“The lesser, and then below that…you, it would seem,” the demon said.

“Oooohh, burn. Don’t worry, I won’t be moving you down to the dungeon, bud.” I winked at Cahal.

“We shall see,” the demon muttered, turning toward a section with columns on the outside of a balcony-style hallway. Beyond and down a corridor sat rooms. “Would you like me to show you to the various collection of rooms, or would you prefer to explore for yourself? Everything in this area is as it seems. The pathways stay constant.”

“The pathways everywhere stay constant if you tear down the magic,” I replied.

The demon didn’t comment.

“I’ll find my way, thanks.” I turned left and started walking, then stopped when the demon trailed behind me. I quirked an eyebrow at it.

“I will be on hand should you need anything,” it said.

“Can you make yourself scarce?” I asked.

“Of course.” It took one step to the side and then looked away. I had a suspicion it still intended to follow me, just at a distance. That would take some getting used to. And it would likely chase me out of here quicker.

“Have you ever been up here?” I asked Cahal, intending to walk only as long as it took me to find a door. I’d stake a claim on the first set of rooms.

“No. The last heir took up a collection of rooms in the south section of the castle.”

“Huh.” At the end of an open hall flanked by columns and large windows looking down at the kingdom below, I found a large hearth with two double doors to either side. Chandeliers with tiny, flickering fairy lights swooped down between the doors, in front of the hearth. I hadn’t seen their equal in the palace. I wondered how Lucifer had created them, because electricity didn’t exist in this world.

We went through one set of doors, into a set of rooms cavernous enough to fit my whole house, both stories. Two rows of windows adorned the far wall, giving an impressive view of a kingdom riddled with gardens, lush little landscapes, and buildings with gothic spires. The blue sky above went on forever, even though I was almost positive a cave ceiling existed above us somewhere. When I managed to pull my gaze away, I saw the doors dotting the other side of the living space, various rooms for me and my guests. There was enough space for all of my friends, including those from my neighborhood, to come and stay. There would be plenty of room, and surely plenty of creepy little helpers scurrying around.

Not plenty of air, though. And obviously, the non-magical wouldn’t be allowed in anyway. To stay here forever would mean giving up a massive part of my life.

I stopped in front of one of the large windows and remembered the last time I’d been to the Underworld. I remembered having Darius by my side.

A pang hit my heart.

He must’ve heard I’d been taken from the elves, but he’d probably know that I was safe here. Safe from physical harm, at any rate. Even though I missed him, I didn’t need him, so hopefully he would keep working on the vampires and not attempt to do something crazy, like try to rescue me. I was the one who’d gotten us through the Underworld the first time, for the most part, and even that had been close. I didn’t want him to try to find me, get caught, and have Lucifer turn him into a hostage situation. That would just complicate everything.

Still, though, it would be cool to stand here with him and take in the view.

“I guess you get a bed now,” I commented to Cahal, standing just inside the doorway.

“It seems so.” He pointed at the door at the back of the room. “That is yours. I’ll take the room next to it.”

“How do you know?” I zigzagged though the furniture and opened the door into a well-lit room with more of the fantastic view. The colors in the room were deep and pleasing, dark and saturated. The enormous bed backed up to a paneled wall. A little writing desk faced one of the windows and couches took up the other side, so I could lounge without going into the common area.

I blew out a breath and braced my palms against my hips. The arrangement of the furniture, the view with the gothic spires, the height of the room—as though I lived on a cloud—and the decor made me feel comfortable in a way that unnerved me. All of it blended together into a pleasing sort of utopia.

This felt like my room. Like I’d been living here all my life.

“Why did you say this was my room?” I asked, raising my voice so Cahal could hear.

“Because—”

I startled and ripped my elbow away from the guy who had snuck up on me and now stood two feet away. I clearly hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings, something that didn’t usually happen in foreign and dangerous places.

“Because,” he started again, “it is the corner room and the largest in this wing. It belongs to the person with the highest status. You.”

“It’s breathtaking.” I chuckled to myself and shook my head. “He used that gaudy room to heighten the pleasure of ending up here.”

“You get the joke.”

“It isn’t a joke. It’s a lure.” I shook my head again. “And it’s a good one.”