I’d made a horrible mistake, I realized as I stood outside of one of the city’s many temples to Tarver.

Namely, what one felt comfortable wearing with only one other person in attendance differed greatly from what felt comfortable. Especially when you are waiting outside a public place, and people regularly pass by. People notice an Infernal in a foreign dress with no shoulders and slits on the sides leading up to part of her thighs.

Far too many had lingered while I did my best to ignore them, muttered whispers about me as they went inside.

“What’s an infernal doing here? Have you ever seen one waiting outside a temple?”

“Never, and what is she wearing? Is she trying to draw attention, wearing an outfit like that?”

“Do you remember that one girl from Madame Zozie’s? The one from the far east? Didn’t she wear something similar?”

“Do you think the rumors are true about sleeping with one damning your soul to the Hells? Because dressed like that, she might end up nabbing a few.”

“Someone should invite her inside the temple, I’m curious what it would be like. She clearly wants attention.”

Most of them trended in that direction and after a while I’d wished I’d never even tinkered with my ears. It was an improvement in some ways, and in some definitely not.

I’d made myself into a curiosity to be gawked at, and all I could do was pretend no one looked at me. Where was Gregory?

I was supposed to arrive first at the party, several hours before it even began.

It had been decided that all of us showing up at the same time would be very suspicious. The staff were being kept in the dark about Voltar, Dawes, and my involvement in this to varying extents. The chances of keeping the entire thing under wraps were quite low, especially to our targets, but there was no need to tip the scales so far that they didn’t show.

So I’d been waiting outside the Temple of Tarver, doing my best to look the part of the impressionable young lady out on a nightly date. This meant acting like a complete mark and taking inspiration from several characters I’d read about, but I would not immerse myself in them.

Not that deeply, at least. And definitely not with Gregory Montague.

Speaking of which, here came his coach, the driver giving me a polite nod as it came to a stop.

I returned it, outwardly polite, while inside, I seethed. Did she know because I was the only Infernal in sight or because she’d been told who I was? Damnations Gregory, as small of a circle as possible!

Gregory opened the door, dressed in a smart suit. He paused, any words stuck in his throat as he looked me over, eyes widening slightly before they narrowed quickly again, an easy grin back in place.

“Miss Waters,” he said, offering me his hand.

Why had he hesitated? I couldn’t let that slow us down, but I suddenly needed to know. Instead, I took his hand and settled inside the carriage.

The carriage moved into motion, turning around and beginning the journey to Montague Manor.

“I thought you wanted to avoid the attention of the Xangs?” he asked me.

“This was the easiest dress I could find to move in,” I replied. “If they have any questions, we just lie and say it was the cheapest we could find since it’s been modified.”

“Yes, of course. Although, is the bow helping that much with moving?” He asked me.

I turned around, considering said bow. I didn’t know why Aedelia had so much fabric matching that of the dress, but I didn’t care. Same for if it didn’t quite match.

“That’s there for modesty,” I told him, a fake disapproving look on my face. “I’m hardly going to go around with a hole in the dress for my tail uncovered, considering what else is nearby. Please remove your mind from the gutter, Lord Gregory.”

“Ah, my apologies. It so often ends up there. What about the second bow?”

Oh. Right. I eyed the end of my tail, where a red ribbon affixed it just before the spade tip of my tail, daintily tied.

“Your tailor suggested it,” I said with forced lightness. “I’m not too good to judge these things, so I just went with what she said.”

“She also suggested you wear a model ship on top of your head,” he said, and I snorted.

“Give me some credit,” I replied. “Some things obviously will not work.”

He chuckled at that. “True enough. If you agreed to the entire outfit, though, you’re a good judge of this.”

“Oh?” I said, leaning forward. “How so?”

“I think you’ll draw every eye on you once they see you,” he told me. “Dressed like this, with who you are? Everyone will be curious about you.”

Curious. My mind went back to standing outside the temple.

Gregory’s smile faded a bit. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’s fine. So it will work for the party then?”

Silence took hold for a bit, till he spoke up again.

“Did you enjoy the Temple of Tarver?” Gregory asked me.

“I think it’s too far from your house,” I groused, determined not to mention anything about what I’d overheard. “It’s a good thing we are leaving so early; otherwise, it’ll be over by the time we get there. And even then, you ended up being late.”

I exaggerated. It would be a few hours, so we would arrive a good half hour before the party started. Still, the sheer distance between it and the manor probably wasn’t a coincidence.

“Some traffic issues came up. Someone lost control of an automaton; it’s currently stuck in the middle of a street, spewing steam and whistling so loud it would probably make your ears bleed. We’ll take another route. As for the temple, I find it very well placed, sometimes much more so than my home. Much less crowded, don’t you think?”

