Or who.
“Did you hear me?” Rosier demanded.
I looked up again. I’d rolled him onto his back and tucked the too-cheerful coverlet around him, because his tunic kept riding up and I’d had enough trauma for one day. As a result, he now resembled a colicky baby with wild tufts of blond hair sticking out everywhere.
Huh. I guess part of it was genetic, I thought, and patted one down. “I heard you.”
“Well?”
“Well what? You’re the one who said no.”
“What?” The colicky look intensified. “When did I say that?”
I frowned at him. “A few minutes ago. You said no shifting—”
“Shifting wasn’t option two—”
“Of course it was. Mug the guards, option one. Shift into the hells, option two—”
“That was your option two! I never—”
“That was my option one,” I corrected. “This is option two.”
&nb
sp; I held up my wrist, and his eyes focused on it. Or tried to. But then I guess they managed, because they widened alarmingly. “That’s dark magic!” said the demon lord.
“Dark magic that just might get us out of here.”
“Dark magic doesn’t get people out of trouble,” he said, struggling with the blanket. “It gets them into it!”
“The mages who use it seem to do okay.”
“Yes, until they get addicted to the magic they steal from everyone they can get their hands on, and end up little better than junkies! And start doing progressively crazier things to get more of it—”
“I’m not talking about mainlining the stuff,” I said—to myself, because Rosier wasn’t listening.
“—summoning my people, trying to trap them—think of it,” he said, green eyes blazing, “beings thousands of years old enslaved to a group of idiots so hopped up on their latest fix they can’t see straight! Until we find a way free and eat their faces!”
“Okay, I get that you don’t like it—”
“I loathe it! All demons do. If you’re smart, so will you!” he added, panting a little because the blanket was being stubborn. But he finally managed to get the arm that wasn’t chained to the bed free and flailed it around.
I moved back so he didn’t accidentally clock me. “Then I assume you have a better idea?”
“Of course!” he said unhelpfully, and the flailing arm flailed some more. Until it landed on my leg. And then just stayed there, the hand clenching.
It took me a moment, because the other hand was clenched, too, on the edge of the bed, probably so he wouldn’t fall off. And because he was still mostly wrapped in the quilt, like a cherry-covered burrito. And because he was scruffy and smelly and crazed-looking—
And pawing at my thigh.
“Eww!” I jumped back, all the way to the headboard.
“It’s the only way,” he insisted.
“Like hell it’s the only way!”
“I’m an incubuth. I can lend you thome energy—” he said, around the foot I had smushed in his face.