Mentored in Fire by K.F. Breene

Six

“I seeyou are up and going today.”

I paused with my hands in the air, having just taken down a fake wall. My intention was to change it into some sort of mind-fuck, but I was having trouble narrowing in on a good one. These people had a patent on mind-fuckery—I had to come up with something vicious.

“Say, listen.” I dropped my hands and turned to find Father Dearest, wearing the same clothes as the last time I’d seen him. Then again, I’d gotten another set of clean clothes that morning, as had Cahal, and they were exactly the same as the day before. Still no underwear. This time I’d described what I needed, though. Commando with leather had the ability to chafe. I wanted to nip that problem in the bud. “What’s a gal gotta do to get a little whiskey around here?”

Lucifer pushed away from the wall, uncrossing his arms. I didn’t mention that I hadn’t heard him approach. Or that I had no idea how long he’d been standing there. Cahal and I would have to have a little talk about what things to mention, and what things to omit. No, I didn’t need to know when I looked tired, but yes, it would be nice to get a heads-up when my kidnapper-rescuer was watching me unravel the handiwork of his minions…

“Whiskey…” He looked skyward in that way people did when they were thinking. “Remind me. I’m not placing that one.”

“Yeah, my mom wasn’t really into the hard liquor. She was a wine and beer kinda gal.”

“Your mother, yes. I wanted to speak to you about her. I have something to show you.” Butterflies filled my stomach and longing grabbed hold of me, like it always did when I thought about her. I still missed her. I would always miss her. I wanted to talk to her, just once more. I wanted to tell her about Darius and Penny. To let her know that I’d connected with Callie and Dizzy. I wanted her.

She was beyond my reach, but I could maybe learn a little more about her while I was here.

“First, whiskey.” He wandered closer, an easy sort of stroll that held all the swagger of a prized pony. Not that I knew what one of those really looked like. “Remind me. I’m sure I know of it.”

I filled him in as I stepped away from the wall I’d torn down, wondering if I’d be chastised. It had been a good one, intricately made and pumped full of power, completely solid. I’d marveled at it before I labored to rip it away, knowing in my gut that it had been created by the Great Master himself.

“Hmm, yes. It has a burning sensation.” He smiled. “I remember it. We have something similar here. I’ll show you. It’s more potent, though. You’d best watch yourself.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

He laughed. “Indeed, it is.”

His eyes twinkled as they beheld me, velvety soft but brimming with power. Brimming with an ego he had earned. He was the master of his domain, and he knew it. I felt the call of it, stirring in my blood. The power welling up in me. The excitement for what was to come.

I squished it down. That wasn’t the right frame of mind to fall into down here. I couldn’t let the siren call of my magic change me. I was perfectly content being nothing more than what I was—a girl who liked her bad neighborhood, full of people who would take a bat to someone’s head on her behalf. Some might accuse me of thinking small, but I didn’t want to think big. If I wanted servants, I could get them from Darius. If I wanted to rule people, I could just hire a staff…

With Darius’s money.

Lucifer tilted his head to the side. He’d heard that thought—I’d let it slip. He probably also read the annoyance in my posture.

I gritted my teeth and focused on appearing neutral to him. I needed to be better about watching myself around him, about not letting him realize how good it felt when I fully gave in to my power. That was something he could exploit.

Without commenting on my slip, or whatever he saw in front of him, Lucifer shifted his attention to the illusion I’d torn down. “I am incredibly impressed.”

I lifted my eyebrows, following his gaze. Cahal, his eyes on my face, took this opportunity to step into my line of view. His focus was fixed on me. He thought I’d just messed up something, I could tell. I’d probably get a lecture later. A very dramatic lecture.

Hopefully Pops came through with the whiskey beforehand.

“With…what, exactly?” I asked Lucifer.

He furrowed his brow at me then indicated the large space in front of us. “I put up this wall myself.”

“Yeah, I gathered. It was really well done.”

“It was at the height of the power scale.”

“Also that, yeah.”

“How long did it take you to rip it down?”

“Oh…” I formed a duckbill with my mouth and glanced at Cahal. “Fifteen minutes? Twenty? It was a doozy.”

