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Watching her ever-so-slowly waste away to nothing was satisfying in the extreme.

He bowed at the waist and smiled inside. “Greetings, mistress. I hope I find you well.”

The shadows pulsed, snapping outwards before recoiling back to drift lazily around her. “What do you want?”

“I come to beg a favor.”

She scoffed, shaking her head. “Bold of you.”

“Indeed, it is. Still…” He swallowed, feigning distress and making himself smaller than he was. “There have been some developments that I believe you should be aware of, lest your aims fall further off course. The situation is rather dire, I’m afraid.”

Her crystalline eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

“The Evesong’s Keeper has agreed to send her forces to the Westrealm, to help them in the fight against your monsters.”

She sneered. “They are not monsters, cur. They are people. Creatures who only wish to find a place for themselves in Bordoroth’s greener pastures. To secure a foothold, that we might finally realize a better life for these lands and their families.”

Bloody, fucking essence. She was more delusional than he was. Her people were mindless abominations, slaughtering everything in their path without rhyme or reason. Even Ygritte and Aelthys, the first and most tame of her creations, had been unable to follow his simple instructions in the end.

“Forgive me, mistress. I do not mean to offend.” He bowed again to hide the twitch of his lips. “Only, it’s getting more difficult to manipulate the circumstances in our favor. And with the Demon Brandir back at his mate’s side, I’m afraid our vision of that future might be snuffed out before it has hope of being realized.”

She sat forward, and he crowed inside. “What do you mean? What do you know of Brandir and his plans?”

“My—” He cleared his throat, a spike of confusion at almost making such an absentminded slip. He’d been pretending too fucking long. “Brand has made quite a show of his loyalty to Lunara, despite their separate realms. With many of his brethren already in Thodelebor, he will undoubtedly be by her side when she goes to lend aid to the Wolflords. Hence me coming here to warn you. If he gets hurt while helping her, or worse…”

“Then we are finished,” she rasped, gaze plastered to the floor for a long moment before she snapped it back to him. “When is this happening?”

“The Sorcerit move within days.”

“What of the Fae? The Riders?”

“There is no official word yet on either, though both of their Imperial Sons have been involved some way or other. Whispers tell me, however, that both Amunkar and Valandyrian are acting as individuals, not as Ambassadors.”

She relaxed, nodding. “I will be sure to communicate that Brandir is not to be touched.”

Not what he had in mind. He needed to unsettle her.

“Speaking of the Demon Son, have you figured out yet what actually happened? How he escaped? And so changed as well…” His cheeks puffed out on a heavy exhale. “I’ve never seen the like, but the magic infecting him was not your own. I felt that much, at least. You are far too righteous to smell so foul.”

He already knew the answers to his questions, but that wasn’t the point. And she smelled like nothing because she was weak. Not that he would say so.

“Someone I thought devoted has betrayed me,” she answered, a low threat in her flat tone. “What is it to you?”

If she had even a fraction of his senses, Okthana would’ve realized his part in it. Would’ve felt him and tried to kill him many times over by now.

It was one of the greatest struggles of his life not to grin and rub her fucking face in it.

“That is most unfortunate.” He clicked his tongue, dripping with false pity. “I did try to heal him the few times I was near enough, so I might return him to you as he was before, but it was beyond me and he was too closely guarded.” A pause after the lie, for effect. “I was amazed when his Sorcerit mate was able to cleanse him of that dark curse and render him entirely restored, whole and hale.”

Okthana blinked. “What did you just say?”

Got her.

“Whatever was inside of Brandir is now completely gone, as if it never existed. Honestly, Lunara the Moonweaver might be the most powerful Nachthellian I’ve ever seen. To accomplish that feat? Incredible.”

He refused to show just how much it worried him.

Absolute confusion wrote itself across her sharp features, misery quickly following. She was no doubt realizing that her perfect, lost little friend was in his right mind again. And hadn’t come back to her of his own free will.