Chapter 7

  Circe’s saffron eyes did not mask her concern as she jerked her head up from Jasmine’s bedside. She raised a hand from Jasmine’s forehead, her irises almost the color of burnt honey, they had darkened so intensely.

   “Her fever is out of control, Arya. She’s too small to stay like this for much longer. Gods only know what kind of damage all this is causing to her insides.”

  The sorceress did not need to be told how badly her daughter was declining, but there was nothing she could do for the time but ply the child with mortal medicines and continue with the spells she knew to keep the fever at bay. In three days, she would have the Chasm of Guile in her hands and Rowan would fix the spell to make Jasmine well.

  If she did not screw it up.

  “I know,” Arya mumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and biting her lower lip.

  She turned away from the door and ventured into the bungalow, leaving Jasmine to sleep. She was beginning to feel as if she never saw the girl awake anymore and it unnerved her. She feared that one day, Jasmine would simply slip off to slumber and never wake again. She remained constantly watched, and between her and Circe there was always a loving body within reach, but that did little to alleviate Arya’s distress.

  I have to go back to Rowan and see if she can concoct anything at all, even if it’s a band-aid effect. I only need three days and I don’t know if Jasmine has it left in her.

  “Arya, what are you going to do? We can’t sit around and watch her…get worse.”

  The words made her physically sick to hear aloud, even though they had been ricocheting through her mind for weeks.

  “I’m not sitting around and…” she couldn’t finish the sentence, her voice cracking as she slipped onto a wooden chair and buried her face in her hands, her silken tresses slipping over her fingers.

  “There must be something we can do,” Circe said urgently. “I know you’ve considered everything, but – “

  “There is a spell,” Arya interrupted, slowly raising her head but shifting her jade eyes away from her best friend. There was a reason she had not told Circe what she had planned. Actually, there were several reasons.

  “What?” she gasped. “What is it? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “I didn’t want to curse myself,” she lied.

  “What is it? How did you find it?” Circe demanded and for a moment, Arya considered blowing off the questions but she knew that it would not serve her well to avoid the issue any longer. If anything happened to her while she was at Dante’s mansion on Saturday night, Circe would need to take care of Jasmine…for as long as her daughter had left.

  Nothing is going to go wrong, she told herself, gnawing on her lip with such intensity, she tasted blood. You won’t get caught – you’re the best thief on the strip or Rowan would have had someone steal the Chasm a long time ago.

  She didn’t remind herself that Rowan had probably never had a talented thief that was this desperate – desperate enough to die in order to steal the book.

  “Arya! What do you have?” Circe insisted, her face suddenly appearing a couple inches in front of hers and Arya started.

  “In the Chasm of Guile, there is a spell,” she started slowly. “Only a high priestess can perform it but it works on hybrid offspring.”

  Circe gaped at her, a half-smile forming on her lips as if she expected Arya to laugh and declare her words a joke.

  “The Chasm of Guile,” she echoed. “The demon bible.”

  “It applies to all immortals,” Arya replied, still averting her eyes. Circe knew her too well and even without reading her thoughts, the Valkyrie could sense something wasn’t adding up.

  “And how would you intend to get your hands on this Chasm?”

  There was still amused skepticism in Circe’s voice but it was clear she was beginning to realize the sincerity of Arya’s intentions.

  “Rowan has…coveted it in the past,” she offered, but Circe immediately picked up on the hesitation in her tone.

  “And?”

  Arya didn’t answer immediately. She knew once she told Circe what she had planned, her friend would do everything in her power to dissuade her. That was the reason she had not told her in the first place.

  Moreover, Circe didn’t know the truth about Jasmine’s father, only that he was a demon who had never called her again after a one-night stand. Circe had no reason to suspect that her former lover was the most powerful demon in the Deviant world.

  Arya had no doubt what the Valkyrie would have done if she knew.

  After learning about her pregnancy, Arya knew she couldn’t live in the dingy apartment in South Park. It was too dangerous for a child and it put them at great risk for Dantalion Carmichael learning about his daughter.

  It’s not Jasmine’s fault that her father is a cunning liar, and no matter how rich he may be, I don’t want his influence over her.

  She never stopped to ask herself if she was the pot or the kettle, being a renowned thief herself.

  During her pregnancy, she upped her thieving game, taking on as many clients as she could and squirreling away enough money to move from the seedy Sapphire Strip to a middle-class neighborhood in Hawthorne Hills.

  After the birth of her baby, Rowan’s jobs became higher paying and enabled her to sustain herself and Jasmine in relative comfort. Arya bought a small house under a stolen alias and maintained a low-profile life.

  Arya knew that if Circe had learned about Dante, she would have stormed into Carmichael Industries, flashing bolts of lightning and demanding money.

  She would never understand why I needed to do it on my own, especially after the way he lied to me and then…discarded me. The words hurt, even after all this time.

  Of course, Arya had considered demanding money from him in the beginning, especially when the smoke cleared somewhat and she realized who she had invited into her bed that night.

  I was so stupid! How could I not have realized it? He was wearing an outfit which cost more than the club we were in. You knew he was a demon. How did you not put two and two together?

  But out of context, she’d had no reason to question who he was, even when he had been honest about his name. Arya had just been too enraptured in the sensation, in the strange prisms of his ever-moving irises.

  In her anger, she wanted to threaten him and scream at him, all the while pleading with him to explain why he had left her so abruptly and without reason.

