“Why aren’t they saying anything?” I ask. If I woke up in Infernum after dying in Strata, I’d have a lot of questions, contract or not.
“Being reborn takes a lot out of you,” he says, and his voice feels too close even though he’s not speaking into my mind for once. “The mireborns are disoriented at first—it happens when you don’t have memories to fall back on.”
I look up at him sharply. “They lose theirmemories?”
“Most of them,” he says. There’s a look in his red-ringed eyes that seems almost…envious? “Some have hazy recollections of their past lives, but for the most part, they don’t remember being human.”
“Are they like children then?” I ask. I’ve never seen a demon child, though I always figured wingers must be babies at some point. There are rumors that supernaturals can even have children with humans sometimes—nephilim and incubi they’re called—but it’s so rare I kind of wonder if they’re just stories. Regardless, the demons that emerged from the lake certainly alllookedfully grown to me.
“No. The souls that make it to the lake are adult and are reborn as adults. Children’s souls are fundamentally different and can’t be reborn. Even if we did make contracts with children—which we don’t.” He says this last part firmly, his eyes boring into mine as if daring me to suggest otherwise.
The keepers are leading the new demons along the edge of the lake now, to join the others who arrived in the rising on the eastern shore.
“And now?” I ask. The Lord of Malice follows my gaze.
“Now they’ll be taken to the domain of the soul snare who sired them, ready to start their new lives.”
He says it neutrally enough, but my mind is busy trying to wrap itself around the implications of this. In Strata, the stories of Infernum always made it seem like to live here would be a punishment filled with eternal misery. I haven’t seen enough of this land to judge whether it’s worse than Strata or not, but a raw part of me shifts restlessly at the idea of walking away from one life to start another. You’d be starting fresh, without ties or responsibility. Maybe you’d even feel fr?—
I abruptly lock my thoughts away as the whisper of Syrus’s consciousness slips across my skin, entering my mind. I stiffen, bracing for that silky voice stalking through my head.
“This is why I need you, Rose Radley,”he says.“The keepers don’t just keep the Morphos but records of all the souls the snares bind to it. Once a snare deal is made and a human dies, their soul’s journey here should be straightforward. But they’re not all arriving when they should. Some of the souls are getting lost somewhere between Strata and Infernum.”
“And you don’t think?—”
“Answer me in your mind, Radley,”he snaps, glancing around us warily, even though we seem to be alone on the shore.
“All right,”I throw it back at him with a bit too much force and get satisfaction when I see him wince like I’ve shouted.“I was going to ask, don’t you think it could be a mistake in the records? The souls are here but there’s been…I don’t know…an administrative error?”
“Even if the keepers had ever miscalculated the number of souls in their care—which they haven’t—they have seen unidentified figures at the edge of the lake at night. The timing corresponds with the souls beginning to go astray.”
“So you think someone’s messing with the lake?”I don’t know why I care about the answer. It’s none of my business. But having just seen how it works…the fragile way the demons blinked up at their new realm…well, it reels me in.
“I think ephilium have been slipping into Infernum and sabotaging the Morphos,”he says.“Though I don’t know exactly how.”
The ephilium. I should’ve known there was something bloody and glistening beneath his apparent concern for the souls.
I take a step back from him, realizing we’ve ended up uncomfortably close. It doesn’t do anything to put the distance from him in my mind though. I can feel his presence lurking there, prowling around like his hellcat.
“Of course. This has something to do with the war,”I say.
He looks bored again—tired of this conversation before he’s even told me what it’s about.“From what I hear, you’ve had no trouble making the war your business.”
Ah, so Vizmodeus told him about my scavenging then.
“You wingers make the wareveryone’sbusiness,”I throw back.“I won’t apologize for looking after myself in the middle of the death you bring to our doorstep.”
I know it’s stupid to goad him, but—maybe because of his presence in my head—it’s harder than usual to filter my words. His presence continues to pad calmly around my mind, though his tone turns sardonic.
“How enterprising of you.You’re quite the vulture, Rose Radley.”
“I prefer the term mire rat,”I say coolly.
His lips press into a tight line, and he looks out at the lake.“Infernum has wards designed to alert us when ephilium try to enter our realm. They’ve not been triggered, but closer examination tells us something not-entirely-demonhasbeen finding its way past our defenses lately. I want to know how the pale-bloods are tricking the wards and what they’ve been doing to the Morphos.”
“And you need me for this why?”I ask. He wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t intend for me to do something.
“They’re coming from Strata, naturally. But from the rift signatures, Vizmodeus suspects it’s more specific than that—they’re entering from a city, which limits our ability to investigate.”
