“Oh, calm down,” Everard said, as if it were truly nothing that she was near-naked in a strange man’s house. “I have no interest in women. Or men, for that matter. It was all rather perfunctory.”
Aurelie’s stomach twisted at the thought of Everard handling her unconscious body. It had unsettled her in an entirely differentway to have Des touching her bare skin, one she would prefer to contemplate more when she was alone, not in Everard’s creepy, narrow house in her shift.
She sat up again, slower this time. “I’d like to go home now.”
“Yes, I imagine you would. But you’ll stay here until I’m sure you’re not going to die. And until you’ve explained to me how you happened to conjure a demon without finishing your project.”
Aurelie reached for a glass of water on the nightstand, her mouth suddenly parched. “I’m not going to die,” she said.
“Not tonight, perhaps.”
She cast Everard a glare. “Is my uncle safe?”
“Why wouldn’t he be? Your deadline hasn’t passed yet. But if you don’t start revealing the source of your demon, I can’t guarantee that either of you will live to see morning.”
Aurelie wondered what had become of Des, if he’d followed her here or gone back to the fortress. She wasn’t about to mention him to Everard, though a part of her feared she’d endangered him tonight without ever meaning to.
“It was an accident,” she said. “My demon, Mephisto, produces seeds. I’ve never planted them. I suppose I must have known on some level that they could be dangerous. But one germinated by accident, and when I returned to my laboratory, the demon was loose, destroying everything it could get its claws on.”
“Yes, they’ll do that. Especiallytenebralike the one you conjured.”
“Tenebra?” Aurelie said, rubbing at her temples.
“Demons of darkness, conjured without intention. They are the rarest of demons, and arguably the worst.”
“Why didn’t it go after me?” Aurelie asked. “It could have killedme, but it went straight for Willoughby.” Why hadnoneof the demons she’d encountered recently tried to kill her?
“I can’t say for certain. Perhaps it didn’t see you as a threat.”
She couldn’t be satisfied with that answer. Not when Willoughby hardly posed more of a threat than she did. She needed to think, which was almost impossible with Everard so close and her head pounding and Kobal somewhere in the house.
“Like you, I’ve been studying demons for many years, Aurelie. And like you, I understand that they are not inherently evil. Impulsive and destructive, yes, but that is their nature. It’s possible this demon only wanted freedom, and the guard was in his way.”
“If you believe demons aren’t evil, then why go to all this trouble to build the portal?”
“My goal is to break the curse. To allow this kingdom to flourish once again.”
Aurelie didn’t respond. She didn’t believe him anymore.
“I need to know how you conjured that demon, Aurelie.”
“It was anaccident,” she repeated.
“But the seeds. There are more of them, surely?”
Aurelie shook her head, hoping he didn’t see through the lie. The fact that Everard seemed to know so much about demons, to perhaps have some sort of connection to them, but didn’t know how she’d managed to create thetenebra, was information worth squirreling away. “I’ve always discarded them.”
“Then this demon, Mephisto. It’s still at the university?”
“It lives in my laboratory.”
“Then you’ll bring it to me.”
Aurelie took another sip of water to disguise her fear. Whatcould a man who controlled a demon like Kobal want with her tiny companion? “Mephisto is my friend,” she said.
His lips curled in a pitying frown. “I know it seems that way, but believe me, your demon doesn’t think of you as a friend. You are a means to an end for Mephisto.”
And what end could that possibly be? It had never demanded anything from her, other than cockroaches. There was no loyalty from it, the way one might expect from a dog. It was more like a cat, choosing affection when it wanted to and just as capriciously rejecting her. Even knocking over the jar of seeds felt like something a cat would do, casually causing chaos just for the sake of it.