Page 105 of Demon Touched

“Sweet goddess, Leah,” my sister says. The hand holding the glass droops so much she almost spills the water before catching herself. “That’s…incredible. Do they work? I mean, can you⁠—”

“Fly?” I ask, unable to stop myself smiling a little. “Yeah. And there’s this too.”

I didn’t go into too much detail in my letter. Just said that I was nephilim and that I’d gone through some changes. Now I lift my hand and let a little spark of lightning crackle across it. I’m worried for a moment Evie might flinch away, but she just stares at my fingers, even once the magic’s gone, bewildered but not frightened, so far as I can tell.

“I…Is this the job you were working when you came here last? You said something about the money setting you up for good. Are the ephilium paying you to do something in Strata?” She glances at Viz and Syrus with their swords, and I wonder if she assumes they are colleagues of mine. With their fancy clothes, they could pass as humans working with the wingers.

“Ah. No. The job was one I was working for Syrus here.”

She doesn’t make the connection between the name and the Lord of Malice. Why would she? But she does furrow her brow a little. “I’m confused.”

“That’s understandable, Evie,” Syrus says, rising and coming over to us. “Is it all right if I call you that?”

He reaches for the water glass and gently pries it from her hand. She lets it go, obviously having forgotten what she was doing with it.

“Oh, sorry! Of course, Evie is fine,” she says, smiling weakly at Syrus. This close, it’s possible to see there’s something not quite right about his eyes, but I don’t know if she’s noticed.

“Leah was indeed working a job for me when she saw you last,” Syrus says. His voice is smooth and light, the kind of tone he uses when he’s trying to charm someone—usually me. And it’s working, I can tell, seeing Evie relax as he talks. “It was through her arrangement with me that your sister learned she was nephilim. Though we had to part ways for a while after that.” He looks at me, a question in his eyes, and I nod. I trust Syrus to only reveal what he should.

“You see,” he says, moving over to the couch again as Evie and I follow. “I’m a demon, as is my friend Vizmodeus, here.” He bends to offer Viz the glass, cradling the back of his head so his friend can take little sips from it. “If we’re going to be staying under your roof, I thought it only fair that you know.”

“Okay,” Evie breathes, her eyes wide as saucers. Again, to her credit, she doesn’t scream or run away. She just puts her hands to her swollen stomach and exhales as if trying to absorb this. “Well, thank you for telling me.”

Why did I ever think of Evie as fragile? She’s handling this with amazing composure. Syrus flicks an amused look at me.

“Thank you for being so polite about it,” he says. “I understand why many Stratans are wary of our kind. But please know that we are good friends of Leah’s. In fact, we would do anything to keep her from harm.”

He’s got that king’s way about him now—a regal grace to his manner without any of the intimidation he sometimes uses as a demon lord. I know he’s doing it on purpose, winning my sister over with his simple confidence and good manners.

“Of course,” Evie murmurs and then snaps out of the spell Syrus has cast on her, her brow creasing once more. “I still don’t really understand what you’re doing back in Strata, though, Leah. Or how this happened.” She gestures to Viz.

“I was in Aradis,” I say, a story of half-truths coming together that leaves out the danger of the trials, the possession, and most of the failed coup. “Syrus had a…um…disagreement with the ephilium. It wasn’t his fault. A misunderstanding. But anyway, they went after him and Viz, and I stood up for them. Obviously, that’s made things difficult between me and the ephilium, so I had to leave Aradis.”

Evie watches my face carefully. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s more to it than—” She stops, frozen for a moment, then turns to look back at Syrus. Viz’s eyes have closed again, and Syrus is gently shaking him back awake.

“Is Syrus…um…a common name in Infernum?” she asks weakly.

Ah. Right. Now she knows he’s a demon, Evie’s putting some pieces together.

Syrus looks up at her with a smile I can’t help but find devastatingly handsome, although maybe it would just seem smug to anyone else.

“Not especially,” he says.

Evie’s eyes go so wide now they might pop out of her head. “Are you⁠—”

Thankfully, at that moment the door opens, and Jeremy walks in with Martha behind him. She lifts her chin at me in recognition, but Jeremy has frozen in place, eyeing my wings. Then he nods to himself, like he’s privately accepting this shift in the reality of things.

“I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something different about you, Leah,” he says wryly. I grin, a lot of the tension broken, and usher Martha over to Viz.

“What have you got for me this evening, girl?” the medicine woman asks, opening up her bag of treatments as she studies Viz.

“M’hello,” Viz manages to mumble when she crouches beside him, pulling up his eyelids to study his pupils. Unlike Syrus, they don’t have the telltale ring of red around them, so Martha doesn’t start asking questions until I’m done explaining the nature of Viz’s wound.

“And he’s stayed conscious since he woke up the first time?” she asks, starting to unwind the makeshift bandages.

“Yes,” Syrus answers. “Although he’s almost dozed off a few times.”

She nods. “That could just be exhaustion at this stage, though you were right to keep him awake, and⁠—”