“Okay, so it turns out that we’re very, very far out,” Hunter said. “As in, there’s maybe one other realm we can reach from here. Sadie can get us there, but I’ll have to help her draw the rune circle and it’s going to take us some time.”

  “Just one option?” Frost said. “One place we can go?”

  “Yeah,” said Hunter. “From the feel of it, it’s a primal world. Probably one of the better options we could have hoped for.”

  “We don’t have a choice anyway,” said Ashtoreth. “We still don’t know if Dazel is looking for us.”

  “Wouldn’t he have found us before Apollo?”

  Ashtoreth glanced over at Kylie’s skull-emblazoned satchel, where her sister was now being kept alongside Yama and Freyr. She hadn’t argued with Kylie when the other woman had simply tucked the gem containing Apollo into her satchel instead of giving it to Ashtoreth: she suspected they’d be giving her up to the human high command soon anyway.

  “I don’t know how Apollo was so fast,” she said. “But it might have something to do with how she got away from Earth. We’ll get the psychics to take a look at her. In the meantime… I honestly just want to sit down.”

  Frost let out a long sigh. “Yeah. I know how you feel. We should probably talk about everything at some point…”

  “We need to tell the human bossmen anyway,” said Ashtoreth. “And I need to think.”

  Frost looked like he needed to think too. She could tell that he hadn’t much enjoyed holding Apollo down while Kylie stuffed her into a jewel. It didn’t matter that Apollo had probably collapsed a hundred apartment complexes with thousands of families in them in Tokyo… Frost would still see her as just a kid.

  She wandered some distance away from Hunter and sat, eating a couple hearts to restore her [Bloodfire] to full. Then she pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them. She needed a good night’s sleep. Sleeping always helped her take in a big change like this.

  After a couple minutes, Kylie came to sit down beside her.

  “Hey there, Sunshine. You doing okay?”

  Ashtoreth lifted her head off her knees. “Are you? You knew him better than anyone but me.”

  She shrugged. “Probably not? I dunno. I never trusted the guy, so the fact that he was cooking up some plan in the background doesn’t shock me. He did kind of carpet-bomb us with shocking revelations, though.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Do you want to talk about it? Because if you don’t want to talk about it…”

  Ashtoreth sighed. “I don’t know.” She thought for a second, then added, “He wanted to kill me. Still wants to.”

  She didn’t say any more, and Kylie nodded beside her. “So, uh…” she said hesitantly, “How does that make you feel?”

  Ashtoreth frowned, looking over at Kylie. “Okay, what are you doing?”

  Kylie winced. “Okay, look—sometimes you end up taking a very unexpected and strange view of things. You have a really outside perspective. I just want to make sure—for your sake, but also for literally everyone else’s—that you’re not thinking anything crazy.”

  “Oh,” Ashtoreth said, blinking. “That makes sense.”

  “I generally do.”

  Ashtoreth smiled. “I’m okay, Kylie.”

  “Great,” Kylie said. She paused a moment, then added, “But, uh, what does that mean specifically?”

  “I dunno,” she said. “It’s like… I knew this was going to happen. The whole time. I never stopped being suspicious of Dazel until a human psychic literally shut that part of my brain off.”

  “And we’re very thankful for it.”

  “Everything that happened back there just confirmed what I suspected, but being right doesn’t matter at all. Not emotionally.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised by Dazel’s betrayal… and I’m not. But it still feels like treachery. I guess I just…” She trailed off, then sighed. “I’ve never hated being infernal,” she said. “I’m an archfiend. One of my father’s daughters. I’ve always wanted to live with humans, but that never meant I hated my own kind.”

  She shook her head. “Both of us knew that we were using each other,” she said. “But all that working around it didn’t stop any of it from hurting. I suppose I don’t need to learn this lesson after I already betrayed my whole kind, but… this is the best we can do. I know this probably sounds crazy after I just tried to sell my sisters, but the way infernals relate to each other is just… really depressing.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said, looking down. “But I keep thinking about the conversation that Dazel and I had in Dereemo.”

  “The one you asked him about.”

  “I thought I was helping him,” she said. “I was going to… I dunno, help him be happier. Help him trust more. And he knew that if he helped me feel that way, I’d go along with it. He manipulated me—and even though that’s normal, I hate it.”

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  “Oh, yeah,” Kylie said, nodding as if she’d suddenly realized something.. “Yeah, you’re kind of fucked.”

  “Hey!”

  Kylie shrugged. “What? Sorry, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it. This stuff’s tough, and it’s going to be worse for you than for a normal human.”

  “Okay, well, let’s not run away with our assumptions, here. I might surprise you.”

  “Sure,” said Kylie. “And it wouldn’t be surprising if you did. But somehow I doubt that archfiends are frequently taking advantage of one another’s compassion.”

  Ashtoreth laughed. “Why choose to aim for the smallest target possible?”

