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“Did you work the parties?” I hadn’t had a chance to talk to the staff beyond my precious Eddie, and Tix, who I was still uncertain about. I needed to start learning the lay of the land here.
Her scraggly head shook. She reminded me a bit of the brownies who ran much of Frelsi, though the demon was taller and had fierce-looking claws on her hands. “Oh, no. That is for more beautiful servants. For the best of the best. They do not let servants like me work such a magnificent party, but for larger parties, I am allowed in the kitchens, and we can see some of what happens. It’s so lovely. I like the music.”
“Well, if we have a party, you’ll be out there serving drinks,” I promised her.
She gasped, her red eyes widening. “Oh, no, Lady Sloane. I cannot be seen at such a fine soiree. We would be the laughingstock of all of Hell.”
“I don’t think Lady Sloane cares what Hell thinks,” Lee offered.
“She should.” Crizzelo stepped back.
“What does the rest of Hell think of Lord Sloane?” This was what I wanted to gauge. Lucifer would tell me everything was fine, and Tix would say the same. Lucifer would do it because he wouldn’t want me on my guard. Tix would do it because to say anything else would be to demean his master.
I needed some truth.
She hesitated.
“I would prefer honesty.” I sat down on the marble bench that complemented the table. It looked like she’d brought me sandwiches and crackers, with a luscious-looking dip. There were some grape-looking fruits, and someone had made macarons. Thank you, Eddie. “I need to know the truth so I can help my husband navigate this plane. He didn’t grow up here. He lived a mostly human life.”
Crizz seemed to think about it for a moment. “Well, my lady, they fear him, but every bit as much as they fear him, they hate him.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Because he’s not a full-bred demon?”
Her head shook. “Oh, most aren’t, Lady Sloane.”
Lee sat down beside me, reaching out to the tea kettle so he could pour me a drink. “Kelsey, like many places across the planes, the idea of purity is used as a political wedge on the Hell plane. This is a regimented society. A demon like Crizz will always be a servant. There is no moving up outside of one’s class.”
“You are born a servant and you serve.” Crizz shook her head Lee’s way and took over the pouring of the tea into a delicate cup. “That is our place. But the current Lord Sloane was born a servant. He was literally bred to be his father’s focus, and yet his father is demoted and he is now our duke. There are some who think a rise like Lord Sloane’s is bad, that it could lead to someone like me thinking I could be something more as well.”
“So they think Gray taking over for his father means there will be disruption in the rank and file demonic world. That’s what the higher-ups of Hell think?” I needed to know who was against us.
Crizz nodded. “Yes, but it is lucky our realm is not seen as powerful. We don’t have the armies the other realms have. We are considered a neutral realm. When war happens here on the plane, we are obligated to stay out of it.”
“Because we provide the food.” Agriculture was a big theme here. I’d been told this plane created most of the food for the Hell dimension. There were crops and cattle, and the lake provided fish. There was a big dairy farm to the south. They milked a lot of things here. A lot of disturbing things. I planned to not be very hands on. “Could someone else come in and easily take over? If, say, Lucifer decided he didn’t want Gray here, would he simply install someone else?”
“Not unless he wants to start a civil war,” Lee said, sitting back. “You see the only thing that would disturb the aristocracy more than Gray taking the kingdom would be Lucifer declaring the whole place his and taking over. I know Lucifer seems all-powerful, but Hell is a big place, and it’s always on the edge of war. Crizz, have you ever heard of a spell called an Uro spell?”
There was the sound of clattering as her hands went unsteady. “An Uro spell? Is that what happened to the wizard’s son?”
How much did they know here? This was supposed to be a backwater province, but they were up to date on their gossip. She would have seen Dean, but the fact that she knew his parentage shook me. “Who told you that?”
Had we fallen into the trap of not paying attention to the servants? If you ever need information on some rich dick, talk to his staff. I assure you they know all the dirt and are usually not paid enough to keep their mouths shut when you dangle a couple hundred in front of them. But in this case,Imight be the dick.
“Everyone knows.” Crizz seemed to steady herself. “Myrddin himself announced he had a child onHell Tonight. He said it’s made him even more certain of his path.”
“Did he happen to mention, say, a prophecy?” Lee asked.
“Oh, he addressed rumors of a prophecy concerning him.” Crizz set the tea in front of me. “He said it was all false and started by off-plane witches who want to invade our world. He thinks once the Hell plane and Earth plane are properly connected, we should take out those witches before they can harm us.”
I’d love to see Myrddin take on the witches of Arete. It was good to know he was already setting his sights on who to blame next. Right now, he was telling the witching world that it was Daniel’s people who held them down, and they must take us all out. But what happened if they achieved their goal? Autocracy doesn’t flourish in peaceful times. When we’re not at war, people tend to like some freedom. Myrddin needed to keep them all scared. “Did he ask for a bounty for the return of his son?”
Had I brought him here and put him in worse danger than he’d been in Frelsi? Would Lucifer let his friend know where his son was? A million things could go wrong with our plans.
“He didn’t mention monetary payment. He mostly talked about how hard it is to be a father.”
I had to stop my eyes from rolling to the back of my head. Fucker. He would probably be writing a parenting advice blog soon. So he wasn’t declaring war. Yet. “You reacted to the idea of the Uro spell.”
Her shoulders rounded as though she needed to protect herself. “It is a punishment spell here. It makes you feel like you’re burning from within, but you can’t move or speak or scream. It is a form of prison.”
