Why You Should Never Rescue Stray Demons Chapter 148

**OZ**

We stay with Ulric until the early hours of the morning. He measures, mutters, and turns tea into weaponry. With herbs ground finer, steeps reduced to syrups, then thinned into sprays and puffers. We already know Thunderleaf, Bitterwort, Sunsalt, Witchwire, and Gravecap work, the point tonight is adjusting the delivery. It’s much easier to spray things in someone’s face than it is to force them to drink a bunch of tea. Once Ulric is finished he hands us five small vials. 

“Well, I’m certainly not testing them.” He grumbles. Well shit. I suppose we have to. 

“Don’t look so scared. These are just testers. They aren’t as strong as the ones I’m making for the fae. They shouldn’t be as… Intense.” He explains. Oh, well that’s a relief. I pick up a vial and he shakes his head. 

“OUTSIDE!” He says firmly. 

“Right… Sorry.” I mutter. We step into the alley and run tiny trial sprays. Kacia leans forward and I give her the lightest Thunderleaf mist straight in her face, then a whisper of Gravecap. She blinks, listening.

“I can hear… Footsteps… Two streets over.” She murmurs, then wrinkles her nose. 

“And rotting fruit. Someone dumped orange peels in the bin. Ugh. Never eating an orange again.” She grumbles. I can’t help but laugh. 

“Now you know how I felt in the perfume and deodorant aisle.” I point out. Kacia gives a sympathetic nod. 

“Good.” Ulric says, adjusting a nozzle. 

“The fine cloud holds in air. Test the others and then I can finish off the full strength doses.” Ulric instructs gruffly. My turn. Kacia tags me with a feather-pass of Sunsalt. My eyes sharpen and I can see in the dark like its daylight. Better even. Then a spritz of a more delicate Bitterwort spray. I swear I can taste the air. Lastly, the barest sweep of Witchwire across my face. The sensation of my clothes on my skin is… Not overwhelming. But nearly. We stand there, a little over-tuned but not miserable, and trade nods. Well, they worked. 

“Too much?” Kacia asks.

“Just enough to prove the sprayers bite.” I say, flexing my fingers.

“Delivery’s clean.” I confirm. We head back inside. Kacia flinches at a bottle cap skittering and pinches her nose at the smell of herbs as we enter the store. I blink through the bright lights and rub my fingertips, trying to distract myself from (every texture suddenly a lecture). We both laugh, a little giddy, a little done. The method works. I still don’t know exactly what she’s building. I only know the shape of it. Some kind of gauntlet of small miseries, stacked until Lord Asshole can’t think, let alone function. I suspect it’s going to hurt. Good.

By the time we leave, we’re wrecked. Ulric locks the door behind us, the bell gives one last stubborn jangle. The twins are still sleeping in their rug nest, faint breaths rising and falling. He presses a paper packet into Kacia’s hand. The cleansing fennel, for after, and levels me with a look that says he is holding me responsible for making sure that we use it. I incline my head. Fair. Kacia drives us home. The world outside is damp and quiet, streetlights blur on the windscreen. I angle myself towards her. The spray has mostly worn off. But my sight is still just a tiny bit better than usual. And the only thing I want to use it for is looking at her. 

“What’s next on the to-do list?” I ask.

“Sleep.” She says, without hesitation. Thank goodness. Then she continues. 

“Tomorrow we need to talk to Raylah.” She adds. I frown before my brain catches up with my mouth. 

“Raylah? Why the hell would I want to talk to her?” I demand, a little frustrated. I know, objectively, that no lasting damage came from her potion. Objectively. The memory still stings. For a few hours I had been… Free. Terrifyingly free. Able to say anything, do anything, with the terrible gravity of consequence switched off. Honest like a blade is honest, it simply is what it is. That part was actually… Wonderful. The pain came later, when my reason turned back on and I had to settle back into my old restraints and fold every feeling into bite-sized pieces. It turns out not telling the truth is so much more work than saying it. I am still angry with Raylah. I’m also angry at how much I liked being under that spell… While it lasted. Kacia feels my silence and doesn’t poke it. She shrugs, eyes on the road. 

“For the next part of the plan we need a fae.” She explains. 

“For what?” I rub a hand over my jaw. 

“And can’t you ask Tarish? He’s more likely to be helpful anyway.” I point out. 

“Won’t work.” She shakes her head firmly. 

“Grandfather knows Tarish was close with my father. Anything Tarish ‘hears’ would read like bait. Raylah is a little more… Unaligned. At least as far as Grandfather knows.” She reasons.

“And that’s a good thing?” I look at her profile, the set of her mouth, the finality of it. 

“It’s not like we can actually trust her.” I argue. 

“That is very likely true.” She says.

“But I DO believe she doesn’t want to hurt us. She just wants…” Kacia trails off hesitantly.

“Tarish. She wants Tarish.” I supply.

“Yeah.” She huffs a tired laugh. 

“And I think she knows hurting us would piss him off now. So I think she’ll help.” She reasons. 

“Help how? You never really said.” I ask.

“Well, we need to bait our trap, don’t we? Lure my grandfather to us.” She starts. 

“Yes…” The word stretches between us. She keeps her eyes forward.

“She’s going to help, WE are going to tell her a prophecy to trick him into coming. Since he’s so fanatical about them, he won’t be able to resist.” Kacia says.

“What prophecy?” I ask. 

“Not sure. I haven’t written it yet.” She shrugs, shamelessly. I stare at her for a beat and then let out a low, incredulous laugh. 

“That promises trouble.” I comment. Then I frown. 

“There’s a slight problem with your plan. Raylah is fae. She can’t lie.” I add.

“She can’t. “But I can.” Kacia agrees, teeth flashing. The laugh breaks out of me properly then, helpless and warm. It shakes a little of the night out of my shoulders. This plan is insane. It is also extremely her, built on nerve and nerve again, shored up with lists and the promise that she’ll explain things later when I’m too in love with the momentum to object. We hit a red light. She’s fighting a yawn and losing, the yawn wins, has the audacity to be cute, and she tries to hide it behind the back of her hand, but it still triggers me, making me yawn too. Leaving her is going to hurt. I am doomed and completely not sorry.

“That should be… Interesting. But first… Sleep.” I say, softly.

“Mm.” She taps the wheel twice.

“Then Raylah. Then we start building.” She lists. 

“Building what?” I ask, because I can’t help myself. She smiles viciously. 

“A mess.” She answers. I still don’t know the blueprints. But I know enough. For ten minutes or so, a man who has made a career of control will be so oversensitive the brush of a hand will feel like torture. A prophecy will drag him by his pride. Glitter will do something unholy. And if he reaches for his magic, he’ll find only noise. And then… Well I don’t know exactly what. But I’m sure I’ll find out. 

“Sleep.” Kacia agrees, more like a promise to herself than an instruction to me. We pull in, kill the engine, and sit for a breath too long, both of us listening to the car tick as it cools. Then doors, lock, the quiet click of home. Kacia turns down the corridor. I follow. No talk, no decision announced, just the shared weight of exhaustion. The bedroom is dark. I set everything from Ulric’s kit on the dresser, then lie down beside her. Her hand finds mine under the blanket and I take it without hesitation. This is probably a bad idea. I know that. But is it really going to make anything worse than it already is? We don’t discuss it. It just happens. And then we sleep.