I glanced at a series of buildings that probably housed a hundred people. Multi-story structures with more space per renter than my apartment in the quarter, beating my former dwelling in terms of comfort.

Lord Montague’s manor house also dwarfed them.

“Yes, much less crowded. Tarver supports charitable works?”

“I think most deities do in their own way, but if you mean we provide it directly, then yes. I’m surprised you wore the dress.”

“I was hardly going to show up in street clothes,” I told him. “Also, why? I like a good dress just as much as the next woman. Circumstance just denies me the opportunity most of the time. Have you ever tried fleeing across a rooftop in a corset, Lord Gregory?”

“Yes,” he told me flatly.

Taken aback, I didn’t immediately have a reply to that.

“Well then, you are already aware of the difficulties in doing so. How did that come about?”

“Let us just say for some people, I will do many things to see them. And make their parents not suspect anything is going on. I didn’t succeed, and they got some very wrong ideas about what their daughter was into, but it ended in some self-discovery for her, so in the end, some good came out of it.”

My mind tried following that trail of implications to its ending before deciding some things were not any of my business.

“I’m surprised we are arriving so early. Wouldn’t it fit better to arrive near the beginning? The black sheep of the family, arriving with the woman sure to piss his father off on his arm? Here to raise a fuss and cause a stir?”

“You’ve suddenly become a lot fonder of drawing extra eyes all of a sudden,” Gregory said. “I thought you weren’t aiming to draw too many eyes, but if that’s changed, we can stop by Aedelia’s for that model ship.”

“No, that thing is never going on my head, even if I wanted to make a stir,” I said. “It’s part of your character. Whereas I’m some demure religious girl you’ve picked up at a temple.”

Gregory’s expression sobered. “Could you not imply that this is some kind of act on my part?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Force of habit. But still, why aren’t we doing that then?”

Gregory sighed. “Because Father has decided that he wants nothing to upstage his plan for the ball. Which means no grand entrance of me and the woman on my arm guaranteed to irritate him.”

“Upstage what, exactly?” I asked. “This ball was originally for a purpose he’d already decided couldn’t be fulfilled. We resurrected it as this trap, and while I agree me arriving at the start would draw eyes, so are you not fulfilling your own….I don’t want to call it an act.”

“Good, because it’s not. No, Father has resurrected not just the ball, but its original purpose as well. Lady Karsin will be coming, and if Father decides he is up for it, Edward will come down later in the evening to be introduced to her.”

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“Is he insane?” I hissed. “When did he decide this?”

“As soon as he found a doctor willing to say what he wanted,” Gregory said with resigned bitterness. “Everyone else has already stated what they think of the idea, but he’s proceeded ahead with full steam. The entire family tried talking him out of it, but he’s already tried to think of something to gain out of this, since he figures tonight’s events are probably going to make him the talk of the city. Not in a good way.”

“I don’t care what quack he dug up,” I said. “Ignoring the great personal risk your brother is in at the moment? He will most likely not have recovered, and if he is, he will not act like your father expects him to.”

“All good points. Now, do you think he’ll be more likely to listen if they come from your mouth instead of mine, his current wife, and every other one of his children currently in the city?”

I paused as I considered the question, searching for any possible solution.

“Maybe if you held him down, and I terrorized him a little with Diabolism?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” Gregory mused. “He tends to turn more agreeable when you threaten him. How would you use diabolism to twist his arm?”

“Metaphorically? Conjure up some wisps, insinuate I’m going to corrupt his soul with my hands. Some minor magic to dim the lights, make it look like I’m about to tear into him. Ooh, insinuate that I will turn him into an Infernal, which always makes people panic. Even more if you prepare the ritual.”

Gregory shifted in his seat, a mite of uneasiness on his face. “You can do that?”

“Oh, sure,” I replied. “Not Infernals, but devils? You can even convert people to devils with enough energy and a willing soul. Those kinds of rituals are designed to be easy if you invoke the right devils to handle the technical side of things. It’s harder for them to cross over to the material anywhere near here, since Her Majesty waged her first campaigns against them. Intelligent ones can’t cross over without being detected within hours. An opportunity to get someone over on this side? They’ll take that chance when it arises, although it depends on the soul itself. Most of them only ever amount to imps. The government has prohibited the rituals, of course, but they have their way of spreading.”

“Theoretical knowledge only, of course?” Gregory asked.

“I once checked over the work of a fellow Diabolist because his girlfriend really wanted to try it,” I said. “Honestly, she was probably destined for down there, anyway. She just sped up the process.”