“Seventeen,” Cahal replied.

I took a moment to try to read Cahal’s face, because that had been very specific. All those planes and angles were very attractive in a hostile, severe sort of way, and very hard to get a read on. One would think I’d be better at it by now. Then again, he was incredibly closed down when Lucifer came around, and with him, that was saying something.

“Okay, then,” I said, pulling my gaze back to the large area that used to hold a solid wall made entirely of magic. “Seventeen minutes, says the guy without a watch.”

Lucifer laughed. “What our brooding druid is not telling you is that he is constantly comparing you with your predecessor.”

“Your other kid?”

“Yes, exactly. It took him months to learn which walls were magical and which were real, and months more to work out how to tear one down. But you can do it in”—his eyes darkened as they flicked Cahal’s way—“seventeen minutes. Did our illustrious druid teach you that?”

“No. Demolition was always one of my strong suits. He basically taught me how to take a punch.” I grinned, then frowned when neither of them reacted to my joke. I let it go. “But I can’t make anything solid. I can’t build as easily as I can take down.”

“Curse breaker,” Cahal said, clasping his hands in front of him. “The very magic that allows you to stay down here will make it harder for you to create down here. That is the magic that has allowed you to gain admittance to carefully constructed worlds and then, well, ruin them. You are the true demolisher, for not even the land of angels would hold up to the Underworld magic you wield.”

Curse breaker.

I didn’t know if that thought came from myself, Lucifer, Cahal, or a memory. Callie had said it. She’d told me I was one. She hadn’t elaborated, though, and certainly Cahal had never mentioned anything about it. But now, as I watched Lucifer’s eyes spark with a cunning gleam, I wondered what exactly Cahal was playing at. Clearly that was something he should not have advertised.

“This other magic…” Lucifer let the sentence trail away.

“The godly power, on her mother’s side,” Cahal replied, and I was getting closer to knifing him so he’d shut up.

To my surprise, though, Lucifer snorted. “Godly power? Is that a joke, druid? Those meddling fools are no more gods than those fool elves. Than you. They are cowards, truth be told. But fine, your point is made.”

I wanted to think at Cahal, to ask him what he was getting at, but I couldn’t without Daddy Dearest hearing it. I wondered if I could section off my thoughts.

I wondered if Lucifer would allow me to learn.

“Well,” I said, trying to steer this conversation like a train that had jumped the rails and was hurtling toward a sleepy village. “Be that as it may, I can build, to a degree. If I work a little harder at it, I’m sure I can create something passable.”

“Of course you can. Come.” Lucifer turned and jerked his head. “Let us have a tour. I’ll give you your first lesson.” I stepped forward to follow, Cahal quickly falling in behind me. “No, no.” Lucifer flicked his hand and an intricate sort of wall curled into existence, stitching into the air, starting at chest height and barring Cahal’s way. “Not this time, Master Shadow. You are best taken in small doses, and I have had my fill.”

I slowed, glancing back, considering whether to tear down that forming wall and push the issue. But Cahal stepped back and tilted his head to me.

Go, he thought. I will be fine.

“Of course he will.” Lucifer hadn’t slowed. “What am I, a barbarian? I would never harm my heir’s treasured pet.”

“Cahal as a pet…” With stinging doubt, I turned and hurried to catch up to Lucifer. I needed his instruction, and it wouldn’t hurt to have more knowledge of his kingdom. If Cahal wasn’t put out, he’d be fine. “I suppose it does make sense that I would have the surliest pet I’ve ever met.”

I just wondered if I would be fine. Lucifer was tricky. Trickier than anyone I’d ever dealt with. Layers upon layers of secrets and lies simmered just beneath the caring surface he showed me. It was different with Darius. Although vampires were notorious for being manipulative, and he could manipulate people into pretzels, he genuinely cared about me. He’d gone so long without feeling that his emotions discomfited him. Which was what made it so easy to tell the difference when he was feigning emotions to manipulate me. I usually caught on pretty quickly and zeroed in on his motive. I took peace in knowing that.

