6. Syneca #2
Because her voice was sad, I didn’t bother pointing out it was also the day magic was born into Fuerlis. The day a Phoenix was born from the anger and sorrow of the three remaining sisters. The day Fuerlis burned for the first time.
Dez pressed his palm to the runestone set into the frame of the intricate door and the surface brightened.
Symbols I faintly recognized lit across the stone.
The door opened, and for a heartbeat, I wanted to turn around and go back to Silas.
Back to a different kind of safety. But I couldn’t.
He wasn’t a griffin. Not really. And I needed to keep reminding myself of that.
Inside, the noise hit first. Voices layered over music, laughter that had sharp edges, the clink of glasses and scrape of chairs.
The air was thick with smoke and that tingling feeling of magic.
Demons packed the space. Some at tables, some at the bar, some just standing in clusters with drinks in hand. All of them turned when we entered.
Not quickly. Not obviously. But I felt the weight of their attention like a hand on my throat.
Dez didn’t hesitate. He walked straight through the crowd like he owned the place, and I followed.
Because what else could I do? Patrons stepped aside.
Not out of fear, but recognition as some nodded slightly to him, some shook his hand as he wove through, patting him on the back like he was some kind of champion. He knew everyone. Or so it seemed.
At the back of the room, a sectioned-off area waited with curtains instead of walls. Privacy. But only just. Dez pulled one aside and gestured for us to enter.
I stepped inside, and the curtain fell closed behind us, muffling the outside noise to a dull roar.
“Welcome to The Gilt & Grave,” Dez said, his easy grin slipping away as he settled into a purple velvet chair that looked like it had been stolen from a king’s palace.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t gesture. Just lifted one hand, and the lamp on the low table between us flared to life, a glowing orb of magic that cast everything in amber light. The casual mask he’d worn outside was gone. In its place sat something sharper. More focused. A predator at rest.
I stayed standing. “If everyone can detect my magic, why the fuck would you bring me into a bar full of dangerous people?”
Lore grabbed the curtain. “Dez has everything under control, Syneca. But there’s something you need to see. Something you need to understand about how this world works. Keep your hood up, but watch.”
She swept the fabric back. The main room sprawled before us. People drinking, dancing, bodies pressed close in ways that were either intimate or violent. In several nooks, demons were fucking against the walls. In one, a woman was on her knees before another. No one seemed to notice.
“There,” Lore said, pointing to the bar.
A man sat on a stool speaking with the bartender. Their conversation was brief before they clasped arms, forearm to forearm, fingers curling slowly around bare skin. The man shuddered, his head sagging like someone had cut his strings, a groan of pleasure slipping out of him.
The bartender grinned.
“He might’ve paid with coins if he had ‘em,” Lore said quietly. “Instead, he paid with time. Servitude. His soul just became partially owned by the barkeep until that debt is paid.”
My stomach turned. “What?”
“There’s another.” She pointed to a different corner where a woman had a man pinned against the wall, her fingers wrapped around his throat. Not choking him. Just holding. “Watch.”
The man’s lips moved. The woman’s smile widened as she grabbed his dick. His eyes rolled back as the exchange happened. She released him, and he stumbled away looking hollowed out.
“Is it always like that?” I whispered. “Pleasurable?”
“It depends on who you’re dealing with,” Dez answered. “A payment style bargain, like that one, can be either pain or pleasure.”
I couldn’t think beyond the dread of demons entering Fuerlis. Of what the demons would do to the people there if the Fury sisters hadn’t trapped them in.
Lore shifted her weight, letting the curtain close.
“That’s how it works here. You want something, you give something.
Nothing is free. Not drinks, not information, not even entry.
You felt the runestone at the door. Everyone who walks through gives a little piece of themselves just to enter.
A breath of power. A sliver of intent. Enough that Ramiel knows exactly who’s in his establishment at any given time. ”
“Not enough that he owns me,” Dez finished, still very serious. “Do not ever make a bargain with a demon. Ever. We’re very clever. We will outsmart you. And then we’ll own you. You break a bargain, you become a member of the Underworld.”
The floor seemed to tilt. I’d already made a bargain. With a voice in the dark, a stranger whose face I’d never seen, whose name I’d never asked. I didn’t know what she was. I didn’t know what I’d given. But now I knew, if she was a demon, what it would cost me to break it. My self.
“As long as you’re not actively using magic,” Lore continued, “you’re easy to miss.
Dez is shielding you, covering what you can’t cover yourself.
But he can’t catch everything. When you feel something strong enough, it slips.
It pulses out of you, and there’s no hiding that.
Not from the powerful ones.” She paused. “Like Ramiel.”
“This is Ramiel’s place,” Dez said from his chair, swirling something dark in a crystal glass I hadn’t seen him pour.
I blinked, trying to keep myself calm amongst the chaos.
I took a steadying breath and stepped away from the curtain, pushing away all the feelings boiling within me, focusing as best I could as I questioned their judgment and whispered slowly.
“Once again, I find myself wondering why you would bring me here.”
Dez took a drink, then settled into his chair. “Several reasons. The most important being your panic. If it happens in this club, most will assume it’s Ramiel. Which will take the spotlight off Si.”
“And what will Ramiel think?” I deadpanned.
“He and Si are close,” Lore said. “Very close. He won’t act without a conversation. That’ll be enough to buffer.”
My chest tightened. “Is he here? Now?”
Lore moved to the curtain again, pulling it back just enough to point upward. “There.”
I followed her direction to a second level I hadn’t noticed before, nearly hidden in shadow.
A figure sat, one leg crossed over the other, watching the chaos below with the kind of stillness that said he didn’t need to move to be dangerous.
I couldn’t see his face clearly. Just the outline.
The casual power in the way he held himself.
“It’s in your best interest,” Lore said quietly, “to start recognizing a demon prince when you see one.”
I whirled on them both, trying to drown my fear in anger because anger was easier, safer. “You brought me to a demon prince? Are you fucking insane?”
“Calm down,” Dez said, swirling his glass casually.
“Calm down?” My voice pitched higher. “You just—”
“If Silas wants you protected,” Dez interrupted, his tone going serious in a way I hadn’t heard before, “Ramiel will see it done. That’s how this works.”
My breath caught. “Is Ramiel the fourth? The murderer?”
Lore sighed. “He’s not the fourth. Don’t worry. But they’re all murderers. Sometimes being a murderer is the only choice.”