I snuck under a dustcover and entered the kitchen. Except for the addition of four folding chairs, the room hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been here. Lucian and Lauren stood near the chairs, but there was nothing relaxed about either of them. In fact, the heat in Lauren’s cheeks and her sharp gestures very much suggested I’d walked in on the middle of an argument. Hell, Lucian was all but hissing in her face.

And yet, something in the way they stood—in their very closeness—was oddly intimate.

Unfortunately, thanks to all the noise the builders were making, I caught only a couple of chopped-up sentences of his conversation with the sorceress—it means nothing, I will have my revenge regardless.

And while Lucian had made no secret of either aim, I had to wonder why he was now saying those words to a sorceress he claimed to barely know.

Because he is a liar. And have no doubt that he will not only lie, but cheat, steal, and kill to gain what he wants. Azriel could have been talking about the weather, for all the emotion he showed, yet we both knew that was as far from the truth as you could get. What we cannot be truly sure of yet is what, exactly, he wants.

He says revenge, and that’s the one thing I truly do believe he’s being honest about.

Perhaps.

And perhaps he was just incapable of seeing the forest for the trees where Lucian was concerned.

That is an incongruous statement.

But true.

Possibly.

As I drew closer, Lucian swung around and gave me a wide grin of greeting. Any sign of anger had completely disappeared. My gaze flicked briefly from his face to Lauren’s. She looked regal and composed—a woman certain of her place and power rather than one who’d seemed ready to tear eyeballs out just moments ago.

“You’re late,” Lucian said, the amusement in his eyes at odds with the rebuke in his words. “I was beginning to think you’d had second thoughts.”

“Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“Of course.”

He dropped an overly polite kiss on my cheek, and again I had to wonder if the argument I’d witnessed had been about sex. The only time he’d ever been so frugal with his kisses was when she’d been witness to them.

And while I was aware that he had a stable of bed partners, I certainly hadn’t expected one of them to be a dark practitioner. Nor was I entirely sure how I felt about it.

But at least it did explain the heady scent of sex and blood I’d smelled when I’d entered the room at Maxwell’s—it had come from their activities rather than from those on the main dance floor.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

“A Coke would be good.”

He tsked. “And I had my best champagne on ice, too.”

“Save it for when we’ve got something to celebrate.”

“Later, then.”

“Perhaps.”

My reply was somewhat absent as movement caught my gaze. Lauren folded gracefully onto a chair and crossed her legs. The bright lights gave her dark hair a purple sheen but shadowed her face, softening her stern, somewhat matronly features. Once again I had that odd sense of familiarity, but I still couldn’t place who she reminded me of. Although she did remind me somewhat of a spider. A big black one, sitting in the middle of her nest and contemplating the world around her as she waited for her prey to fall into her web.

“Take a seat,” Lucian directed. “I’ll grab your drink.”

I claimed the chair nearest to Lucian’s, and Lauren gave me a thin smile. “And still you distrust me.”

“It’s not so much you as your profession.”

She raised one thin eyebrow. “Which is not saying much given my profession is who and what I am.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to take that statement, so I didn’t say anything. Lucian returned and handed me a can of Coke, then sat down between us.

“So,” he said, picking up his glass of wine from the floor. “As I said on the phone, Lauren believes she has come up with a possible answer.”

My gaze flicked to hers. Those icy depths watched me closely, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Not because of the intensity of her gaze, but rather the hatred so very evident in it.

Why the hell would someone I’d barely even met hate me so much? Or was it not so much me, but the fact that she considered me a sexual rival?

If she thought that, then she didn’t understand Lucian. But maybe she hadn’t even known he was Aedh until he’d told her about the device in my heart. She might be knowledgeable about the dark arts and the denizens of hell, but that didn’t mean she had any expertise when it came to the beings who inhabited the gray fields.

“I’m not committing to anything until I know exactly what we’re talking about.”

“Of course.”

He said it soothingly, like a parent talking to a spooked child. Irritation swirled, but I forced myself to ignore it and kept my gaze on Lauren.

