A lump had formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard. I closed the wardrobe and turned to look at the room. Maybe I could stay here for a little while until I figured out a better plan. I’d avoid Mortana’s old place, where Orion might look for me.
My curiosity sparked, I looked around the room, my eyes roaming over the dark wood and time-faded painted walls. It was so calm here, like a tomb. So different from the chaos I’d fled in Osborne.
I crossed back into the hall and wandered into an old bathroom with a copper clawfoot tub and cracked mosaic floors flecked with gold.
In here, I could definitely smell Mom’s sweet, velvety jasmine scent. The ache of her loss bloomed in my chest. Her presence was so strong in this place that I could almost imagine her moving from room to room…
Mom used to hide things.
Important things. Her cash, a diamond ring, the checkbook. She had a drawer in the kitchen with a false bottom, where she tucked valuables.
I crossed over to a candle in a sconce on the wall and summoned a bit of fire magic, except I couldn’t get it to rise. Staring at my hands, I bit my lip and tried to envision the flames. How did you make magic appear, I wondered.
I gritted my teeth, trying to force the fire up.
How did it happen last time? I envisioned my desperation…
My chest heated, and the warmth flowed down my arm and wrist and into my fingertips—exhilarating. But it was only the tiniest of sparks, like the lick of a match on my fingertip. I lit one of the candles, and the flame on my fingertip flickered out.
Warm orange light spread over the room, making me feel more at home.
Where would Mom hide something important here?
A desk stood beneath a window—the same one where I’d found the nursery rhyme. I crossed over to it and pulled open the drawer. With a hammering heart, I ran my fingers around its bottom, then slid my fingernails into it. I pulled up the panel—a false bottom—and stared down at a single piece of paper.
Written on the page, over and over, was one declarative sentence.
Long live King Nergal.
I pulled out the paper.
But why would anyone hide that—a simple statement of loyalty to the former king?
Disappointment twisted my heart. I ran my fingers over the handwriting. It wasn’t my mother’s elegant cursive, but rather a blocky, masculine text. Was this my dad’s writing? Duke Moloch—the strange and unfamiliar name of a man who looked just like me.
Mr. Esposito sometimes said, “If you don’t have a family, you don’t have a life,” which was a bit annoying, considering that neither of us had families.
I wanted something that belonged to my father. Since I had nothing else, I folded up the note and tucked it into my bra.
I turned back to the desk and slid open another drawer. A hot, dry breeze rippled over me, scented with burnt cedar.
Oh, fuck. He was here.
Shock rattled through my bones as I felt his molten magic thrumming up my spine.
I whirled to see the Lord of Chaos standing in the doorway.
The other one with the mark of Lucifer. My beautiful nemesis. Maybe I shouldn’t have lit the damn candle.
Amber candlelight danced back and forth over his golden skin, sculpting his cheekbones. He pinned me with his stare, a faint smile on his lips, like he was about to catch his prey.
The shock of his masculine beauty stole my breath. A lock of his silver hair hung before his pale eyes, and my heart clenched. Why was he so fucking pretty? It was an unfortunate distraction from the fact that he was my enemy.
“Mortana,” he said, taking a step closer. The raw hatred in his tone sent ice through my veins. “I’d hoped never to see you again. Why would you come back here, knowing that I wanted you dead?”
I crossed my arms. “What can I do to convince you I’m not Mortana?”
He shook his head slowly. “It won’t work this time. I’ve seen your demon mark.”
I took a step back into the wall. “Have you been waiting outside this house, or what?”
Moonlight washed over his enormous body and the black T-shirt that clung to his muscled chest. My gaze roamed his thickly corded arms and his tattoo—the snake tied into a noose. He loved to intimidate, didn’t he? That was his thing.
The sardonic smile on his lips quickly disappeared, and malice shone from his eyes. “I haven’t been waiting outside. I woke up with a hammering heart and a suffocating sense of dread. For a moment, I wondered if I was in Hell, then I knew what had shaken me from sleep and filled me with this overwhelming sense of repulsion. Your rotten presence, drawing me closer. It was you—back in the City of Thorns, against all reason. You could have bought yourself a few more days, Mortana, if you’d stayed away. You probably could have run. But your arrogance knows no bounds. Don’t you realize I swore a sacred oath to kill you?”
I glared at him, my body rigid with anger. “My arrogance? And yet, here you are, so certain you’re correct when you are dead wrong.”
A thorny silence stretched out between us. “If you truly believe you are not Mortana, it is because you have erased your own memory. You once told me about the very spell that could make it happen. You offered it to me.”
Fuck. Frustration ignited. “No. I remember my life as a child. I remember sitting in my mom’s lap and having a stuffed lion named Leroy.”
“How adorable. Too bad those memories are not real.”
The world tilted beneath my feet. “No. That’s not possible.” The idea that my whole life had been false was too disturbing for me to dwell on for longer than a moment. “Look, I don’t know who exactly I am, but that’s why I’m here in this house. I’m looking for answers. Maybe I’m Mortana’s sister, but several hundred years younger.”
“Hmm.” He was as still as stone, and dark heat radiated from his body. He pressed his finger against his lips, his eyebrows knitted. “I suppose you also think you are both Lightbringers with the same mark from Lucifer, both with fire magic. Identical. Interesting theory. Except that’s not how sisters work, is it?”
“I’m not her!” My voice rose.
“And if you were an identical twin,” he went on, ignoring me, “you’d also be four hundred years old. But you say that you’re not. Nor are you a mortal doppelgänger, clearly.” He stepped closer, and I felt his sinister power thrum over my skin. “Sorry, love. I don’t believe you, and I’m afraid the oath compels me to end your life.”
My mind spun. I was back to square one with Orion. Now he was sure I was the one who’d tortured him and killed his family.
And—okay. He was right. Sisters didn’t look identical. But my memories were so real, so specific. The nights I needed Mom to lie in bed and rub my back when I had nightmares. The time I’d pissed myself at Nina McCarthy’s birthday and had to go home early. The time I’d chewed on the back of a pen in class, and it had exploded in my mouth. A messy kiss sophomore year with a boy named Jeff who played the bassoon.
It couldn’t be magic—what the fuck kind of magical spell would make all that up?
I swallowed hard, my emotions churning like waves in a hurricane.
“There are two of us with Lucifer’s mark,” I said desperately. “Why couldn’t there be three? Something strange has happened, hasn’t it? There should only be one destined monarch at a time. Otherwise, it makes no sense.”