Something pulled on my horns, and in an instant, I snapped awake. Gregory Mo back down across from me, sipping from a cup of tea.

  “Ah, the sleepiy awakens,” Gregory said. “I’ll have you know that as soon as our minor disagreement was over, I fixed the room up, brought Lieutenant Cab in, and expihat because of excitement and ck of sleep, you’d passed out. She just left. We’ve been having a pleasant versation this eime.”

  Them holding a versation around my unscious body was not the most important thing regarding everything that had happened, but my mind almost stu it, anyway.

  “Please tell me that was all a dream,” I said. “Also, did you just touch my horns?

  “No, I hem with a teacup, as it’s been a few hours. Depends on what ‘that’ is,” Gregory said. “I hardly tell what you were dreaming after you fell asleep. Oh, do you mean ranting at me and infusing the room with enough Infernal energy that the floorboards started trying to stab me with little splinters of wood after you passed out?”

  That…souoo much like an aftereffect of Diabolism for me to dist that as a lie.

  “How much of this is an act?” I asked.

  Gregory cocked his head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “This, the easygoing dy’s man who is in stant rebellion against your father. Then we have you as a cleric who just…prevented me from doing something I’d regret but is not castigating me as some kind of Hellspawn out to tempt all into sin.”

  “How many clerics have you met?” Gregory asked. “Because I assure you most definitely do not sound like that.”

  “What type of cleric do you think often es to the Infernal Quarter?”

  “I don’t. I think part of your rant was about how I know nothing about the Infernal Quarter? But I serve Tarver, God of Bards, Music, Adventuring, and Parties. The fun god! So everything you sider unclerical is actually me being the most clerical cleric I be in serviy god.”

  “I’m still dreaming,” I said to myself. I’d just gone on a rant and a rampage against a member of the nobility with Diabolism and he was just ign it had happened!

  “It’s not. Listen, this wasn’t done because my father asked me to, although I wouldn’t be shocked if he suspects you. I did it because I wao make certain you weren’t here as part of some strange Bck Fme scheme.”

  “And that involved fronting me by yourself and hoping you could take me out?” I asked. “That seems far too risky, especially if I actually was here to do some scheme of the Fmes. Which you haven’t ferreted out yet. Unless yed the tea.”

  If he had, well, I wouldn’t be as idiotic as I was a few ho in making him regret that.

  “Of course not. Sorry, but your little outburst was entirely you. And it’s not as bad a pn as you might think. The room’s heavily warded against the Diabolical, which I thought would be enough. It wasn’t, but it ended up w out. Who taught you how to use magic?”

  Do not insult my teags, servant of the light! She is very mu early work in progress!

  Ah. How to ahis? I hadn’t mentiohe Imp, so I could settle with my old teacher from the Bck Fme. He’d probably buy I’d been taught by someone who rotted their own leg off with poor spell crafting.

  “You don’t o say if you don’t want to,” Gregory said. “You’re entitled to your secrets, especially after you just spilled a lot of them to me.”

  “Not nearly all of them,” I muttered, looking down at my hands. “So…what happe? I get a head start on running out of here?”

  “I don’t see why you’d need one,” Gregory replied. “It’s not like I’ll be telling anyone else.”

  I was at a plete loss for words, none ing out till I finally forced a single word question past my lips.

  “Why?”

  He was about to respond when a third voice spoke up.

  “Gregory, an Infernal?” a stranger’s voice said from behind me. “Yoing to sleep with her? Father is actually going to kill you this time. How did you eve her ihe manor?”

  Gregory sighed.

  In bed, Edward Montague has propped himself up on his elbows, blinking the bleary eyed-sleep out of his eyes.

  “You pick the worst times to wake up Edward,” Gregory said. “I don’t think Elise is going tive you for the time before this. She’d already had her chi torn apart by father before you added to his horrible day.”