“It is not a spell, so you have nothing to fear along those lines,” she said easily. A little too easily for my liking. It sounded like a well-rehearsed line more than anything approaching sincerity.

I took a sip of Coke, but it failed to help the sudden dryness in my throat. Despite what I’d said to Azriel earlier, I really didn’t want to be here discussing magic with a dark practitioner. And yet, it was an avenue that had to be explored. We do what we have to do, Azriel had once told me. It was that statement that had driven me to enlist Jak’s help, and if it also meant enlisting the help of a sorceress, then so be it.

“Then what is it if not a spell?”

She glanced at Lucian. And that had all sorts of alarm bells ringing, if only because it suggested they’d discussed just what she should and shouldn’t say before I’d gotten here.

Had that been another part of what they’d been arguing about? I knew Lucian was desperate to gain revenge on the Raziq, who’d stolen not only his wings but also his ability to shift into Aedh form, but was he so desperate that he would advise a dark sorceress what to say—and not say—to convince me to use her magic?

I briefly studied his angelic face and saw a determination that bordered on ruthlessness. Yes, I thought, he was.

Lauren took a sip of her wine, then casually said, “It’s a ward.”

I waved the statement away. “You and I both know there’s a million different kinds of wards.”

She smiled. It didn’t do a whole lot to ease the tension. Quite the opposite, in fact. “This one is designed to prevent magic escaping its boundaries once it has been activated.”

So, similar to the wards Ilianna had used when we’d attempted to read the clues in the book my father had sent me—a book that had been subsequently destroyed when the elementals had attacked. “How is it powered?”

“Not by blood magic, if that is what you fear.”

“Then how does it get its power? You felt the energy of the thing in my heart. You know it’s not a creation of this world.”

“Which is why I do not use the magic of this world.”

I stared at her, my stomach twisting into knots. “You exploit the power of hell to create your spells? That is a very dangerous practice—”

She snorted, the sound unladylike and at odds with the image she was projecting. “I think I understand better than you just what it is I’m dealing with.”

Somehow I doubted that. I might not have had much experience with hell and its denizens, but I did have a healthy respect for just how dangerous they could be—something Lauren appeared to have lost.

“Look, I really don’t think a ward powered by the energy of hell is something I should be handling.” Especially not when I had a sword at my back eager to kill all things related to hell.

“You cannot make that judgment without at least looking at it,” Lucian commented. “I have handled it without harm, and its magic seems no better or worse than what the Raziq use.”

I cast him a somewhat wry look. “You would say that, given how desperate you are for revenge.”

“I cannot deny I have a stake in this device working. If we get the remaining keys, we can force a confrontation with the Raziq.” He hesitated, and something flickered briefly in his eyes. Something that was altogether too dark for my liking. “That is something I have long desired.”

“If you confront the Raziq, you’ll be dead. There’s too many of them.”

“I am not suicidal, dear Risa.” He slid his hand under my skirt and gently squeezed my thigh. His fingers were warm and familiar, but there was no must-have-you-now-or-I’m-going-to-melt hormonal attack. Which didn’t mean it had no effect, just that my response was basically normal when being intimately touched by someone who was as sexy as all get-out. The charm, it seemed, was working. He added, “I plan to be around to devastate your bed long after the keys are history and the Raziq are little more than a bad memory.”

Anger stirred the air, a sharp burst that was quickly contained. I glanced at Lauren. Her expression was as calm and as regal as ever. The only sign that the flash had come from her was the whiteness of her knuckles as she gripped her wineglass. But the moment she caught the direction of my glance, her grip eased. I resisted the temptation to smile. Lauren was in for one hell of a shock if she thought Lucian would ever stay with just her.

Although it had to be said, if they were lovers, then Lucian was playing with fire. A sorceress wouldn’t be someone you’d want to make an enemy of.

“Which is presuming I’d actually want you in my bed by then.”

Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Of course you will. I’m a magnificent lover, and we both know it.”

“What you are is conceited, Lucian Dupont.”

“It is not conceit when it’s the truth.” But he removed his hand and took a drink of wine. His gaze, I noted, went to Lauren, almost as if he were daring her to react.

She didn’t.