Ira didn't have expectations. Or, well, he tried very hard not to have any--there was a He-Goat with a big shiny stick who had warned him about imposing his unkind human beliefs all over Hell. Still, Heneth was beyond his wildest imagination. So much so that he craned his neck towards Mayvalt, expecting her to announce they had taken a wrong turn somewhere beneath all those faux-trees. She didn't. She didn't do anything, really. She stood in the shade of the last few branches before the clearing marking the beginning of civilization--if it even earned that title--with her thumb nail trapped between her clenched teeth. 

Ira leaned forward on the tips of his toes, staring as far as he could in the encroaching dawn. At what was coming together as the strangest scene since the Prince had kissed him against the club wall in New York. Heneth was a village. One with simple brick huts planted along a winding cobblestone road. It was so ordinary, it reminded Ira of pictures he had seen in the history textbooks Father Pine had buried him beneath in his many attempts at proper home school education. The village streets were emptied. Absent any cartoonish red devils running around with pitchforks and a sack over their shoulder filled with tortured souls. 

Ira pressed forward, creeping towards the city limits with the tips of his black oxfords. Mayvalt snatched his wrist, earning a flinch and whimper from him. 

"Careful!" She hissed under her breath. 

Ira glanced forward, towards the sleepy town, and then backwards towards the ominous pitch black forest. Between the options, one was much more inviting. "Careful? Of what? The Neighborhood watch? The HOA? A granny passing out chocolate chip cookies that are actually oatmeal raisin but you don't notice until it's too late? Let go and let's go, Mayvalt."

She released his arm but shook her head, rattling the golden cuff she wore against her pink hair. "I have a really bad feeling about this." 

Ira scoffed. "We were on the same page about the woods back there, but now I'm beginning to think you just have a habit of shilling out cheap thriller movie dialogue. Alright, get it all out. Come on. Can we get a 'hey, guys, you need to see this,'" 

Mayvalt narrowed her round cow eyes down into judgmental slivers. "That line is iconic. It's stood the test of time for a reason." 

"It's lame." Ira shrugged. 

"Why you-" Mayvalt snapped her blunt white teeth together and huffed from her nose, turning her head up in disinterest so sudden it could have only been manufactured. "I don't have time for silly kid arguments." 

"Add that to the list of things we don't have time for. Filed right beside whatever this weird hangup is." Ira agreed. "Finding the Fifth Prince was your call, you can't get cold feet--er, hooves on me now." 

"Don't talk about a lady's hooves!" Mayvalt snapped. 

"You're no lady." Ira muttered bitterly. 

As if to prove his point Mayvalt swung her bo at him, stopping just shy of his chin. "I'm not backing out. Okay? But this is strange. Heneth shouldn't be so quiet. And where are the others?" 

"It's, like, six in the morning New York time. I'm sure everyone is sleeping." Ira dismissed, tapping the end of her shiny stick with the tips of his fingers. She stepped back, dropping her bo to hang at her side. 

"Faun don't sleep through the night." Mayvalt corrected sharply. "Why do you think we went into the nightclub business?"

"'Cause it's edgy?" Ira suggested half-heartedly.

"It's not edgy--it's cool." Mayvalt corrected sternly. "And because Faun would rather dance than dream." 

"Maybe it's a school night. I don't know and I don't care. All I've ever needed was Mel--and now you're standing in my way." Ira didn't mean to fit his palms over the carved handles of his Ossein blades. Or maybe he did--but she had jabbed her bo at him first. Either way, he didn't think about how it would look to her. How his bone-blades would shimmer in the reflection of her brown eyes. How suddenly timid she would grow, pulse hammering under the soft skin of her throat. Ira had never worried about such stupid things before. Not as he had hunted and killed He-Goats back in the city. Well, he found, he worried about it now. He shoved his daggers back down into their pouches and crossed his arms over his chest, scoffing dryly. He was a Bishop too self-conscious to retrieve his weapons. Great. How was he ever going to fight his way to Melchior without them?

