“He needs a pep talk,” I told him as he walked by. “He’s got some crazy ideas.”
The valet didn’t glance my way as he walked past. Not that I was surprised. He had zero time for people who didn’t do their job well, and that was most of the castle at this point. I knew better than to rise above the level of mediocrity, however. Assuming I even knew how, which would be a terrible assumption.
“You going to the party tonight?” Maxine asked, standing at the bottom of the stairs. She had her needlepoint clutched in her right hand, clearly done with her hobby of choice for the day.
“Goddess punch me in the face, Maxine, there are bigger issues right now than parties!” I said, utterly losing my cool now that the master wasn’t within earshot. No, I shouldn’t take it out on her, but then again, she had put salt in my tea that one time, and I had a long-ass memory. “Besides, there are only two lower-powered demons still around, and they don’t have enough juice to make my dick stand up. All that’s left is you fuckers, and not to be a dick or anything, but I’m sick of fucking you people. I’m sick of this whole fucking horse ride, to be honest.”
“You want a horse-fucking ride? What?” she asked, aghast.
I stopped a quarter of the way up the stairs, my hand on the rail, and turned back to see if she was joking.
No, her surprise and disgust and curious expression relayed that that was all she’d taken away from what I said.
“You need help, Maxine.” I turned back up the stairs. “And you won’t find it in needlepoint.”
“Oh, go lick a sponge.”
“I’d rather do that than go to another party, that’s for damn sure. Great goddess blow me, this castle is all wrong. It is one hundred percent wrong.”
Leala was in the tower, taking Finley’s clothes out of the wardrobe, straightening them and dusting them off, and then returning them.
“Leala,” I said as I walked in.
She startled, looking back with wide eyes. “Oh!” She let out a sigh and pressed her palm to her chest. “Hadriel. I didn’t hear you, sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah. Listen…” I started to pace, opening and closing my hands. “Okay, this is going to sound crazy…”
She pulled out another dress and shook it out, running her fingers across a crease. “I’m going to have to iron this one.”
“Damn it, Leala!” I faced her. “This is serious!”
“No, Hadriel, that is hysterical blustering.”
I tilted my head to the side. She had a point.
I went back to pacing.
“The master said that he’d trade himself for Finley.”
She slowed in her movements. “What was that?”
“Yeah, right? It’s fucking crazy. He’s giving her three months, and then he’s going to trade himself for her.” I stopped and faced her again. “She might have three months—she might have three years—but he doesn’t. He cannot stand feeling her suffer without being able to help her. It’s breaking him as nothing else has been able to do so far.”
“We’re all breaking, Hadriel. It’s worse for those of us who knew her the most. I visited her family not long ago. They’ve been hunting the wood for the portals. Hannon, her brother, has decided to go to her. He said they are a team, and he won’t let her do this alone. Not anymore.”
I gaped at her for a moment, at a loss for words. “What the fuck?”
“His animal has been released, but he can’t shift. The master even tried to help him, to no end. He needs someone more experienced to coax his animal out, I guess, but if not even the prince can—”
“I don’t give two donkey shits about that. What are you talking about, he’s going to go to her?”
“He hasn’t shifted, but he can still feel his animal. He isn’t suppressed. His animal apparently has helped him decide this is doable.”
“What’s his fucking animal?”
She gave me a deadpan stare. “I just said that—”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, we don’t know yet.” I waved her away. “When were you going to tell me this?”
She sighed and shook her head a little. “After I figured out whether I wanted to help him.” She hooked the dress in the wardrobe, didn’t take out another, and sagged where she stood. “I won’t make three months either. Not without doing something. What were we thinking, letting her go?”
I lifted my hands and then dropped them. “This is just fucking typical,” I muttered, crossing to the window and staring out at the darkening sky. “That big…really nice guy, actually, just stole my thunder.”
“What do you mean?”
I shook my head, then basically choked on the lump lodged in my throat. “I’m a fucking idiot, and I don’t really have the courage for this, and I’m definitely going to get myself killed or bungle up whatever Finley is doing, but…”