Cursing, he scrubbed his hands down his face, fighting down an unfamiliar panic, until his breathing was in control. Then he wrapped his heart in ice, the coldness erupting from him to coat the room in a layer of frost, and he set about collecting his fallen friends.
Once again, Envy had been too late to save them, and now he had five more deaths to add to his sins. Five more demons he’d sworn to protect.
He would not leave them here; he would take their bodies to where they had taken all the rest. At the very least, then, they would no longer be alone.
“WHAT MAKES YOU trust anything that hexed creature said?” Camilla asked.
Envy had been watching her closely. Too closely. She’d known from the moment she’d opened her chamber door that he was not in a pleasant mood. He’d scanned her, his gaze hard, his mouth a cruel slash as he took a step inside and all but bared his teeth.
“I told you to put on something warm. Get a cloak.”
“Do not speak to me like that,” she said firmly. “I’m not a child.”
“Then don’t act like one.”
She narrowed her eyes. Something was certainly amiss.
Camilla wasn’t sure what had shifted. If he’d had any warmth for her before, it was long gone. His coldness, the hard set of his mouth, the unforgiving glint in his gemlike eyes—here stood the villain of lore. The Prince of Hell wicked enough to inspire parents to tell their children terrifying cautionary tales.
She had no idea what could possibly have happened in two short hours to turn him into this harsh beast.
She scanned him slowly, looking for any clue. There was no blood, no wrinkle in his hunter-green suit, no crack in his icy façade or hair out of place. Yet she felt his dark energy roiling below the surface.
“What happened?” she asked quietly. “Did another player attack?”
“If we’re sharing information now,” he said, voice dangerously soft, “why don’t you start by telling me about your parentage? Or perhaps about your charm?”
Everything inside her stilled.
“What?”
“Most mortals cannot conjure reality with a few strokes of their brush, Miss Antonius.”
“Well, lucky for you, isn’t it, that I could.”
He took hold of her hand, whispered something in an ancient tongue, and in the very next breath Camilla suddenly stood on what felt like the edge of the universe.
The world of Hemlock Hall had vanished, replaced by something much darker, vaster, and colder.
Envy dropped her hand, stepped closer to her side, and murmured, “Welcome to the void outside the Seven Circles. This is the space that connects it to all other realms.” He smiled grimly. “And before you are the infamous gates of the Underworld.”
Camilla stared at the strange air around her, fear prickling her skin almost as much as the icy wind. Looking down, she was stunned to find herself clothed in a thick cloak, which had somehow magically appeared.
There was no sound at all, except for the prince’s voice.
And the thrashing of her pulse. Anger made her spin to face him, eyes flashing.
“Are you completely mad?”
“Not yet.”
Camilla had half a mind to leave him and strike out on her own. Except his clue had indicated that she needed to go to House Sloth too. Cursed game, and it’d only just begun. For her, at least.
“If you
“There are many things I regret, Miss Antonius, but taking you here isn’t one of them.”
He jerked his chin toward the gates.
“We have a long way to go before we settle for the night. I suggest moving.”
Camilla tamped down her annoyance. She had to focus on the game, and she supposed the menacing gates were the only way to Sloth’s court. Besides, she’d long had to tolerate brutish males. She could continue to do so, for now.
She turned to look at the strange cavelike chamber before her.
The gates Envy spoke of gleamed nightmarishly several paces in front of them, carved from bone and horn and fang. Creatures too wicked to live and too sinister to be forgotten, forever immortalized in a warning to all who passed through.
There was beauty in the Gothic feel of it, a dark beauty Camilla shouldn’t wish to paint. And now that her talent had been stolen, she couldn’t. Panic clawed at her as she tried to summon her talent, once again to no avail. Even with her magic bound, the shape of the arch called to her.
The shift from Waverly Green to this strange land was so abrupt, Camilla could scarcely wrap her mind around the truth of it even as the iciness seeped into her skin. The Prince of Envy had well and truly dragged her to the Underworld. No story ever could have prepared her for its majestic terror. Not even the darkest tales told by her father.
“We must pass through the Sin Corridor first,” Envy said, breaking the spell. “It will test you to see which sin you have the biggest affinity for. You may experience some… odd… feelings as each magic attempts to seduce you. Don’t worry, I’ll be watching over you with the utmost interest.”
