LITMIR.BIZ

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Dovey’s voice called faintly through the demon, as if the Dean was too far from it for a proper connection. “Hester, can you see through your demon? How bad does he look—”

      “Not bad enough, whatever it is,” Hort’s voice said, hijacking the demon. “He got us into this mess by fawning over Rhian like a lovedrunk girl.”

      “Oh, so being a ‘girl’ is an insult now?” Nicola’s voice ripped, the demon suddenly looking animated in agreement.

      “Look, if you’re going to be my girlfriend, you have to accept I’m not some intellectual who always knows the right words to use,” Hort’s voice rebuffed.

      “YOU’RE A HISTORY PROFESSOR!” Nicola’s voice slapped.

      “Whatever,” Hort barged on. “You saw the way Tedros gave Rhian the run of his kingdom, letting him recruit the army and give speeches like he was king.”

      Tedros sat up queasily. “First of all, how is everyone talking through this thing, and second of all, do you think I knew what Rhian was planning?”

      “To answer the first, Hester’s demon is a gateway to her soul. And her soul recognizes her friends,” the demon said with Anadil’s voice. “Unlike your sword.”

      “And to answer the second, every boy you like ends up a bogey,” Hort’s voice jumped in, the demon trying to keep up like a ventriloquist. “First you were friends with Aric. Then you were friends with Filip. And now you canoodled with the devil himself!”

      “I did not canoodle with anyone!” Tedros yelled at the demon. “And if any of us is cozying up to the devil, you’re the one who’s friends with Sophie!”

      “Yeah, Sophie, the only person who can rescue us!” Hort’s voice heckled.

      “Agatha’s the only person who can rescue us, you twit!” Tedros fired. “That’s why we need to get out now, before she comes back and gets captured!”

      “Can everyone shut up?” the demon snapped in Hester’s voice. “Tedros, we need you to—”

      “Put Hort back on,” Tedros demanded. “After three years of Sophie using you as her personal bootlicker without giving you the slightest in return, now you think she’s going to rescue us!”

      “Just because you wouldn’t help people who needed it when the Snake attacked doesn’t mean she won’t,” Hort’s voice thrashed.

      “Idiot. Once she tastes a queen’s life, she’ll let us burn while she feasts on cake,” Tedros slammed.

      “Sophie doesn’t eat cake,” Hort sniffed.

      “You think you know Sophie better than me?”

      “When she rescues you from that cell, you’re going to feel like a boob—”

      “ANI’S RAT IS DEAD, THE SNAKE IS ALIVE, WE’RE IN A DUNGEON, AND WE’RE TALKING ABOUT SOPHIE! AND CAKE!” Hester’s voice boomed, her demon swelling like a balloon. “WE HAVE QUESTIONS FOR TEDROS, YES? GIVEN WHAT WE SAW ONSTAGE, OUR LIVES DEPEND ON THESE QUESTIONS, YES? SO IF ANYONE EVEN TRIES TO INTERRUPT ME, STARTING RIGHT NOW I’LL TEAR OUT YOUR TONGUE.”

      The dungeon went silent.

      “The Snake is alive?” Tedros asked, ghost-faced.

      Ten minutes later, Tedros stared back at the red imp, having learned about the Snake’s reappearance, the birth of Lionsmane, and everything else Hester and the team had seen in the magical projection they’d conjured in their cell.

      “So there’s two of them? Rhian and this . . . Jasper?” Tedros said.

      “Japeth. The Snake. And that’s how we think they tricked both the Lady and Excalibur. They’re twins who share the same blood. The blood of your father, they say,” the demon explained. “If we’re going to bring them down, we need to know how that’s possible.”

      “You’re asking me?” Tedros snorted.

      “Do you live your whole life with your head up your bum?” Hester’s voice scorned. “Think, Tedros. Don’t shut down what might be possible just because you don’t like the idea of it. Can these two boys be your brothers?”

      Tedros scowled. “My father had his faults. But he couldn’t have bred two monsters. Good can’t spawn Evil. Not like that. Besides, how do you know Rhian didn’t pull Excalibur because I’d done all the work dislodging it? Maybe he just got lucky.”

      The demon groaned. “It’s like trying to reason with a hedgehog.”

      “Oh, just let him die. If they are his brothers, it’ll be survival of the fittest,” said Anadil’s voice. “Can’t argue with nature.”

      “Speaking of nature, I have to use the toilet,” said Dot’s voice.

      Professor Dovey’s voice muffled something to Tedros through the demon, something about his father’s “women”—

      “I can’t hear you,” said Tedros, cramming deeper into a corner. “My body hurts, my head hurts. Are we done with the interrogation?”

      “Are you done being a pea-brained fool?” Hester railed. “We’re trying to help you!”

      “By making me smear my own father?” Tedros challenged.

      “Everyone needs to cool their milk,” said Nicola’s voice.

      “Milk?” Kiko’s voice peeped through the demon. “I see no milk.”

      “It’s what my father used to say at his pub when it got too hot in the kitchen,” said Nicola, calmly taking over the creature. “Tedros, what we’re trying to ask is whether there’s anything you can tell us about your father’s past that makes Rhian and his brother’s claim possible. Could your father have had other children? Without you knowing? We get that it’s a difficult subject. We just want to keep you alive. And to do that, we need to know as much as you do.”

      There was something about the first year’s voice, so lacking in pretense, that made Tedros let down his guard. Maybe it was because he barely knew the girl or that there was no judgment or conclusion in her question. All she was asking was for him to share the facts. He thought of Merlin, who often spoke to him the same way. Merlin, who was either in danger somewhere up there or . . . dead. Tedros’ gut knotted. The wizard would have wanted him to answer Nicola honestly. Indeed, Merlin had been fond of the girl, even when Tedros hadn’t been willing to give her a chance.

      Tedros raised his eyes to the demon’s. “I had a steward named Lady Gremlaine while I was king. She was my father’s steward too, and they’d grown close before he met my mother. So close that I suspected something may have happened between them . . . Something that made my mother fire Lady Gremlaine from the castle soon after I was born.” The prince swallowed. “Before Lady Gremlaine died, I asked her whether the Snake was her son. Whether he was her and my father’s son. She never said yes. But . . .”

      “. . . she suggested it,” Nicola’s voice prodded, the demon looking almost gentle.

      Tedros nodded, his throat constricting. “She said she’d done something terrible. Before I was born.” Sweat dripped down his forehead as he relived the moment in the attic, Lady Gremlaine clutching a bloody hammer, her hair wild, her eyes manic. “She said she’d done something my father never knew. But she’d fixed it. She’d made sure the child would never be found. He’d grow up never knowing who he was . . .”

      Tedros’ voice caught.

      The demon was frozen still. For the first time no one spoke through it.

      “So Rhian could be telling the truth,” said Professor Dovey’s voice finally, a remote whisper. “He could be the real king.”

      “The son of Lady Gremlaine and

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