Amanda glared at them. “What if somebody else only eats the macaroon?”

  “Collateral damage,” Coal replied with a smile. A moment later he added more seriously, “It’s slow acting. As long as I know who’s had what, it’s not a problem, and sometimes, it’s an unexpected benefit.” He gave another of his devilish smiles.

  Amanda scowled at him some more.

  Coal ignored her and instead turned to Lucifer. “How did Aster hear about the late night entertainment?”

  Lucifer shook his head. “I don’t know but perhaps that’s something you should ask her.”

  Coal nodded and checked his watch. “I should probably go and do that. By the time I’ve conversed with those on the way there...” He glanced at Amanda, “You stay here. Entertain yourself.”

  She kept frowning at his back as he walked away in the same direction the server had gone earlier.

  She turned back to Lucifer who shared a smile with her. He seemed about to open his mouth to say something when a voice called out from across the dance floor.

  “Luci, oh Luci!”

  Lucifer glanced subtly in the direction of the voice. His eyes widened and he swore under his breath. Then to Amanda he said, “You have no idea where I have gone, got it?” He walked quickly off in the direction away from the owner of the voice.

  “But I don’t know where you’re going,” Amanda mumbled with a sigh as she was left standing alone.

  She was only alone for a moment however, for a few seconds later a brunette haired woman in a bright yellow dress appeared before her. It was the woman who had called out to ‘Luci’.

  “Was that Lucifer I just saw you talking to?” the woman inquired.

  “Ah, yeah.”

  “Can you tell me where he went?”

  “I’m not sure, sorry.”

  The woman looked crestfallen. “Oh, bother. I think he’s avoiding me.”

  Amanda gave her a sympathetic smile but was saved from having to offer any further sort of consolation when the woman drifted off back the way she’d come from with a sigh.

  Tired of standing in the same place and with no desire to just wait around for Coal while he conducted blackmail or who knew what else, Amanda decided to take a look around.

  She wasn’t sure if the place, or rather palace, they were in was someone’s home or if it existed purely for the purpose of throwing such events. There was a second floor with a long hallway and doors that looked like they led to rooms. No one stopped her going upstairs but given she saw more than one couple slip through one of the doors she got the impression these weren’t rooms that belonged to anyone permanently but rather a convenience for the guests who wanted a little more privacy. Guards, themselves dressed in fine black suits, stood outside one room and they eyed her suspiciously as she passed but otherwise did not speak or move.

  She found another marble staircase at the other end of the corridor and followed it down into a long room that seemed to function as a sort of gallery. Various artworks had been placed prominently on display around the room. Several guests stood clustered in small groups and appeared to be discussing the artwork. Amanda came up behind them to get a closer look at the paintings. They were all extremely macabre.

  The one that stood before her was of a red-headed witch being burnt alive at the stake. Her face was contorted into a scream while behind her cheering peasants holding pitchforks wore twisted looks of glee.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?" spoke a voice in her ear.

  She spun to find a yellow-eyed silver-haired man with a full beard and manicured mustache.

  "More like gruesome," she replied.

  He smiled, that amused aristocratic smile that she was all too familiar at seeing on Coal's face. It was a smug sort of look that made her feel like they saw her as little more than some plaything.

  "What is a beautiful lady like yourself doing all alone?" He asked. "Are you attending with someone?"

  "I'm here with Coal Chase," she replied, not liking his line of questioning at all. She would have preferred he leave her alone but if she had to talk to someone then she might as well see if she could learn something.

  She registered surprise on his face briefly but then he recovered and it was replaced by a look of mild curiosity.

  "Really? You're his date?"

  It wasn't said with any intent to insult, simply a continuation of that mild curiosity.

  "I'm his horse trainer," she replied since it was both the truth and how Coal had introduced her to Lucifer.

  Now he looked confused. “And he brings you here? And then leaves you all alone? Well then surely he won’t mind if I borrow you for a dance?” He held out his hand.

  Amanda gave him the barest of apologetic smiles. “I don’t dance.” It was a lie. She loved to dance, just not the sort of dancing they were doing, and not with any aristocrat.

  He withdrew his hand. “Ah, well, more’s the pity. I will leave you be then.” He bowed his head and then left.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Amanda hadn’t expected it to be that easy to get rid of him.

  A burst of laughter erupted from the group in front of the painting, triggered by something one of them had said. They weren’t looking her way though. They were younger than she, maybe in their early 20s, although it was hard to tell.

  Amanda turned to move onto the next painting and nearly tripped over a child that came barreling through the room chased by another. Both were giggling and dressed just as fancily as the adults. They took off through a pair of double doors that led outside into a garden. Amanda watched them go, thinking maybe the garden would be a quiet place to visit. She stopped by one last painting on her way.

  This one was just as macabre. A hanging man in a penguin suit very similar to the one many men and women were wearing tonight, only despite the rope in the painting being taut and the neck being at an odd angle, the man appeared to be smiling and dancing while the surrounding crowd looked horrified.

  “His artwork’s so lovely isn’t it?” This time the comment wasn’t directed at Amanda. It instead came from the group of nearby aristocrats again, assuming they were all aristocrats. Some of them may have just been wealthy friends. There was a distinction, at least among them but to Amanda it made little difference.

  “It’s very important I think,” the woman continued, “That we never forget what they did to us.”

  “What they do,” corrected one of her male companions. In a conspiratorial tone he replied, “I hear that in many human settlements they still practice witch burning, even to this very day.”

  “Nonsense!” scoffed one of the other ladies. “The organisations that oversee them would never allow it.”

  “What organisations? The HPL? They don’t oversee the settlements and they’re more interested in the protection of the humans than the lives of witches,” objected the man again.

