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“He's warm,” she murmurs, her eyes fluttering shut as she snuggles deeper into the pillow, her hand still resting on him. “Goodnight, Malachi.”
The fragile mortal girl and the catastrophic beast—both asleep in my bed. It’s chaotic. It’s unsanitary. And it’s perfect.
I sigh, draping my arm over her waist and pulling her back against my chest, closing my eyes. “Goodnight, little summoner.”
Chapter 29
Eden
“This is ridiculous,” Malachi grits out, his patience snapping as he tries to shove past the hound. “Chain-Chewer, move. Now.”
The Hellhound lets out a sound that vibrates through the floorboards and smashes his craggy, magma-veined head against my chest with enough force to nearly knock the wind out of me.
“I don’t think he wants us to go,” I say.
The beast is a terrifying, hulking mass of living obsidian and heat, but he’s looking up at me with eyes that are less ‘predatory monster’ and more ‘sad puppy.’
Malachi snorts, adjusting the velvet, teeth-filled sack at his hip. “Don’t project your emotions onto him, Eden.”
I reach down, tentatively scratching the rough, heat-pitted surface behind Chain-Chewer’s ears. He leans into the touch, little sparks drifting from his lashes.
How the fuck could he say I’m projecting?
It’s a rock, sure, but it’s a rock that’s throwing a tantrum just like Vesper does when she knows I’m heading out, weaving between my ankles like a barricade designed to guilt-trip me into staying.
“He’s pouting,” I coo gently. “He wants to come with us.”
Malachi lets out a long sigh that seems to deflate his entire silver-skinned frame. “He is a stationary security system, Eden. He is designed to sit around and look menacing, not trot through the slums.”
Chain-Chewer whines again and nudges Malachi’s hand with his snout.
“Fine,” Malachi relents with a groan, giving the hound’s head a stiff, reluctant pat. “Perhaps you might actually be useful as a security detail. At the very least, you can act as a buffer between the local filth and my little summoner’s increasingly erratic stature.”
The hound’s tail-thumping doubles in speed as he trots to the door, his heavy claws clicking against the marble in a happy, chaotic skitter.
“There,” I murmur, following the walking boulder toward the exit. “See? Not a statue.”
“No,” Malachi mutters, wrenching the iron bolt open. “Just another variable. Just another thing I have to worry about if things go tits up. Truly, Eden, you are a blight on my efficiency.”
*******
Through our journey on three different trams, and navigating streets packed tight enough to induce a panic attack, we’ve barely been spared a second glance.
It certainly helps that I don’t look or smell like me anymore. Before we left, Malachi spackled me with a paste that dulled my complexion to a sickly, greyish hue. And between that, the layers of heavy clothes, the cloud of perfume, and the terrifying Hellhound glued to my hip, I’m practically invisible.
Don’t get me wrong—my skin’s definitely still crawling. Every time a tram lurches and a stranger’s limb brushes mine, I have to fight the urge to vomit profusely. And I definitely have the intrusive thought of grabbing the nearest sharp object, cutting myself open, and finding a way the fuck home. But compared to the sheer, naked terror of the last few days? This isn't as bad. I’m just... commuting. In Hell.
We spill out of the last tram and step onto a street that’s completely, unnervingly silent. The chaotic clamor of the districts, the shrieking gears, the hawkers, the growls—it all vanishes.
“Malachi?” I whisper, the sound too loud in the dead air. I spin in a circle, looking for the chaos, the stalls, the danger. But there’s literally nothing. There isn’t a soul in sight, just fog and the echo of my own boots. “Where’s the market? There’s nothing here.”
Malachi steps in close, his body heat a sudden comfort in the damp chill as he laces his hand through mine.
“There is, baby girl,” he murmurs, his thumb dragging a circle over my knuckles. “It just takes a minute. The Slag Heaps don't sit on the surface; they fester underneath.”
He turns me toward what looks like a blank, brick dead-end at the alley's throat. “Just brace yourself, okay? The transition is... viscous.”
Before I can ask what the hell viscous means in this context, he tugs me forward, and we walk straight toward the brick wall.