Mayvalt exhaled from her nose and nodded stiffly. "I get it. There was a time when I was searching for someone, too. I would have done anything to reach her." Ira didn't know where that story ended, but the gentle touch of her fingers against the golden antler bracelet gave him an indication it wasn't a happy one. "But you can't reach him if you get killed for acting brashly." 

"Brash?" Ira scoffed in disbelief. "Mayvalt, there's nothing at all strange about a He--Faun strolling through town. So you're on edge? Well, maybe it's just because it's been a while. When was the last time you've been to Hell anyways?" 

Her jaws clenched, twitching beneath the smooth skin of her cheeks. Her wide eyes narrowed into slits which fell to her leather boots. 

"Mayvalt." Ira whispered. "You. . . you have been to Hell?" 

Her boot ground into the soft forest earth, building up a soft mound of displaced mud.

"May-" 

"Sap!" She snapped. "I have! Er, a while. . . ago." 

"A. . . while. How long of a while?" 

"In Hell time or Earth time?" 

Ira stepped back, pressing his palms over his ears to block out the ringing suddenly digging at his skull. "Angels. You lied to me!" 

"I haven't!" She insisted, throwing her palms up into the air before her. "I mean I didn't really lie. You just sort of assumed I was from Avernus and you needed a guide so I didn't. . . correct you."

"I. . . assumed you were from Hell?" Ira whispered from behind his clenched teeth. "Where were you born?" 

Mayvalt lifted her palm to the back of her frizzy head, rubbing at the pink hair there. "Varanasi." 

"Varanasi," Ira choked. "As in. . . India. . . on Earth." 

Mayvalt flushed bright pink and shrugged. "But, hey, finding the Prince will put all this behind us! We can just use the Prince's infor-" 

"The Prince" Ira growled. "The Prince--who you think is here? Like how you think there are no more Beasts? Do you actually know that? Do you actually know anything? What if the Ze'ev aren't even in the pit? What if this whole thing has been a waste of time? Mel could be hurt! He could be dying again and it would be my fault because I trusted a demon instead of looking for him! Again! Angels, I did it again. I took a demon for their words. I'm such an idiot." 

Mayvalt pursed her lips up into a pink frown and stepped forward, extending her palm towards him. "Ira-" 

"No--just no." He snapped. It was easy to turn away, to stare down the empty village. It was a much more pleasant sight than her face twisted up by the heat of his words. He marched into the dark town, ignoring her whispered pleading. The moment Ira stepped past the border where the tangled forest lawn became uneven cobblestone steps, his mind became set. There was no more delaying. By any means necessary, he had to be reunited with Melchior Brisbane. Each step he took sunk him further into thoughts of him. How his voice had sounded, the scent of his hair, the warmth of his skin, the taste of him. The look in his eyes as they had faded. It lingered in his mind, mixing with the very real dream Ira walked through. His voice echoed beyond the waking birds chirping, the crickets singing their closing numbers. His petrichor scent was blown away by the morning breeze tainted by thick campfire smoke. A wind which licked past his nose, sending shivers down his spine to erase the heat of his touch. Parts of him slipping away, parts that Ira needed. So he needed to find him so he could remind him of them again. 

The road quirked towards the beginning of town, to the first few huts that grew as sporadically as mushrooms along the path. They had been constructed similarly. Rough gray stones stacked in a tall cylindrical body. The roofs had been made with a material like palm leaves, bent and twisted together to form a hide that was stretched over a simple wooden frame. Ira peered at them as he passed, holding his breath as if that would be the thing to alert the occupants of his arrival. Even with the Prince's disguise laid over him, avoiding the civilians still seemed like the best call he could make. 

