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Something vaguely Germanic. I think that one’s French.
Ah. And here’s English.
Well, sort of. It’s old English, and if I had the inclination, I could probably translate it, but I’m pretty sure trudging through those tomes would frustrate me enough to send me flying out of the room looking for something else to do.
Here we go! Tom Sawyer? Really?
I’m not sure which human books I expected to find in Hell’s library, but that definitely isn’t one of them. I slowly pick my way through the decades until I find some more modern works. There are books here I’ve never heard of, written by people with names like “Beelzebub” and “Khronos” with titles in English mixed in among the Earthly works.
“The Psychology of Torture,” I read out loud. “Interesting, but probably not what I’m looking for.What Price a Princess?written by S. L. Simptom. I have so many questions.” I turn the book over, only to find the back cover blank. There’s nothing on the inner leaf, either. Oh, well. It’s been a while since I’ve played literary roulette.
Hounds who howl in the dead of night howl with grief, mourning her absence. Dawn refuses to break until it sees the contours of her face, the curves of her body. All of Hell rises and falls at her whim, blessed and cursed at the turn of her—
The back of my neck prickles, and I snap my head up. Diana’s unmistakable presence fills the large room, commanding attention. Behind her, the slouching silhouette of a lovestruck demon slinks away down the hall. Looks like my instincts were right on the money. These demons are untrustworthy, and their social rules are dictated by impulses I don’t entirely understand.
Diana isn’t even trying to be subtle. She’s cutting through the maze like a shark through water, heading straight for me. She pauses a few feet away, glances at the book in my hands, and gives me a sharp little smile.
“Don’t believe everything you read,” she says with a smirk. “Although I approve of your attempt to acquire some culture.”
“What a relief,” I say mildly. “Whatever would I do without your approval?”
“Mm, attach yourself to my brother, apparently,” she mutters absently while she scans the titles on the shelf. She gives me a wide-eyed look as though she’s shocked at herself for saying more than she intended to, which is the fakest thing I’ve seen all day. “Oh! I didn’t mean that you tricked him into this…relationshipof yours, or anything.” She turns back to the books and murmurs vaguely. “You’d have to be more intelligent than he is to trick him.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I murmur back in the same tone, suppressing the surge of defiant fury beating in my chest. “Naamah was smart and all, but she wasn’t smarter than him.”
Diana chuckles low in her throat. “Ah yes, poor Naamah. But you assume that she was the brains behind the subterfuge. It would make more sense, wouldn’t it, for one skilled in the art of heartache to pull her strings?” She shoots me a smug, twinkling smile.
I gesture with the book I’m still holding. “You’re taking credit for it, then?”
She flutters her eyes at me in a comical characterization of innocence. “I wouldn’t think of taking credit for such a horrific betrayal! And why would I waste my precious time and energy orchestrating the return of that traitor to our fold? No, sweetness, Father was pulling her strings. I was simply, well—his muse, if you will.”
“Ah, I understand. So which leader were you pining over? The short drunk one with one eye, or the big drunk one who always has blood in his beard?”
Her eyes get a little sharper and a small spot of crimson blushes on her cheek, but that’s the only indication that she took any offense at all to my insinuation. She tosses her head and laughs, a pretty sound with no sharp edges whatsoever.
“You’re so funny! You can’t really be simple enough to think that I would be the one pining. No, dear, what father saw was the lengths that my hopeful suitors would go to, to capture my attention, and the despair they were driven to at my rejection. He saw a weapon he would not have noticed otherwise—the weapon of unrequited love.”
Diana leans toward me, dropping her voice to an intimate level. “It’s a terrible thing, to be in love with someone who can’t love you back. It can drive a person absolutely insane.” She gives me a long searching look, dripping with sympathy. “Do you feel insane, sweetie?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “Really? I’m a human living in Hell, of course I feel nutty. This whole situation is insane.” And has nothing whatsoever to do with unrequited love.
She narrows her eyes slightly at a title in front of her. “Angel Dust and Trophies—a good read, if you want to learn more about the wars. The story itself is fiction, of course, but the historical events are accurate. Of course, they had to add intrigue, so there’s a whole conspiracy theory about Hell’s leadership. Nonsense, all of it, but it tied up the mystery of Uriel’s death in a nice literary bow. Here.” She pulls the book off the shelf and slides it onto the book I’m already holding. I glance down at the cover to find a dark, brooding demon staring back at me. His features are similar to Lucifer’s, but his face is softer and younger, his eyes bigger and brighter.
“A lovely depiction of my dear departed brother,” she tells me. “The most interesting part of this story is what they got right.”
“Oh? And what was that?”
There’s a dangerous glint in her eyes. “It’s the assertion that the only way to stay alive in the war with Heaven is to be driven by conviction—the right conviction. Not to spoil the story for you, but the poor main character would have lived if he believed in the cause, just like Uriel.”
A ripple of fear skitters over my skin, but doesn’t sink into my gut. I’ve been watching Diana weave words around people’s emotions for days, and refuse to let her get to me. She slides a glance in my direction, but I’ve turned my attention to the titles on the shelf.
“Do you think Lucifer’s convictions are pure?” she asks, her voice lilting with a false sort of casualness.
“I think Lucifer does what he thinks is best in every situation,” I say neutrally.
“Hm. Uriel was the same way, you know. Always weighing the pros and cons, always looking for a better way to do things. He had ideas,bigideas.”
“That explains why Lucifer liked him so much.”
