“Thankfully,” Iarla breezed on, “that son of a horse-fucking whore gave up this imp for only two bottles of mulled faerie wine.” He scoffed. “You demons really are sluts for your senses. Anything that feels good, smells good, or tastes good, and you’re head and ass up.
“Either way, it all works out for me. Because now I get to punish him...” He leveled a finger between my eyes. “...and you.”
I huffed hard through my nose, tears crowding my lids. “Punish me? Punish me for what?” My voice was hard. “I didn’t do a damn thing to you. I don’t even care about you. Frankly, the little interaction we’ve had in the past week was one exchanged syllable too many.”
“Oooh,” he crowed, eyes dancing. “So you’re tough even without your little mutt backing you up? Good for you, but it’s about time we wrapped this up, so jump.”
A loud roaring sounded in my ears. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Those beautiful eyes were dead. “Jump.”
“Are you crazy?” I shot away from the edge. “I’m not jumping!”
“You sure about that?” Iarla plucked out a feather and pointed at the cage. Before my eyes, the delicate wispy thing transformed into a huge, white double-sided axe. “Because if you refuse again, I’ll kill this nasty little thing you’re so in love with. And if that still doesn’t convince you, I’ll find your mutt boyfriend and lop off his head too.
“And if you’restillrefusing, maybe then I’ll go and find this Dora you were shouting about?” That foul grin was so at odds with his beautiful face. “I’ll bet me and Dora’ll have alotof fun together.”
I didn’t have to see my face to know the look in my eyes was terrible. “You keep Dora’s name out of your filthy fucking mouth, prick. I’m not one of your simpering sycophants, bitch. I’m not afraid of you.”
Iarla’s smile went nowhere. “You managed to say that without your voice shaking, but your knees didn’t quite get the memo.” He tapped the cage with the axe, making the little creature whimper louder. “Jump.”
I considered for a moment.
But only for a moment.
Climbing onto the ledge, I jumped.
“What the fuck! The crazy bastard actually—”
The rest of Ravenscar’s exclamation was swallowed by the rushing, roaring wind swamping my ears, and attempting to hold me up with invisible hands.
I plummeted more stories than I could count, pinching the scream between my teeth.
“Agh!”
Something slammed into my side, snatching me from the air. My head rattled like a maraca, jarring my sense loose and disorienting me.
I don’t know how long it was before my mind cleared enough to realize I wasn’t falling, something was holding me up by the shirt and pants, and someonewas bellowing their head off.
“—the fuck did you do that?!” Iarla was an angry speck on top of the tower. “Son of a whore! This isn’t fucking over, you hear me? You and that little troll are dead, you get me? Dead!”
I craned my neck around, and locked eyes with the creature gently floating me down to the ground. It was the imp, but it also—
A wicked glint shown in his suddenly red eyes.
—wasn’t the imp.
“You took your time with that catch, Luce,” I grumbled. “For a second there, I’d thought you were going to let me fall.”
“Moi? Let you fall?” He tsked. “Come now, darling, you’re going to need to have a little faith in me.” Lucifer winked. “I am your guardian angel after all.”
LUCIFER DEPOSITED MEway the hell away from Ravenscar—practically on the other side of the castle. Then, he took off and left me there without another word or glance back.
Flopping down on the cobblestones, I just lay there for a good spell, wondering how in the world my life came to this?
Ravenscar tried to get me to kill myself. A little sweet imp was beaten and imprisoned for protecting me. Fifteen people have been killed and Sabrina swears I’m at the center of it all. My sister is still missing and I have no idea where to start to find her and—
“Well, that was a merry little ride you went on.” Professor Santino stepped from the shadows of the covered breezeway. “You really do have that imp tamed.”
