Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(47)

“She’s a queen. It was a birthday present for my mother. Somehow, I thought she hadn’t noticed me whittling it in the same cell. But her birthday didn’t come in time. Or maybe she lied, because she knew I was excited about the birthday, so she wanted to keep giving me something to look forward to. Anyway, it’s a Lilu queen, and I never got to give it to her. So it’s yours. Because you are the last succubus, and you are queen of the Lilu.” He met my gaze. “And as queen, you will need the grimoire. Learn everything you can about the Noyes Mansion in Sudbury. That’s where we’ll find it.”

“Thanks, Orion.” I was still staring at the little queen, my eyes going blurry. It really did break my heart to think of a tiny Orion looking forward to giving this to his mom, then never getting the chance. “Well, she would have loved it. But I’ll love it instead.” I turned away from him, because for some reason, I didn’t want him to see the tears that were about to start rolling down my cheeks.

As I walked away, I clutched the wooden queen, thinking of his mom and little Molor.

Was it insane to think that Orion and I could actually work together? We were the last of our kind, trying to find our places in the world again after we’d lost everything.

Everything hinged on what form he wanted his revenge to take.

As I crossed out of the garden gate, I already knew Orion would order guards to follow me—that is, if he wasn’t going to follow me himself.

Until I found myself heading toward the river, I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going,

I was heading for the dungeons.

Maybe I wanted to see the cells for myself, the place where Orion had been for all that time.

As I reached the tunnel’s riverside opening, I slid the little wooden queen into my pocket. The Acheron flowed past, glittering under the moon. Carefully, I lowered myself into the tunnel, and my feet dropped hard on the wet stone. As soon as I was in its depths, I felt a subtle weakening of my magic.

Because of the grimoire’s spell that depleted our magic outside the city walls, Orion’s magic had no longer worked in the dungeons. If it had, he’d have blown the entire fucking place apart and ripped off the king’s head centuries ago.

Down here, I was in the liminal space between the world of the mortals and that of the demons—a place where magic would fade after a few days. In the dungeons, Orion had been as vulnerable as a mortal but deprived of the mercy of death. If he got his fingers on the grimoire to reverse the spell, he’d never have to fear that kind of helplessness again.

It took me about twenty minutes of wandering aimlessly with a little fire burning in my palm before I found the dungeon itself. It was the scent of burnt flesh that eventually led me to the right place, a miasma of death pulling me forward.

The iron gate was open to the row of cells. When I stepped inside, the orange light from my hand wavered back and forth over rows of cells lining either side of a dark stone corridor. I hadn’t seen most of this dungeon when I’d first come into the City of Thorns.

But as I walked further, I saw a large hall jutting off from the central corridor. Firelight wavered over, blackened with time and glistening with moisture. Here in the hall, an old, threadbare noose hung from a gallows. It swung gently back and forth—which was very eerie, considering there was no wind in here. The sight of it made my heart clench. I could almost feel the sadness emanating from it.

This was the execution room. The Puritans loved a good public execution, but no one knew the Lilu were kept alive down here, so they were killed in secret.

It didn’t take me long to find the fresh bodies whose scent had drawn me here—or rather, the two piles of ash on the floor. The smell of blood faintly lingered in the air, too.

In the light of my flames, something metallic flashed on one of the piles of ash. I leaned down to brush some of the cinders away. When I did, I found a silver pin shaped like a hammer. The symbol of the Malleus Daemoniorum.

Orion had incinerated them, but I’d done the same when the congressman threatened my life. We all did what we had to in order to protect those we loved. Sometimes, it meant killing. And sometimes—in my mom’s case—it meant dying.

With the light wavering over dark stone walls, I found my way back to the cell at the end of the row. This was the place where I’d first woken up in the City of Thorns, where I’d stood when Orion had tasted my blood.

The cell’s walls crawled with ivy, and my throat tightened with emotion as I thought of Orion in here as a little silver-haired, blue-eyed boy. Holding up my palm of light, I found the carving in the wall. I leaned down, brushing aside the vines. Before, I’d only had my fingertips to feel the contours, but now, I could very faintly see the full text.

Luciferi— The i was faded and worn at the end. I ripped aside the rest of the vines to reveal the rest: —urbem spinarum liberabunt.

Just like Orion had said: The Lightbringers will set free the City of Thorns.

My chest warmed as I thought of his mom carving this. I felt an overwhelming urge to protect the boy who’d once been in here, carving the little queen in my pocket, but he was long gone.

A heavy sense of sadness hung in the air, a chilled mist that clung to the stones.

Right before she was killed, the guards moved me to a different cell by myself.

I crossed into the corridor again, sorrow twining with curiosity. From cell to cell, I scanned the stones, looking for something that would show me where he’d lived for all that time. On a few of the other walls, I found carvings, but nothing that could clearly be connected to him. Disturbingly, some of the carvings looked like claw marks.