He had seen enough movies to know what should have happened--something. Anything. And yet, nothing did. The stone huts remained still and silent as Ira passed them by. As if the entirety of Heneth had been reduced to a ghost town. It was just like that, without a single incident, that Ira passed the outskirt huts. It wasn't until he began to reach the center of town, where the space between the stone huts grew thinner and the volume of grave-still residents multiplied that he faced his first act of resistance. From the only person he had seen since leaving New York. His arm was yanked violently back, forcing his feet to a stumbling stop. Mayvalt's fingers tightened against his wrist, squeezing until a wince rose to his grimacing expression. 

"Let go." 

"This is wrong. You must feel it by now. This place is way too quiet." she whispered near his ear. "We need a better plan-" 

"Oh, angels!" Ira cursed, ripping his arm free from her hold. "You don't know that! You've been guessing this entire time! I let you tag along because I thought you'd be useful but now all you're doing is slowing me down."

"Tag along?" Mayvalt barked, her eyebrows shooting up to hide in her frizzy peach curls. "You would be lost without me! Admit it, you never would have made it off that mountain. I'm doing you and my boss a favor by guiding you-" 

"You're doing it for yourself." Ira corrected sharply. "Because you feel guilty." 

Mayvalt turned stone-still. As frozen as the town around them--well, all except for that pulse fluttering in her throat. "Wh-what?" She choked. 

Ira pressed forward, digging his blades into the crack formed in her shell. "You said so yourself. When you came to find me last year. You said you owed him a debt. You said you'd always wished to apologize. You're using me to clear your sins away--whatever you did to the person I- to that person who you knew. I'm guessing that's why you haven't told the Prince either--that the Soul he's been searching for is inside of me. Because then he would remember." 

Mayvalt's face turned pearl-white. As pale as his Ossein blades. Ira huffed in disbelief, shaking his head. "Or is it worse? You don't want the Prince to know because you're scared I'll replace you? I mean, for reasons I don't understand, the Third Prince has always found me. Time and time again. Oh, and I know you. Trailing after him like a lost puppy. I remember that much. You're afraid of chasing him again--because without your Prince you're nothing." 

Mayvalt swallowed. Her throat bobbed like her mouth had been full of sand. "Oh, so you think you've got it all figured out then? That you're so great and awesome and I'm just some jealous fangirl trying to steal the Prince? Sap, you're so full of yourself! Classic bone snatcher." 

"Then why?" Ira snarled. "Why won't you just get it over with and tell the Prince who I am?" 

"I learned my lesson about getting involved centuries ago." Mayvalt muttered, her voice as dark as the shadowy forest they had escaped. "On the night the Progeny killed the Prince's lover." 

Ira's heart fell into his shoes where it pounded against the cobblestone path. "What?" He whispered. 

Mayvalt pressed her palms into her eyes and groaned. "Forget it-" 

"No!" Ira said, stepping towards her. "What did you just say?" 

"You shouldn't remember. It goes against the rules-" 

"I don't care!" Ira shouted. "I don't care about the rules!" 

"Well, that much is obvious." The voice called, shattering the illusion Ira had begun to slip into. The idea that he and Mayvalt were the only ones in that place. Ira froze. Mayvalt tensed at his side, her grip tightening on her bo staff. Ira swallowed the heartbeat pulsing in his throat and turned slowly, towards the demon blocking the path they had been following. He was big, built as blocky as a bull. Towered over Ira, casting a shadow nearly half as long as the one Mount Mojaere laid over the earth. Ira's eyes darted along his body, assessing his odds in a brawl. And he wasn't liking how it stacked up. The demon was armed with axes, one clenched in each of his meaty fists. Weapons made of crudely cut wooden handles and jagged metal blades. The demon could have passed for human at first glance. There were no horns growing from his long black hair, there were only his sharp fangs to betray his origins. And, well, also that he was bigger than an ogre. 