  “I didn’t make her decide this was the best pake out with her boyfriend was my room,” Edward Montague groused. “Or that she should try dating an orc without father’s permission, whose family only received a title one geion ago as well. Is this one a simir story?”

  “This one,” I said icily. “ speak for herself. I am an Infernal, a oner, and an alchemist who was brought here to examine you to make sure you’ve only been poisoned with Angel’s Sorrow. gratutions, your lordship, you only merit oype of poison.”

  If my words bothered Edward Montague, he did not let it show.

  “I thought you said the Infernal supplying my cure had pink skin,” he said tory. “I almost missed it since you spent so much time talking about other aspects, but I remembered that much.”

  “No, that ourned out to be part of some scheme by the Bck Fme to bckmail father, Edward,” Gregleefully told him. “She also turned out to be a Diabolist who terrified father and tore a hole in the fabric of reality.”

  I had not! Not iionally, anyway. Also, what ‘Other aspects’?

  “The Bck Fme?” The other Montague frowned. “Never heard of them.”

  “Only because you don’t bother to read files in the restricted stacks. They’re a criminal syndicate who almost took over the ey and also are all Infernal. Miss Harrow here also happens to be a member.”

  “Former member,” I answered automatically. “Also, he ey. Versalicci’s best-case goal was only ever a quarter. Getting half of the city was mostly because of inpeten everyone else’s part.”

  That and all the devils and such. But it was amazing how much human nobility was willing to think someone was too dumb to prehend things because they were lowborn and Infernal. And how easily they could be set on each other iurn.

  Edward Montague’s expression didn’t shift as both I and Gregory talked. “I’m going back to sleep. And hopefully, whoever this is doesn’t cut my throat. I’m actually starting to feel good again, so it would be really unpleasant if you did.”

  “Well, I will leave you to your arduous task, brregory said before turning to face me. “Voltar and my father?”

  “Voltar and your father,” I agreed.

  In many ways, I was grateful for Edward Montague waking up. The hells had I been doing?

  ***

  The good news was it only took ten mio reach where Lord Montague and Voltar were in a small sitting room as decorated as his front hall, also enjoying tea and biscuits.

  That’s where the good news ended.

  “Oh, that?” Voltar said after I’d expined my revetion to him. “I figured that out the moment you told me of the involvement of Shape-gers.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I told him. “You have not mentio once.”

  “As much as I am relut to provide reinfort for this man’s points, he was discussing it with me hours before you barged in here. I expected this oo ck manners, but I was hoping you’d at least learn some, Gregory.”

  “I am afraid I must disappoint you, father, as always.”

  “It was all rather simple when you make the es between the relevant information,” Voltar told me. “It might seem far-fetched, but it’s just good deductive reasoning.”

  “You’re an incubus,” I muttered.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Voltar asked, nonplussed.

  “An incubus. Dawes said you weren’t fey and I believe him, so now I think you’re an incubus. You used diabolism to overhear me or read my mind , or you traveled through time to steal my thunder.”

  Lord Montague groaned. “Voltar, it’s bad enough you are bringing Infernals with you. Do you have t broken ones as well?”

  Voltar barely spared a gnce for our noble host.

  “While I …see the general shape of your idea, I am not an incubus,” he told me. “It’s a simple manner of eg facts. Besides, I do not nearly fill the quota of trysts an incubus would o stay on the mortal pne.”

  “It’s quite a few,” Gregory said. “I should know. Father tried to vihe church I was one so they would execute me.”

  “They only barely avoided doing that. More’s the pity,” Lord Montague added.

  I…that was banter. Probably.

  “You lust for mysteries or something simir,” I accused Voltar. “So, if you already knew, what you told me about wanting to test the son for other alchemical substarue or not?”

  “True. I’ll admit I came here to talk to Lord Montague about this, but your task is a legitimate one.”

  “And as loath as I am to agree with on anything or do what you request, I will find the information you requested from the archives,” Lord Montague said. “Pain that it will be. This will be in the older stacks, the one grandfather never anized.”