  “Exactly,” said Kylie. “So you’re used to sussing out the con when someone’s playing on your greed or pride or, uh… the other five sins, whatever. And that’s a good skill to have even for a human. But while I’m sure it’s pretty embarrassing to fall for a crypto scam, at least then the only thing that someone is taking advantage of is your greed. It can get worse. So much worse.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Sure. Some parts of us are more important than the part that wants financial security. Some parts of us… let’s call them critical infrastructure of the spirit. Essential components to having meaningful connections with others. And when someone takes advantage of those… it gets ugly.”

  You and me, Ashtoreth.

  “Yeah,” Ashtoreth said, hugging her knees closer. “It feels ugly.”

  “You want to uplift someone, to help them, and that’s what undoes you—so what’s the lesson in that?” She shrugged. “I don’t actually have an answer here, either. It just sucks to be taken advantage of. And let’s be real, nobody where you grew up probably knew how to take advantage of someone because they’re nice.”

  “I don’t have the proper defense mechanisms.”

  “Exactly,” said Kylie. “Not yet, at least. Most of us get them from dating a narcissistic jerk at some point.”

  “I don’t want to date a narcissistic jerk.”

  “You say that now,” said Kylie. “But it’s actually a lot of fun at first. That’s how they bring you in on the con. They’ve got high energy, see. They’re the exciting new thing.”

  She frowned. “Huh?”

  “You gotta understand, dishonesty out-competes honesty, at least short-term. When you can just be whoever you think someone wants instead of having to be yourself, it’s easier to be attractive to others.”

  “Oh. That makes sense.”

  “Great,” said Kylie. “Because I want to really hammer something home here, Ashtoreth. Dazel’s out.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look,” she said. “Dazel’s an emotionally manipulative bastard. When he can’t get what he wants out of you by reasoning with you like a demon, he self-flagellates to make you feel pity for him. Whether he knows it or not, the way he relates to other people is abusive. He takes his feelings, then he acts them out in a way that will get him what he wants. And trust me: if he has to compromise one side of that equation, he’s not going to give up on what he wants—he’s going to be dishonest about his feelings. And honestly, I don’t care if he was the King of Kings, it sounds like the way he treated you was such a basic-bitch level of immature assholism that I’m actually kind of mad about it.”

  Ashtoreth couldn’t help but smile a little as she looked away from Kylie.

  “I think the human way is the only functional way, here,” Kylie continued. “And that’s that Dazel can’t ever be forgiven. I don’t care that infernals look at manipulation and betrayal as just getting the better of each other in a socially normal tit-for-tat, or however it’s supposed to be—just don’t ever let him back in. And if you ever have trouble doing that, just remember that making all the people who do care about you watch you suffer through an abusive relationship is a pretty cruel thing to do to them.”

  “Wow,” she said. “You’re, uh, really passionate about this.”

  “Like I said, I just think that you’re someone whose kindness might be easy to manipulate,” Kylie said. “Plus I like you. And Earth. It’s sort of in my best interest to make sure things go well for you. Now: will it help you promise me that you’re done with him if I asked you to do it because we’re friends?”

  “Yes!” she said, grinning.

  “Great. So promise me that you’re done with him. I know you two had a weird relationship that sometimes made no sense to the rest of us, and I know you’re willing to make, uh, let’s say, ‘morally grey tradeoffs,’ but if he really gave a shit about humanity he’d have shared what he knew with you a long, long time ago. So promise.”

  “Okay—fine! I promise.”

  “Great,” she said. “Thanks for making it easy for me.”

  “If things go at all well for us, though, we’re probably going to see him again. He definitely has plans for humanity and Earth—and me.”

  She could have shuddered at the last word. She was to be his sacrifice. A tool that he used to attack the rest of her kind.

  “Well on that front,” Kylie said. “You’re you. You’ve got options.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Look, when it comes to the problem of manipulative people, I think most of us would prefer to solve that problem with napalm.”

  Ashtoreth snickered.

  “Unfortunately, most of us haven’t got the napalm. And then there’s the law, which is inexplicably against breaking up with your cheating ex in a way that melts all the fat off their body and necessitates identifying them by their teeth.”

  Ashtoreth laughed. “Someone hurt you bad, huh Kylie?”

  “No. Definitely not. This is only about Dazel.”

  Ashtoreth laughed again. “About him, though. He said something that’s bothering me.”

  “Just the one?”

  “Okay, a couple somethings. But… Dazel said that he wanted to kill me as a sort of sacrifice, right? He said he could save billions—and he believed it. He had to.”

  Kylie sucked in a breath. “Here we go,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Look, I might tag out with Frost on this one. Bring it up with him when we get back to Earth, okay? And maybe mention that you tried to sell your sisters.”

  “Why? He’ll just be mad about that.”

  “Yes,” Kylie said, mouth forming the hint of a smile. “But it’s the same sort of morality at work. He’s a cop, he knows all about ethics. He’ll be able to explain it to you.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said, looking over at Frost. “I like to think of him as more of a paladin, though.”

  “I guess these days, he pretty much is.”

  Hunter made a noise to get their attention. “We’re ready,” he said.

  “Good,” Ashtoreth said, standing. “Let’s get started on the journey home.”

  Kylie stood and sighed. “You know how much I love primal worlds…”