"Care to tell us why it's obvious?" The ogre asked, his gaze leveled clear over the top of Mayvalt's antlers. Not at Ira--he wasn't speaking to Ira. His heart twitched, his legs tensed, and he spun while raising his Ossein daggers parallel to his wildly beating chest. The second demon slid into the space Ira had come from, trapping him and Mayvalt in the ally made of tightly knit huts. He was just as big as the first, with tusks instead of fangs. In his boulderish fists, he held the handle of a longsword. 

"Uh'b?" The second demon mumbled around his yellow tusks. 

The first demon snarled. "You idiot! Pay attention when I speak! You've ruined our entire entrance!" 

"Oo' it again?" The second shrugged. 

"Well obviously I'm going to do it again! But it will never be as cool as the first time!" The ogre shrieked, stomping his boots on the cobblestone road. 

"What's happening?" Ira whispered. He stepped back until the Vestige pressed into the space between Mayvalt's shoulders. She turned her head to the side, replying in a whisper as soft as mouse paws across snow. 

"Maybe the circus is in town?" 

The ogre cleared his throat and lifted his head. "Now the little sheep needs to say his line." 

Ira blinked until Mayvalt nudged her elbow into his ribs. "Oh, uh. . . my lines?" 

"Your line! Your line you just said before my brother and I caught you!" The ogre screeched. 

"Uh. . . " 

"You don't care about the angel's rules." Mayvalt whispered. 

"Oh!" Ira nodded. "I, uh, don't care about the rules?" 

The ogre nodded and puffed up his chest. "That much is obvious. Care to tell us why, Sardis?" 

The tusked-tooth demon, Sardis, nodded eagerly. "'os they're breakin' 'ah curfew!" 

"Great job, Sardis." The ogre nodded. He leaned forward, glowering with his pitch black eyes. "They are breaking the curfew."

Mayvalt took a half step back, forcing Ira a half step towards the curled ends of the yellow tusks protruding from Sardis' curled lips. He raised his Ossein daggers in a meek attempt to maintain the feeling of distance. "Oh--about that." Ira called. "We're new in town, so-" 

"More refugees from the disgusting Heimrian world?" Ogre asked. 

"Disgusting?" Ira snapped. "I must not have heard you right, wanna say that aga-" 

"Yes!" Mayvalt interrupted, nodding eagerly. "That horrible, awful, smog-choked city over run by childish, quick tempered, egotistical, arrogant, self absorbed-"

"Okay! Wow, I think they get the picture." Ira snarled, jabbing her with his heel. 

"Oh, really?" She hissed back. "I wasn't done yet." 

The ogre chaffed, placing his axes on his hips in a sort of disappointed mother stance. "So you only just arrived and had no idea of the curfew?" 

"That pretty much sums it up." Ira said after casting one last glare at the back of Mayvalt's pink head. 

"Do you hear that, Sardis?" Ogre called mockingly. "They did not know of our rules." 

"'ut we 'ear'd 'em!" Sardis mumbled around his tusks. 

"Good job, Sardis!" Ogre clapped, banging the handles of his axes together. "We did hear them disrespecting the rules."

"That was about something else!" Mayvalt shouted. "Totally unrelated!" 

"Yeah, really like apples to oranges here!" Ira agreed. 

"What is an apple?" Ogre said.

"Uh." Ira balked. 

"Oh, great job, Ira." Mayvalt snarled under her breath. 

"How was I supposed to know they don't have apples?" He sputtered. 

"You're in Hell!" Mayvalt screeched, using his human words to drive the knife deeper. 

"Oh, nice try they have apples in Connecticut." Ira grit out between his teeth. "And trust me--it doesn't get worse than Connecticut."  

"When this is over I'm going to bury you alive in Hartford." Mayvalt hissed. 

"Yeah? You just try, Goat-Girl." 

"Bone-" 

"Stop whispering!" The ogre roared, slamming the blades of his axes into the huts on either side of his bull-wide body. The metal heads met the gray stones, throwing up a wash of yellow sparks. Mayvalt gasped and threw her arms up over her pink hair. Ira snagged her shoulders and dragged her down against the cobblestone road. 