But with Lucifer, I could feel his affection. I could see his excitement to have me around. I could even sense his pride in me, wrapped up in the strange push and pull he had with Cahal. He laughed, played jokes, messed with me, but made sure I had everything I wanted. It felt genuine—he felt genuine. He couldn’t be, though. Not with the way he kept this place running. He was a lot more balanced than the elves, but he clearly had a ruthless underbelly. I just hadn’t seen it yet.

I had a feeling most people didn’t until it was too late.

I needed to stay vigilant.

“You did this place up better than even the vampires could,” I said, marveling at the sweep of heavy velvet curtains that should’ve looked really dated and ridiculous but somehow paired nicely with the textured wallpaper and modern sconces lit with his special brand of lighting. “And how do you make those glow?”

I could just see his cheek lift in a smile as he stepped off the first stair on the grand staircase leading all the way down to the castle doors, and hovered above them at an angle. His glance back said he would like me to follow his lead.

“Simon says…” I did the same, not as smooth, maybe not as polished, but perfectly capable of the slow hover.

“Very good. You are much farther along than any heir I have met thus far.”

“Why do you call them—us—heirs instead of children?” I increased my pace to keep up as he floated down. It felt weird that there was no air. It would have been much cooler if my hair were blowing out behind me.

“Because it hurts too much to remember lost children.” He settled onto the ground gracefully. I bumped down next to him. He looked me in the eye and put his fist to his heart. “My hope is that you can survive, even with the magic of those suffering fools.”

“The gods?”

His eyes narrowed. “They are not divine. They are merely angels. They have a world, like this one. They are immortal, but so am I. And the elves and many other creatures. Their magic is powerful, sure, but not unstoppable. Not for me.”

“Right. Old grudges, picked scabs, a small bit of jealousy—I got you. Mum’s the word.”

He jerked back just a little, his face going blank except for a small crease between his brows. Something moved behind his eyes, something feral and wild. Something vicious and violent. I’d hit his weak spot. I prepared for a violent response.

He erupted in laughter.

It was my turn to jerk back, this reaction wholly unexpected.

His guffaws filled the huge room, big and full and delighted. “My gracious.” He wiped his eyes and then laughed again, shaking with it. “Very good.” This time it was pride that filled his gaze. “Very good. Very few people push my buttons, Reagan. Very few. You did it in such a way that it was every bit as infuriating as it was distracting. Tell me…” He put out his elbow, and I took his arm without thinking. Darius had trained me, it seemed. “Where did you learn a trait so valuable? Or, more accurately, how did you hone it? Because that trait cannot be taught.”

“I’ve done a lot of surviving. It’s a tool unlike any other.”

“Hmm…” He pushed out a hand, and the grand double doors opened before us. The sun shone down, utterly fake, I was certain, but warm and soft all the same. “You asked about the light…”

He turned us to the right, along a little path flanked with flowers. Service critters shuffled out of our way, dashing into the underbrush or dive-bombing into what looked like rosebushes, some with twisting black flowers and some with white lilies instead of roses. They clearly thought being in the Great Master’s way was worse than any injuries they might sustain from getting out of the way.

“It is a very complex illusion, no different than the elves have in the Realm. Their sun isn’t real.”

“Yes, I realized that when I tore down one of their illusions.”

“Very good, yes.”

“But they use fairy lights more often.”

“That is because they have a lot of fairies who have no choice but to work for nothing. We do not have fairies, and so I must expend the effort to light the dark places. Of course, most of my subjects see in the dark, so I don’t have to light all of them…”

“Right, of course.”

“That will be one of the last things you learn, I think. First, let’s start simple.” He put out his hand, palm up, and a little flower curled into existence very slowly, so that I could see each fiber as it stitched together, almost like sewing a design into fabric.

The resulting daisy was a little off color, dirty cream instead of white, and not totally detailed. It didn’t look natural.

I mimicked him and copied it anyway. I knew from Cahal not to get ahead of myself. The battles I’d thought I was going to win always hurt the worst to lose.

