No, not growing. Coming closer.
The portal was like a window to the other side of the veil, the demonic world that she’d relegated Mephisto and all its kind to. She knew intrinsically that it was something no human was ever supposed to see. The portal was like a vulnerable pane of glass in what should have been an impenetrable wall.
Everard had begun to whisper in a language she couldn’t understand, though she suspected it was related to Elder Vansion. The runes pulsed, as though responding to his words, but the demon continued to move closer to the portal.
“Aurelie,” Des growled in her ear. “Let’s go, now, before it’s too late.” Behind him, several guards had already started backing up the stairs.
She turned to face Des, truly seeing him for the first time today. “What did you do?” she asked, her eyes taking in the dead female guard, the wound in Jasper’s side.
His gaze was full of something Aurelie had never expected to see there: defeat. “I thought by capturing Kobal, we could take Everard. I’m so sorry. Gareth’s research was wrong.”
“It wasn’t wrong,” Everard said, still watching the portal intently. “Thralls and their human counterparts are connected when the human offers part of his soul to the demon in exchange for its powers.”
“Then Kobal isn’t your thrall,” Aurelie breathed.
“No. He was the gatekeeper of the first portal, and mine to control as part of the bargain I made.”
“And that?” Aurelie asked, turning to look at the demon and immediately recoiling in horror. It was twice the height of Everard but far larger, its shape shrouded in swirling black shadows. Aurelie could make out its glowing red eyes and the razor-sharp tips of two massive horns, but everything else was obscured, leaving her imagination to fill in all sorts of nightmares.
“Also under my control, should it enter this world.”
“Come on,” Jasper was urging behind them. “We need to get back to the Iron Fortress and warn the commander.”
“What is your plan?” Aurelie shouted at Everard, because this might be her final chance to know. She had no idea if her uncle was alive or what came next for the Iron Guard, but she was bound for prison or death regardless.
Everard glanced over his shoulder at her. “To take back what is rightfully mine. To finally do what my father and brother failed to do. To make Wisteria the most powerful kingdom in the world.”
“And the portal?” she spat. “It’s not the mirror image of the one you told me about, is it? It’s the original.”
“Clever girl. Yes, Revenin destroyed the portal when he realizedwhat my plans were. I killed him, which was admittedly shortsighted on my part. Without him, it took me decades to re-create his original plans.”
“Des,” came Daisy’s urgent plea.
“Aurelie, please.” She felt his hand on her shoulder, and a part of her was desperate to go with him, to turn herself in to the Iron Guard and allow someone else to clean up this horrible mess she’d made. But if the portal could be destroyed once, then surely it could be destroyed again. She was no mage, and yet she’d managed to re-create what Revenin had done. That had to count for something. Because otherwise, they were all done for.
Everard turned toward her then, as though reading her thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak and froze. Blood began to spill from his parted lips, and Aurelie looked down to see something dark and pointed protruding from his abdomen.
The demon from the portal. Its claws curled around Everard’s torso, dragging him backward several feet. The damned creature was onthisside of the door, and it was immediately clear that Everard did not have control over it as he’d thought he did.
Screams erupted behind Aurelie. Everard twitched as the demon shook him free of its horns, crumpling to the ground like a rag doll. Then the demon’s entire head was through the portal, its shoulders barely restrained by the frame. Between the swirling shadows, Aurelie could make out mottled blue flesh straining against bulging muscles and a mouthful of fangs protruding from the demon’s jaws like those of a lantern fish.
Everard looked up at her, and for the first time since Aurelie met him, he seemed afraid.
He mouthed a single word:Run.
Before she could comply, Des’s hand found hers and she was being dragged out of the basement up into the main floor of the clock tower. They’d barely made it outside when they heard a roar behind them, one full of so much fury it made her blood run cold. She stumbled as her feet hit the ice, but Des was steady next to her. All she had to do was pump her legs to keep up with him.
But she faltered at the explosion of stone and rubble behind them. Aurelie turned to look over her shoulder and screamed. The demon had burst free of the building, shaking off dust and rocks as it roared again.
“What do we do?” Aurelie asked.
“We have to get back to the fort. Let’s pray the iron gates are enough to hold this thing.”
“We can’t risk it! If iron isn’t enough to contain the other demons, I don’t see how this one can be controlled. And if it gets free in the city...”
Des reached the gate first. On the other side, Aurelie saw a battalion of Iron Guards standing behind someone who could only be Commander Yew.
And next to him, to her utter astonishment, was Uncle Leopold.