“Ah,” Gregory said. “I suppose she is still around then? And probably disappointed that she’s an imp?”

“Succubus,” I said. “I wasn’t kidding about her probably being destined for the hells. But don’t worry about her, she’s already there, along with her boyfriend. Versalicci was livid when he found out and had both of them killed immediately.”

“Did the succubus refuse him or something else petty like that?” Gregory asked. “I don’t suppose you yourself have any information on how well the leader of the Black Flame performs.”

Eww. He probably didn’t know about our relation, but the idea of Gio….no.

“He’s had a few mistresses,” I said. “He keeps them satisfied.”

Gregory smirked. “Have I touched a nerve? Did you perhaps-?”

“Unless you want a hoof hitting you in a very uncomfortable place, do not finish that sentence.”

A minute passed before Gregory cleared his throat.

“So, the couple consigned to the Hells. Any theories on what happened afterward?”

“I actually got a postcard from them,” I said. “A very nice one, too.”

“Now I know you’re joking,” Gregory said. “You just talked about the difficulty for devils to cross over.”

“Intelligent ones,” I corrected. “Materials and animals are easy enough, although there are limits. It sounded like they were having a fun time and even invited me over if I ever ended up down there. It was pretty flattering as well, but I never liked either of them in that way.”

Gregory chewed on that for a while before speaking up.

“I’m not sure whether or not you’re joking.”

“Were you joking about the orgies?”

There wasn’t silence in the carriage, not with the sounds of a mid-afternoon in Avernon right outside, but the feeling of silence was there.

They were in the Hells now, to be sure, and I had been flattered by the postcard. I hadn’t been tricked, though. Enough people had gone to hell and written what they found that I knew the rosy picture painted by the two newly created lust devils had been as false as those the city officials painted of Avernon, for very different reasons.

The Hells needed soldiers and were always looking to expand their supply. They wanted people for a hundred different wars, of course. There was still a war ongoing for a throne usurped.

***

Half an hour later, we were traveling through the Ironworks, which wasn’t much relief for my ears. A hundred whistles blowing, the clanking of machinery, tools working on metal, all of it dedicated to a task of continuing the Ironworks expansion. It differed greatly from the last time I’d visited in only a few months.

I’d taken a river ferry to the Temple of Tarver, figuring the recent inoculations safe enough to risk traveling on the Nover. It was still a risky business since the river fumes had made me light-headed, but I thought it worth the time saved.

The Ironworks had started as its name, a long-running ironworks that had dominated its section of the city. It had existed through centuries, several profaning and cleansings, and in most recent times, had been chosen by the recently formed Guild of Machines.

I’d visited when they’d finished their second factory three months back, a goliath stretching eight stories into the sky, the ground floor producing cargo-loading automatons the size of ogres.

There were at least two more that size now and a tower stretching further into the sky. More construction was ongoing for another factory of equal size, being done by those ogre-sized automatons. It looked like they were adding more floors to the tower, which rivalled the Imperial Palace in height.

I doubted this was also a gift from a god.

“Do you think they’ll keep going till they pierce the heavens?” I asked Gregory, pointing at the tower. He laughed while shaking his head.

“Do you think the dwarves will tunnel till they reach hell?” He responded. “They tunneled down somewhere, but I hope not to the Hells.”

“You have to wonder how those ideas got started,” I said. “You could go to either place, albeit only if you were a mage of sufficient caliber. Still, people knew Hell had a sky in places, and Heaven had a floor. Besides, the celestial realms could never exist in the sky. The dragons wouldn’t tolerate it.”

“Edward once said he thought the gods had heaven in the sky, just hidden away specifically to rub it into the drake’s faces they were stuck sharing the skies,” Gregory said before his expression sobered.

“How is your brother doing?” I asked.

“We haven’t been allowed to see him,” Gregory said. “No one has outside Father.”

“I’d call that overly paranoid, but I think the last week has shown we haven’t been paranoid enough.”

Honestly, we’d been lucky. There could have been so much more these shape-changers did besides impersonating Lord Montague. They have been very conservative with that so far.

“I heard him screaming earlier,” Gregory said. “That floor is soundproofed, but I could still hear him.”

I winced. “Sounds like the cure was taken badly. It will still work, even if the process is more violent than usual. He’ll survive, but the chance of his personality being more…changed is higher.”

“Joyous, happy days,” Gregory said sardonically. “Either get an entirely new brother or a changeling by the end of today.”

“I wish I could offer more reassuring words, but little good comes of the Draconic and the celestial warring in the same body,” I said. “I suppose the intensity of the fit might show how powerful of a celestial they’ve caught. Somehow.”