  “What about Mercy? Surely their people wouldn’t stand for such things?” the first woman replied.

  The man shook his head. “The general populace are idiots. They don’t care as long as it’s not happening to them.”

  “I hear they’re still having issues with blood protests,” remarked another man in a cocky tone. “We shut that shit down fast in my domain, in most aristocratic domains I believe. That’s what you get when you can act fast and don’t have to be accountable to anything but the natural order of things.”

  “We never should have ceded oversight of the humans to the politicians and we should have wiped them all from this side of the splice when we had the chance.”

  “The sorcerers agreed too remember.”

  “Ugh, those arrogant selfish cloaks wouldn’t know long term planning if it bit them in the arse.”

  “I heard Coal Chase has got himself in bed with a sorcerer,” one of the males said in a hushed voice.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  Amanda pretended to still be looking at the painting in front of her. The other group was off to the side, not quite in her direct view but close enough to listen to. None of them seemed to notice her.

  “From Grimalkin the Great. He was drunk at one of my parties.”

  The other scoffed. “He’s always drunk and you can’t trust anything he says.”

  One of the ladies shook her head and stuck her nose in the air. “I’d hardly call him great. That was his father.”

  “I still wouldn’t want to fight him,” replied one of the men.

  There was a general nod of agreement.

  Except for one. “Oh I don’t know, no one’s seen his father in ages and Grim himself is hardly as good as he was.”

  “Do you think he’s dead?”

  “No, he made an appearance a few months ago at an event. I saw him, very briefly, but he left early for some reason.”

  “Sick then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think this weakens the south eastern territories?”

  “It’s not like the Brighteyes are that powerful and their allegiances are easily split. The Mawkins have never had many wits about them. Keeper’s a threat but he doesn’t have many allies. He’d be easy to bribe.”

  “What about Coal Chase?”

  “Not if he’s in bed with a sorcerer.”

  “That’s just a rumour. The sorcerers would never allow it.”

  “I don’t think he’s as much of a threat as he pretends to be. Haven’t seen him do anything interesting in awhile.”

  Amanda listened to them gossip a little longer before she got tired of it and decided to checkout the garden. She learned very little more from them.

  The garden was expansive. There were several tiers of manicured lawn surrounded by hedges and pretty flowers. The estate was situated a little way up a hillside and Amanda could see no sign of the sea. There was only farmland for miles around and in the distance something that looked like dark forest. They had teleported into the location and as such she wasn’t certain how close or even what direction Little Rock was in. Coal would have no need to worry about her leaving early given she wouldn’t have even known where to go.

  There were more children in the garden as well as a gathering of adults, most of whom were watching a jousting match between a man in a purple suit and a woman in a green dress. Amanda wasn’t sure how she managed to move so swiftly given the lengths of her skirt but it appeared that the woman was winning.

  Amanda watched them for a little while before being drawn back inside by the growl of her stomach. She finally found food that looked safe to eat along with an unopened bottle of wine. She was tempted to just take the bottle and drink from that. Screw Coal and the expectations of the elite. The problem with that was that it probably would’ve have drawn attention and she was trying to keep a low profile.

  She poured a glass and then wandered further along the downstairs corridor, in the direction away from the ballroom. It was probably easier to keep a low profile if she went where there were less people.

  She stopped outside one slightly ajar door at the sound of a familiar voice. She peered through the gap in the door. It appeared to be a wood-paneled lounge of some kind. Lucifer was standing in the middle of it loudly talking with a group of people, many of whom had a dark spirit in one hand and a cigar in the other. Some stood like Lucifer but most were lounging comfortably in armchairs and appeared to be listening to Lucifer tell a story.

  “So I said to the man, ‘What’s the point in buying a car that can do 0 to 100 in under 3 seconds if you’re not going race it, and then I whipped his arse!” Lucifer had one foot up on the armrest of one of the seats and he slapped his thigh as he finished his story.

  One particularly rotund fellow removed a cigar from his mouth and asked, “Aren’t you worried, being so close to the mountains?”

  Lucifer scoffed and shook his head. “I ain’t afraid of no dragons.” He picked up a glass of dark spirit and sunk into a nearby armchair. “Besides, what’s life without a little bit of risk? We border the lowland hills here and there’s half a dozen cars in the lot down there.”

  “Yes, but that does worry me a bit. Every year there’s a few more of those. One of these days those beasts are bound to come down.”

  “Nonsense no one’s seen a dragon around here in nearly half a century,” objected a stern looking woman. “We’re too far from the proper hills.”

  The rotund man shook his head. “I just don’t understand why you young-ens like those metal death traps. The appeal is lost on me.”

  “Yes, well that’s because you’re old,” replied another younger man. “I can tell you what though, the ladies love it. Nothing makes a woman wet between the legs like a drive in one of those death traps, right Luci?”

  Lucifer nodded. “There’s a reason I have leather seating installed in all of my cars.”

  The room erupted into laughter.

  “I didn’t see any of your cars down there tonight though, don’t you usually drive everywhere?” inquired the woman.

  Lucifer waved a hand. “Oh, they’re getting waxed.”

  “What? All 50 of them?” joked a different man.

  Lucifer’s reply was lost in the laughter.

  Amanda turned away from the room with a frown. She was pretty sure Lucifer had been lying about his cars being waxed but it was a strange thing to lie about.

  She was considering going out into the garden to watch the jousting again. They had been exceptionally skilled and there hadn’t been too big of a crowd.

  She didn’t get very far along the hallway when a loud crash suddenly came from the direction of the ballroom, followed soon after by several screams.