  “You could ask your children,” Gregory said. “We’ve been rummaging through those old dots as long as we’ve been alive.”

  “Not the ones in the restricted stacks, those are under lod…” Lord Montague trailed off, severe expression growing worse. “How many of you have accessed the restricted stacks?”

  “That I know of? Three, including myself. Of everyone? Probably all but Edward.”

  “At least he knows obedience.”

  “He doesn’t want to risk his iance from you are the words you are looking for, father.”

  Lord Montague groaned. “I thought this was over and doh by just keeping Edrotected, now you tell me that the moment the cure is administered we’re going to be hip-deep in Shape-gers trying to get in here and repce him.”

  “Oh, I think I know when they might intrude,” Voltar said. “A week from now, to be precise.”

  For a sed both Lord and Gregory Montague looked about as fused as I felt, but realization dawned oh of them.

  “The ball,” Lord Montague said to himself. “Oh bollocks. You might be right on that.”

  “Might be? He definitely is?” Gregory said. “We have t in outside help for these, as well as all the invites. Some of them bring their ows. Of course they have limited access to the manor, but if Shape-gers are involved in this, it’ll be child’s py. Of course, they could do it at any time.”

  “Why take a risk, though?” I said. “The timing is abht as well. From how your son’s symptoms have been described to me, the antidote will have to go in sometime in the wo to three days. Then a week of bed rest to recover, after whiy personality ges would bee apparent.”

  “They’ll be disappointed,” Lord Montague said. “I was already going to cel the event. It was going to be a ce for Edward and Lady Karsin to bee better acquainted with each other, and with him still suffering from this poison, he will not attend. Best to call the whole thing off.”

  “Or we could make a trap,” Vgested.

  Lord Montague’s expression darkened. “My son is not being bait in a trap, Voltar.”

  “Lord Montague, we have to sider that the individuals carrying out this little rept pn may very well be trying to run -up on this operation. Especially if they are w with Versalicci. Malvia, if you could elucidate?”

  “The Bck Fme always holds that if aion has been fully cocked-up to the extent this one has, the first order of business is eliminating any potential witnesses or adversaries with full prejudice, and using proxies. If Versalicci is w with the shape-gers, he will use them to as much of this up as violently as possible and rely on being in airely different pce before anyone sifts through the wreckage enough to find him. Using the shape-gers means killing two birds with oone, si’ll pruhem as well as a potential risk.”

  “Thech the Watd do not risk me or my family,” Lord Montague insisted.

  “It sounds like we are already at risk, Father,” Gregory said. “If they pn to try to eliminate us already, this won’t ge things.”

  “Wrong,” I interrupted. “If you approach the Watch, the additional pressure on Versalicci may make him move faster to eliminate as many links between him and this as possible.”

  “Keeping the ball going, oher hand, lets us trol what time the attack will take pce,” Voltar said. “It provides a tempting enough opportunity that they will fo an earlier attack to take advantage. We will of course tact the Watch, but elements we t on to aid us an be surreptitious about it.”

  “I have my security we use for this event as well.”

  “Let me suggest something a step further, that you have among your hired security someone who is one of the best people to ferret out such a being, in disguise.. They could attend your ball and add just that extra yer of security, as well as helping us all figure this mess out faster. Only if you wish, my lord, but it should only be three, the Empire’s greatest detective, his trusted panion, and his nerentice.”

  To my absolute horror, he gestured towards me at that st word.

  Attend? Disguise? Apprentice?

  “This is why people don’t like you,” I told Voltar. “This is exactly why!”

  He smiled while Gregory, perhaps sensing my sheer murderous i, moved a few steps to the side.

  “My tendency to take people to parties? I would think that’s a point in my favor.”

  I could not gh life kig Voltar every time he irritated me. Not only was it pure violence, just for a brief moment of catharsis, sure to cause people who wit to think of me as a violent brute, but it was not the way to actually try to resolve these things.

  All of this occurred to me after I did it for the sed time today.