  You have no one to blame but yourself, Arya reminded herself. You foresaw that you had no future with him and you blatantly ignored it.

  In the end, Arya knew that she needed to cut the idea of him from her mind, no matter how much he snuck back in at the oddest times.

  “Arya, what is it? What are you going to do?” Circe growled. “I don’t like the look on your face.”

  Arya inhaled shakily and finally met Circe’s eyes boldly.

  “I’m going to steal it,” she announced firmly. “And when I do, Rowan will enact a Shroud of Protection over Jasmine.”

  “You’re going to steal a Chasm from a demon overlord.”

  The sentence was flat and Circe’s yellow eyes lost all their light as she stared, her expression blank.

  “Yes,” Arya said. “And don’t try to talk me out of it, Circe. I will do anything for Jasmine.”

  Circe studied her face for a long moment.

  “I don’t understand,” the Valkyrie said slowly, beginning to stalk about, her long body shifting slightly to emulate a cat. “If the Chasm can be borrowed and it is to save one of their own, why would you steal it, Arya.”

  “Rowan wants it.”

  Circe’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head.

  “Rowan is not the only high priestess.”

  Arya swallowed the lump in her throat.

  “You are willing to get yourself killed for no reason whatsoever,” Circe continued. “That is foolish and uncharacteristic of you. Danger, you avoid. You would not put yourself in such a position without good reason.”

  “It’s happening, Circe. Just drop it.”

  She snorted contemptuously.

  “Who has the Chasm?”

  Suddenly Arya wished she had not told Circe until the very last minute but a small part of her knew she had been aching to get the secret off her chest. Her life seemed to be spiralling out of control and she needed an anchor.

  “It doesn’t matter. If I’m successful, you’ll find out soon enough. If I’m not, well, you’ll hear about that too.”

  “I can be your backup,” Circe snapped. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Arya hung her head and sniffled slightly before looking back up at her friend.

  “You are going to be my back up,” she whispered. “I need you to take care of Jasmine if things go awry.”

  The slap came without warning and Arya fell back against the chair, her eyes widening with shock.

  “You fool!” her friend screeched. “No one will be taking care of Jasmine if things go awry! You can’t do this! Just ask the demon to borrow the book and we’ll find another high priestess.”

  Arya’s hand reached to rub her face and she choked back her indignation. Circe had every right to be concerned, to be fearful. The news was not uplifting and the Valkyrie loved her and her pixie-faced daughter intrinsically.

  But she could not bring herself to tell Circe why she couldn’t ask to borrow the book from Dantalion Carmichael, not without opening a resealed can of molding worms.

  “You’re afraid that you’ll lose her business if you refuse,” Circe spat.

  “If you think that’s the reason, you don’t know me at all,” Arya whispered.

  “Well I can’t think of any – “Circe stopped talking and her pupil’s dilated with understanding. “Who owns the Chasm, Arya?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, trying to stand but Circe pushed her down, her face inches from Arya’s. The goddess grabbed at her shoulder and forced eye contact between them.

  “He’s Jasmine’s father, isn’t he?”

  Her pale face turned even more opaque but she didn’t respond, her eyes darting around in panic.

  “Who is it, Arya?”

   “Please, Circe, don’t make me tell you,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Who is it!”

  Arya inhaled deeply, knowing that Circe would not leave it alone until she answered.

  “Dantalion Carmichael.”

  Circe’s body heaved as if Arya had delivered her a blow and she sank back.

  “Oh Arya, no. You can’t think about robbing him. He’s ruthless and cruel. There is a reason he’s the lord of the earthly underworld. He will kill you. Shit, he might even kill Jasmine if he’s pissed enough. That man does not have a good reputation!”

  Tell me about it; I’ve been cyberstalking him for three years.

  “I know.”

  “You can ask him for the book, you can – “

  “No, I can’t!” Arya yelled, leaping from the chair, her face flaming in anger. “Even if I thought I could face him again without losing it, he’ll find out about Jasmine – and I can’t have that. I don’t know what kind of father he’ll be, Circe, but I would bet good money that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass if she lives or dies. I can’t have that. Not now and not ever!”

  Circe was silent, finally fully understanding of the inner turmoil Arya faced.

  “There has to be a better way…” she muttered but the words were as empty as Arya felt in that moment.

  “I’ll be careful,” she promised her friend. “I can do this for Jasmine. I have never been more motivated in my life.”

  But no matter how motivated she might be, Arya could not shake the impending cloud of doubt slowly brewing over her head.

  Her visions told her that the heist would be successful but the aftermath would have devastating consequences, not only for her but for all the immortals.

  I don’t have a choice, she thought firmly. In three days, I will be inside the walls of the Carmichael estate. Gods willing, I won’t lay eyes upon him before I steal one of the most treasured possessions of the earthly underworld.

  Why was it then, that Arya could not stop imagining what it would be like to see him again?

  “Arya, you can’t fuck this up,” Circe told her unnecessarily and Arya guffawed.

  “Yeah, I know,” she replied tightly. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “It’s not that I…”

  But Arya didn’t hear anything Circe said from that point forward because like a bolt of lightning in her mind, Arya realized how she could achieve the feat of stealing the Chasm and sate her unyielding desire to see Dante again in one fell swoop. And they were not mutually exclusive tasks. 

  You are doing this for Jasmine, she told herself fiercely, the need to protect her daughter overriding all else.

  Yet she could not deny that what her new plan entailed had a little bit to do with herself too.