"Rule breakers must be punished!" The ogre roared.

Ira cursed, slamming the wooden hilts of his blades into the stone road. His heart was thumping in his throat, constricting his air and making him dizzy. "What do we do? I don't know what that demon has in mind for punishment but I doubt it's dinner without dessert." 

"Oh, what was that? You're asking me now?" Mayvalt shouted. 

"You dealt with all the others! Make them listen to you!" 

"These aren't Faun!" Mayvalt yelled. "Sap, I told you it was weird!"

"Okay! Angels, then we fight." Ira hissed beneath the whooping and hollering of the ogre-esque demons. "We need to escape and make it to the Fifth Prince."

"They're huge!" 

"We fought Legion together!" Ira countered. 

"We lost!" Mayvalt pointed out rather unhelpfully. 

"But we lived." 

"I didn't think you were a glass half full kind of demon killer." Mayvalt muttered wryly. 

"You take ogre, I'll take walrus." Ira whispered quickly. 

"Who's walrus?" 

"The one with the tusks obviously!" Ira snapped. 

"Oh, Sardis?" Mayvalt nodded. 

"Who?" 

"Walrus." 

"Yeah, I'll take him-" 

"What if I want walrus?" Mayvalt asked. "You take ogre." 

"Just take ogre! It doesn't matter." Ira sputtered. 

"If it doesn't matter then I'll take walrus." She shrugged. 

"Angels, you're insufferable!" Ira hissed. "And by the way, this whole conversation, yeah right out of the top ten most predictable cinema moments!" 

"Oh--bite me!" Mayvalt cursed. Her fingers clenched around her bo and with a huff she launched up to her feet, swinging her fae-iron weapon at the demon Ira called Ogre. Ira was quick behind her, lashing out his fang blades at the tusked demon blocking the way they had come. Sardis' black eyes widened in shock--which he quickly overcame in a second. His bushy brown eyebrows knitted together over his unsettlingly humanoid face and he roared from his tusked maw. He raised his sword and jabbed it crudely forward. In an open battlefield Ira would have had no problem dodging the sloppy attack but in the narrow alley, with Mayvalt's back vulnerable to Ira's enemy at the front, he had no choice but to fling himself forward to stop the attack from sweeping the space between the stone huts. Ira raised his Ossein daggers to his chest, braced his oxfords against the slick cobblestone street, and collided with the edge of the steel sword. It sparked where it met Ira's knives, showering his fingers in white-hot pinpricks. He cursed and forced strength into his legs, pushing back against the demon's sword. Sardis broke off his swing, bringing the blade back to his body. Ira stumbled at the sudden absence of it. His shoes squeaked and slipped across the gray stones before steadying. 

"Come on, demon!" Ira shouted. "Let's go--hmph!" 

He doubled over, grasping at the sudden stinging in his ribs from where Mayvalt's staff had sideswiped him. 

"Oh, sap!" She shouted, jutting the head of her bo toward the winding axes in her face. "Sorry!" 

Ira grit his teeth together and shook off the bruises blooming to life over the skin of his side. He turned his attention and daggers back towards Sardis. The demon had a smirk stretched eerily over his tusks. Ira had never been laughed at by an enemy--and it seemed a poor day to start. He leapt into action, wishing his daring advance could spook the demon from his place trapping them in the alley but the demon didn't back off and Ira soon had to put effort to his threat. He darted low, slashing Melchior's fang across Sardis' shabby brown pants. The roughspun material split, but not much else. No blood bubbled up behind the torn fabric. 

Sardis screeched, "My favorite 'ants!" and swung his sword directly down. In his vigor to claim revenge for his ripped capris, he made no attempt to correct the position of his blade. The flat face of his iron blade collided with Ira's spine. The Bishop's eyes snapped wide--but the pain he expected never came. 

Clang! 