The petals of my daisy showed up crisp white, the vibrant center dotted with various shades of yellows and oranges, to show the pollen. His pale green stem was more shamrock on mine, and I tried to color in some slight shadows on the petals that would work with the positioning of the sun. The added detail took a little longer, but he didn’t urge me to move faster, or call me out for doing more than he had. Instead, he waited patiently, slowing his pace as I worked on the shadowing and then picking it up to a leisurely stroll once I was finished.

“Fantastic.” He beamed, and his flower drifted toward mine. He lowered his palm, and I did mine, letting the two flowers hover beside us as we walked. “You improved upon my design, and you did a remarkable job. You put in touches that would fool the wandering eye. Now…” He held up a finger, and in a moment his design perfectly matched mine, except his shadows were relative to the faux-sun. His leaves were veined and his stem shimmered a little. “You do not need to paint on the environmental effects. If you do, it’ll only be correct when the plant and sun are in that exact position.”

“Right…” I lowered my brow, concentrating, and he halted his steps.

“Did you have a comment or question?” he asked.

“No. Just…learning.”

His smile was soft and his nod slight. “Here, let’s sit, and I’ll show you how to create that effect.”

I paid close attention to what he did so I didn’t miss anything, but I needn’t have tried so hard. He slowed down when I faltered, and explained more thoroughly when I had trouble grasping something. He was as patient of a teacher as anyone I’d ever met. Although my training in the past had usually involved some sort of violence, from my mother working with me on up, and I would have thought I’d be bored without it, I was too focused to notice. I was too enraptured with what I could create to want any other sort of training.

“Great Master!”

The urgent voice knocked me out of my concentration, midway through building a purple elephant that I planned to surprise Cahal with (he wouldn’t be amused, which would amuse me more). A lady-demon with incredibly long legs—too long; it was weird—and a short torso glided to a stop at the edges of the garden in which we sat. If it had been anywhere else, she would’ve been panting. As it was, her carefully composed face and too-far-apart eyes conveyed perfectly well that she considered it an emergency.

“You guys need some pictures of what humanoid creatures actually look like,” I murmured.

“Great Master,” she said with more decorum, clearly because she hadn’t expected me to be sitting with him.

“Yes, Victoria, what is it?” he asked curtly.

“There is an issue that…needs your attention,” she said, a little too fast. “Greatly.”

He studied her for a moment, her frame tense and shoulders tight. It didn’t take a genius to know something had gone gravely wrong in his domain.

“Of course.” His gaze slid my way. “Forgive me. How about dinner tonight—”

“No, Great Master, I do not think that would be possible,” Victoria cut in.

“Is it because you will be sewing, since no one sells pants to fit those gams?” I murmured.

A smile drifted across Lucifer’s lips. Victoria’s eyes cut my way.

“Now is not the time,” he told me.

The chastisement was slight, but it felt as though the teacher had slapped my hand with a ruler.

I furrowed my brow, surprised by the uncomfortable pang in my middle. I wasn’t sure when I’d started to value his good opinion enough to affect me, but I needed to tone that down right quick. I was technically a captive. Stockholm syndrome had to be a thing between teacher and pupil. Or else he was just really good at manipulating emotions in a very short period of time.

“The issue is…rather…large in scope,” Victoria said, back on track, eyes narrowed. She hadn’t liked that comment very much.

Lucifer nodded stiffly, and I could tell he was confused and not used to hiding that fact. “Of course,” he said, a little drawn out this time. Standing, he put out a hand to keep me put. “Please, enjoy this lovely garden. Practice. Be at ease. I’ll have the whiskey—our likeness, anyway—sent to your rooms. Tomorrow we will see the garden I fashioned after your mother.”

My heart gave a mighty leap and my stomach swirled, but I was careful not to show any of that on my face or in my body. Hopefully.

“Sure, sounds good,” I replied, blasé, settling back. I wanted to see how much I retained of his teaching. Then I needed to go find Cahal so we could figure out a way to get a message to Penny and the others, telling them to turn back. To stay safe. That I would get out of here somehow, without their help, and didn’t want them making this situation worse.

Because if there was anyone in all the worlds who could create an issue that needed the Great Master’s direct attention, a situation that was “very large in scope,” it was her. And while I didn’t have proof directly, I could read the room.

She’d be in incredible danger—they all would.