My foot hits a step when a weedy voice calls out.
“You have secret,” Vetch says.
I glance up, surprised to find myself outside House Inferos.
“Don’t have time for this, Vetch.”The exhaustion is obvious in my voice—I don’t want to play today.But he ignores me, delightfully pleased to find himself chewing on another secret.
“You.Have.Secret,” he repeats.Slower and more punctuated like I’m an idiot that needs it spelled out.
“I don’t.What possible secret do you think I have.”
He grins, baring stony teeth at me.A wisp of ruby-coloured smoke protrudes from my chest.How did he?—
“Stop that, you little shit.”I waft my hand to dissipate the magic.
“She must have loved you,” he says.
“Way to go to make me feel like shit,” I snap and shove the door open.
“Everyone knew you loved her.It was only a matter of time.”
I halt, my teeth gritting.“Either tell me something useful or go to sleep.”
He grumbles at me, spitting stone dust on the floor.“You worked out how to use it yet?”
Okay, he has my attention.I lean against the doorframe.“No.Not sure I want to.”
“Hmm.Well, it’s easy…”
I fold my arms and wait.
He blinks at me.
I wait longer.
He blinks again.
“Demonsake, Vetch, you going to enlighten me or are you just fucking about?”
He pouts.“I don’t know about the contracts side.But using demon magic is easy.Whatever you want… just decide there’s no other plausible possibility.”
“Just like that, yeah?”
The little stony toes he sits on wriggle and make him appear to bounce, which I assume is a shrug.“More or less.”
“Helpful.”
I slope my way upstairs, scratching at my head.My scalp itches in a couple of places, it’s annoying as fuck.Probably the magical drugs they gave me in the medical wing.
I find Bastien and Lex in our apartment.I take one step through the door and they both fling themselves at me.
“You’re here!”Lex says and leaps into my arms.
Bastien grips me by the cheeks and kisses my forehead.“We were so fucking worried.We came to your room, but Arcadius was shouting?—”
“Yeah,” I say, squeezing his arm.
“You look exhausted and like there’s a whole boatload of shit you need to tell us.”He puts the kettle on.