That was another question. Celestials weren’t common, and the blood needed to be pure in order to make the poison. Unfortunately, research had been well-conducted by several people on how half-celestial ichor wasn’t strong enough.

“I’m surprised that doesn’t have you more concerned,” he said. “The Draconic part I mean. If someone who was related to the Drake tracks it back to you, well.”

“I’ll know to curse myself instead of the world if some dragon picks me up out of the street,” I said. “If that never happens? Then everyone is better off.”

“You did desecrate someone’s corpse,” he pointed out.

“I’ve also killed or tried killing multiple people these last few days,” I said flatly. “While I’m sure the Drake was a nice person when she was alive, I’m not going to worry about the state of my immortal soul over it. Mostly because it’s already heading to one place, anyway.”

The illusion of silence reigned once again as the Ironworks filled the emptiness. Eventually, I started talking just to fill it.

“Have any of the staff been behaving differently recently? And your father didn’t bring any outsiders in?”

“Oh, he grumbled quite a bit. I’m sure if it wasn’t Edward’s life on the line, he would have said damn the consequences and hired people off the street if it meant having this fully staffed. As for any of the staff behaving differently….well, Father decided not to tell people about the shape-changers.”

“Of course he didn’t,” I muttered. “It would ruin his party if rumors got out murderous shape-changers would be attending. Also a bit of a tip-off. Although we probably should give up on this being a surprise.”

“He has said there’s a chance of Biosculpted infiltrators, so all staff are expected to stay in groups of three to four at all times. He’s got half of the family guards outside the entrance to the third floor under strict orders to let no one in, even himself.”

“Any chance he’ll let us look at wherever he’s hiding your brother on the third floor?”

“I wouldn’t even suggest bringing it up,” Gregory warned me. “And don’t try sneaking into the third floor. William, you’ll meet him later, tried and well, he would have been shot if he didn’t immediately recount an extremely embarrassing incident from his childhood.”

“By your father or the guards left behind?” I asked.

“Father himself. Although some of the guards may have as well.”

Well, there was paranoia, and truth be told, trying something like that in such a tense situation was very dumb. Gregory’s brother should have known better. But that deserved a chiding, not a potential bullet to the head. Not even Versalicci killed for the first mistake, unless he was well and truly convinced you would never learn.

“I’ve heard of having favored children and black sheep,” I said, keeping my voice low so as not to be overheard. “Having one favored so much you’d shoot the others is insanity.”

Gregory nodded. “Some of my siblings would say that things with Father are complex. I’d say his treatment of us is not actually that complex. Although something more than this is on his mind.”

“Hrrm?” That sounded like a complication that should have been brought up sooner.

“I have nothing concrete. But if this was just a threat against Edward? Sure, covert aim and means, but he would charge it like a bull. Instead, he seems near panic half the time.”

A thought struck me. “Has he been in the archives?”

“A few hours each day. Despite my offer, he insists that only he be allowed in the restricted stacks, and he’s reconfigured the stacks again.”

“Reconfigured?” I asked.

A very specific word to use, which could mean various things. But it sounded like the archives could be rotated and manipulated.

“Our library holds much in common with a machine,” Gregory said. “If I say too much more, some folks with mighty large ears might take exception.”

Message received. But there was a chance something in there had upset Lord Montague.

I recognized streets now. It wouldn't be long before we reached the Montague Manor.

“One last thing. Lady Karsin. I’m assuming your father told her everything about the shape-changers?”

“I assume nothing with my father unless I’m in the room to witness it,” he said. “I know her son’s been under tight lock and key in her tower ever since. Both to keep him safe and until she can tell if he’s well, a shape-changer.”

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any luck on that front,” I said. “Can you get me something on her house’s history?”

“I can try,” Gregory said, raising an eyebrow. “It might not even be in the restricted stacks. Why?”

“Her son was targeted for a reason,” I said. “I refuse to believe it was a trial run. It’s too risky and runs too high a chance of spooking actual targets. No, her House is being targeted specifically, same as yours. Finding out why might help.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The carriage stopped, and I was once again in front of Montague manor. Other wagons were here as well, supplies being funneled through the front door instead of the side entrances.

I glanced at the roof of the estate, blinking. The dragon statue stared down, a puff of smoke emerging from carved nostrils till I let go of the Astral.

“Something wrong?” Gregory asked as he opened the carriage door. “Nerves?”

“Please,” I scoffed. “Everything that’s happened? I think I can handle some high society.”

One of these days, I would learn to keep my mouth shut.