Sardis' arm rocketed back in recoil. His meaty legs stumbled half a pace back. Ira's mouth popped open in surprise until his brain caught up a moment later. The Vestige strapped over his back--he had almost completely forgotten about it. He didn't want to think about how many pieces his vertebrae would have been scattered into without it. He used Sardis' shocked to escape, rebounding into the center of the alleyway. He stopped just a few inches shy of Mayvalt's back. The He-Goat cried out in frustration as her bo clashed against the stone siding of the nearest hut, halting her attempt at an offensive attack. And, well, considering the ache that still reverberated in his ribs, maybe that should have been more of a warning to Ira than he took it to be. Her leather boots slipped in her effort to correct her stance. Ogre swung his twin axes at her head and she yelped, dropping to her knees to escape the silver blades. Ira's eyes widened. A curse slipped from his lips as he attempted to raise his daggers in a last second defense from the axes careening towards his neck. It wasn't enough. His knives could never withstand the blow. He tried to escape, stepping backwards. Ira yelped as he tripped over the girl crawling on her hands and knees at his feet. He crashed to the ground, his daggers skidding from his palms as he landed. 

"Angels! What are you doing!" Ira snapped at her, kicking his legs to detangle from her winding limbs.

"I was trying to get away until you stepped on me!" She snapped back, shoving her elbow into Ira's throat. 

He sputtered, coughing up his reply around her intrusion. "Yeah! Escaping to let me get chopped in your place!" 

"Better you than me! Your soul will just come back--but I'm a Faun, I'd die. Do you really need another dead Faun on your conscious?" She snarled, clawing her way across the stone street. 

"Oh, so now we can talk about the rules?" Ira pointed sarcastically. 

"Sap!" Mayvalt cursed. "Forget I said anything!" 

Mayvalt yelped as she was snatched by one of the two giants. His massive fist closed over the back of her leather jacket, yanking her to her feet. Ira rolled over onto his stomach, scrambling to retrieve his blades. He stretched out his fingers towards the handle of his black pine knife. It was less than an inch from his fingertips. One single inch that rapidly became a foot as his legs were grabbed and pulled. Ira was yanked across the road. His skin was scraped raw by the rough stone street, which quickly became the least of his worries. A hand curled over the back of his neck, closing down around his throat. Ira's fingers clasped at the demon squeezing down on his air supply in a futile attempt to keep his bones from breaking. He was lifted, choking and gasping. His legs kicked out vainly at the empty air. The demon to his back chuffed in amusement. 

"Pitiful little ram." Ogre snarled. His breath curdled against the skin of Ira's cheek, forcing a wince across his pained expression.

Mayvalt seemed to be fairing only slightly better, held by the back of her jacket like a scolded kitten. Her bo had been seized by Sardis, who waved it in front of her face mockingly. She snatched for it, getting shaken by the giant each time in retaliation. She snarled in frustration and kicked at the demon's blocky knees with her heavy black boots. 

"I ain't never seen sheep like this, have you Sardis?" Ogre called towards his equally hideous brother. 

Sardis shook his head eagerly, knocking his tusks against Mayvalt's ankles as he did so. She growled again, kicking at the yellowed bone. "'avn't, Zebulon." 

"Oh, but you can say Zebulon?" Mayvalt scoffed. "I'll take those tusks right out of your mouth you good for nothing sack of sap-" 

"Yeah, real feisty types." Ogre--apparently Zebulon--chuckled. "Never had a ram show me his horns before." 

Ira shuddered. He hated the way that sounded. And he hated the way the demon was glowering at him even more, like he was a rare fox tangled in a hunter's snare. He swung out with his legs pitifully. Zebulon hefted him even higher, squeezing down on his throat as he did so. Ira's fingernails dug into Zebulon's clenched fist. His arms trembled from the effort of keeping his weight from dragging down on his neck. 

"Let him go!" Mayvalt screamed. "Put him down! You'll kill him like that!" 

