“Well, what are we dealing with?” Shupansea replied, her head tilted back and
glowering with a stare he could not hope to break. Her serpent made its way up
the stiff wires of her headdress. Its tongue flickered; Tempus blinked and Molin
spoke instead.
“Roxane promised the Stormchildren to the demon. She poisoned the children but
she couldn’t deliver their souls and got herself wounded in the bargain. We knew
she was hiding; some of us thought she had a hold on Niko but we didn’t
guess she’d gotten behind him until it was too late and the demon’d come to
collect its payment from her. That was ASkelon’s message for Tempus: that
she’d gotten behind him somehow.”
Ischade shook her head. “It was never so simple. Roxane promised the demon a
gateway in exchange for Niko. The only gateway she knew about was the
Stormchildren. She thought she was safe from everything where she was-and that
Niko was safe as well. Now that it’s trying to take Niko, as it would have taken
the Stormchildren, she’s frantic herself. She understands less than we do-but,
with a globe again, she has vastly more power.”
“We understand the demon must be destroyed and the rest-place with it,”
Shupansea agreed.
Randal staggered forward, his face swollen and glistening from the fire, bits of
charred canvas and flesh trailing from his clawed fingers. “Not destroyed.” He
had breathed the flames; his voice rasped and gurgled in his throat. “It will go
someplace less defended. We need the globe. We can make it right with the
globe.” Passion exhausted him; he slumped forward into Jihan’s outstretched