Garden of Serpents (The Demon Queen Trials #3)(79)

In his bedroom, decorated with octopus imagery (his favorite), I started ripping the place apart with a growing sense of urgency—flinging blankets, pulling open the closet. The windows were closed, so he hadn’t jumped out or been abducted. How could no one have seen him?

Exhausted, I sat down on his little bed.

What we needed was some magical help. I grabbed my phone and called the City of Thorns’ best mortal oracle, Isabeau. There were magical ways to contact her, but she preferred text.

I wasn’t waiting for a text now, though. I was calling her.

Midway through the first ring, she answered. “Good morning, Your Majesty,” she greeted me. “Nico, is it? Missing?”

“Yes, thank you.” Already, I was reassured that she knew what was happening. “We can’t find him. I haven’t seen him.”

“Curious,” the oracle replied. “Your sigils and glyphs are all in place. The wards continue to function.”

“Yes, I believe so…”

“That wasn’t a question.” Her abilities allowed her some leeway when it came to snark, but I wasn’t in the mood for her games.

“If they’re in place, then where is Nico?” I demanded. “How could the spells have been bypassed? Who took him, and how are they shielding him from us?”

“So many questions,” she answered slowly. “But no answers. If he were on this plane, I would know. If he’d left this plane, I would know that as well, even if I couldn’t follow. He’d have left a trace behind.”

Panic snapped through my body. “Is he in Osborne? With mortals?”

As I listened to her reply, Orion rushed into the room, all color drained from his face. He shrugged and turned both palms up in resignation.

“There are those with the talent to hide things from you,” Isabeau observed. “And a very small number with the ability to conceal things from me. But none of them would have reason to harm your son. The person you need…the person who can help you…a duchess from the House of Shalem.”

Orion motioned for me to hand him the phone.

“Lydia delivered anzu eggs to our cottage this morning,” Orion informed the oracle. “I don’t believe in coincidences.” I watched him nod as he listened to Isabeau. “Find him. Do you understand?” He handed the phone back to me.

I nodded and stared at Nico’s blanket in my hands. I considered a thought too awful to contemplate, and nausea rose in my gut. “Orion, if neither of us can sense him, and neither can the oracle, can it mean he’s…he couldn’t be…”

I had to keep a distance from that terrible thought, and Orion only shook his head. When he glanced over my shoulder at the soldiers, his eyes had turned the color of ink.

“Bring the Luciferian Duchess to me,” he said, a deathly chill in his voice.





*



We sat on thrones. I didn’t want to sit on a throne—I wanted to be running around, tearing the city apart for Nico. But apparently, the thrones were a show of power that could strike fear into someone and convince them to tell the truth. I gripped the edge of the throne, staring at her.

Lydia of the House of Shalem crossed into the marble hall before us with a grace that made it seem as if she were floating rather than walking. In her long red dress, her fiery tattoos were on display. It was hard to believe that she’d do something so rash. Years ago, when I was still mortal, she’d tried to kill me. But that was part of the initiation trials to enter the city, and since then, we’d been on good terms.

“Welcome back, Lydia,” I said.

“I trust you enjoyed the eggs?”

“We’re not here to talk about the eggs,” said Orion evenly. “We’re looking for our son. You were here this morning. Our oracle thought you might have an idea where he is.”

“Me?” She put a finger to her lips. “Ah. My son used to go missing all the time. It was really very easy to find him.”

I leaned forward over my belly. “How?”

She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed into the air, “Fig pudding!” Her voice echoed off the stones.

I stared at her, stunned. I’d never seen her do anything undignified before. But then, I supposed, I’d never seen her as a mom.

She turned to me, frowning. “That was a long time ago. Fig pudding was his favorite back then. What does your son like most in the world to eat?”

“Cotton candy,” I said.

She cupped her hands to her mouth again. “The cotton candy will all be gone! Poor Nico won’t have any left. Will everyone spread the word that the cotton candy is almost gone?”

He seemed to materialize from the shadows in the corners of the hall.

His face was tear-streaked, and his nose was runny. He’d obviously been crying. “I’m hungry, Daddy!”

Orion lifted Nico into the air and wrapped his arms around him. Nico was red-faced, already searching for the promised cotton candy. He was about to burst into hungry tears when he realized there was none here, but he was back with us all the same, and I couldn’t be more relieved.

I actually hugged Lydia before she left, pressing her against my giant stomach.

And I turned to look at Nico, crying for the sugar he’d been expecting. Where the hells had he been?