"Sheep don't break so easy." Zebulon smirked. His pitch black eyes locked on Ira's face. On his burning red cheeks, on his purpling throat. "Well, well, would you take a look at this one, Sardis. He's got blue eyes. I've never seen a sheep with such bright eyes." 

"I 'anna see!" Sardis squealed. He lunged forward across the enclosed space, tossing Mayvalt aside like a discarded doll. She yelped as her body collided on the street, rolling until she slumped against the rounded alley wall. Sardis slipped in beside his brother, squinting his coal-black eyes at Ira's face. He held his breath--which was incredibly easy to do. It wasn't as if he was getting much oxygen before the second demon added his hellish scent to the mix. "Oooh, why it 'ook 'ike 'at?" 

"Genetics, you idiot." Zebulon huffed confidentially. "Yeah, must be some genetic type thing. You, sheep, are there more of you?"

Ira wheezed around the fist around his throat. 

"Ah, right." Zebulon chuckled. He dropped Ira, who fell as gracefully as Mayvalt's previously mentioned sack of sap. He thudded against the cobblestone road, coughing and gasping to fill his throbbing throat with soothing oxygen. His lungs inflated to the size of small moons behind his ribs, greedily sucking at the air he could finally offer it. Ira blinked the burning black spots from his vision, shaking his swimming skull until it stabilized. He had to reach his knives. He had to--the air was once again knocked from his lungs as the boot pressed down on his spine, squeezing him down into stone and dirt. "No funny business, just go on an' answer me." 

"There aren't!" Mayvalt shouted from her place against the alley wall. She rubbed at her legs with trembling hands. "My brother and I are the last. He's valuable, you hear me? You can't hurt him. Or the Fifth Prince will-" 

"Blagh!" Zebulon snarled. "Fifth Prince, Fifth Prince! I am sick of the Prince taking all the good ones! Leaving nothing for us! We do all the tough work. We enforce the rules, do we not, Sardis?" 

Sardis nodded eagerly, making small winds from his tusks. 

"Oh, come on." Mayvalt laughed bitterly. "I'm sure the Prince will offer you something good for us? Eyes like that? Well--those can't go anywhere but in a jar on the Prince's shelf, right?" 

Ira's heart twisted painfully in his chest. It was hard to imagine Mayvalt as his ally in that moment. 

"Hmm." Zebulon hummed thoughtfully. "The bounty would be good." 

"'an they 'adda go anyway." Sardis added. 

Zebulon sighed heavily, as if reminded of something bothersome. "You're right, Sardis. They have to go anyways. After all--rule breakers get taken immediately to the Fifth Prince." 

"Wh. . . what?" Ira choked from his place curled on the street. "We could have gone right to the Fifth Prince? Like, you mean, this whole time?" 

Mayvalt laughed, a sound as bitter as poison. "Sap, that stings." 

"Don't worry, little lamb." The demon chuckled. "The Fifth Prince is going to love you. And I'm going to love this." 

The demon swooped down to where he had Ira pinned to the stones. With one gigantic fist he clasped the leather strap slung over Ira's back and yanked it over his head. Ira screamed, kicking desperately with his trembling legs as the Vestige was ripped away from him. 

"Give it back!" He cried. "That's mine! Give it back!" 

There was a part to the weightlessness across his spine that hurt worse than the realization their plan was crumbling. It was the feeling of losing Melchior again. Having all he had left of him torn away. The demon slung the Vestige over his shoulder with a smirk. Sardis jogged back to Ira's daggers in the street, scooping them up and shoving them into a fold of his rough tunic. He snatched Mayvalt by her left arm and hauled her onto her boots, earning a whimper from her trembling lips. All of him, gone in an instant. Ira's arms were twisted behind his back, gripped in one clenched hand. Zebulon yanked him to his feet and shoved him roughly forward. 

Angels, Ira pleaded in his woozy mind, please tell me the Third Prince is doing better than this.