The Prince wasn't a prince, despite what Ira had long been picturing and assuming. From her darker than midnight hair which hung to her hips--to the shape of those hips beneath the gauze-thin fabric of her pearl-white peplos--and her voice that sounded both as soft as tulip petals and as sharp as rose thorns. No, definitely not a prince.

"Angels," Ira cursed. "You're the Prince?" 

Words he should have chosen more carefully flew freely from his agape mouth. Mayvalt cleared her throat and snapped her elbow forward, knocking Ira in his ribs. He hissed a wince and forced his blue eyes towards the furry white rug. 

"I-I mean of course you're the Prince. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Royal High-" 

"Enough." Astaroth huffed, lifting up her flattened palms to silence him. 

Ira sighed in relief and nodded, glad to be released from the useless pleasantries before he collapsed to his knees in a spine-snapping bow. "Yeah, I'm done." 

"I gather your shock must come from your petty Heimrian beliefs, Knight." Astaroth pointed. As she spoke, her voice fluttered to fill the room like an all-consuming smoke. Easing down from her lips which hovered feet above Ira's curled yellow hair and inches above Mayvalt's fuzzy antlers. "That Princes are to be men, as Faun are to be He-Goats." 

Ira's heart inflated to the size of a ripe grapefruit, taking up permanent residency at the back of his throat. "No, not at all. I was merely shocked to have been served tea by the Lad--L-Lord of this manor. I'm as Faunish as-" 

"As a petting zoo goat." The Prince finished. "I heard it all, do reconsider the lies you had rehearsed to tell me." 

Ira's eyes fit into slits and made daggers that pointed at Mayvalt's winced face. She turned the same shade of purple as the hideous velvet settee and hunched her shoulders up until her black leather jacket consumed much of her curved throat. 

"And I do hope you tell me something--and soon. My curiosity is so consuming, it begs me to ask will I discover your secrets if I peel you apart piece by piece?" The Fifth Prince shivered, wrapping her arms around her torso. "Does someone beyond me know? Who? I shall find them--I must know what they know. They can not know more than me. So, tell me what they know!" 

Ira's tongue became snakish, curling and slumbering in his mouth. It refused to emerge from the barrier his teeth made for it. The Prince's gaze was too strong, sparking his skin where it touched. Mayvalt pushed her neck up, resembling a turtle peeking from it's rough shell, and forced her shaking words out into the heavy air. 

"We come from Heimr." She said. 

"Obviously!" Astaroth snapped. She folded down onto her knees, grasping the tea pot by it's curled silver handle. She dumped a river of warm brown liquid into Ira's used cup and tossed the drink back into her mouth. Ira glanced at Mayvalt, who seemed at just as much of a loss. The He-Goat girl nervously lowered herself onto the settee, sitting on the curled edge. Ira cautiously followed suit. "You must tell me more than that to even pretend to engage me. I have heard that same story a flock-amount this week." 

"The others!" Mayvalt hissed under her breath. 

"This week?" Ira said instead. "They left a day-" 

"Yes, a week since those Heimr-reeking sheep found their way to my door." Astaroth interrupted. "You two are not so good at whispering or at keeping secrets." 

Mayvalt huffed and Ira burned red under her glossy black pupils. His mind spun in loops, trying to account for the time he had missed that no one else seemed to mourn. Mayvalt had said something like that, hadn't she? She had alluded to Hell time. Just how large of a gap were they dealing with? 

"The other Faun--where are they?" Mayvalt barked anxiously, leaning forward on her toes. "In Heneth? We haven't seen any of them." 

"You would not have." Astaroth agreed easily, downing another mouthful of tea from Ira's discarded silver cup. "Faun do not roam Heneth so easily." 

Mayvalt's lips curled over her pearl-white teeth. "Heneth is their home. Where else would they be?" 

"They are here." Astaroth shrugged. Her peplos curled like silver smoke around her thin throat before it drooped back into sleepy watery form. "Under lock and key." 

"Demons." Mayvalt snarled. "Like those two that caught us. They've taken over. Their filth is everywhere, consuming Heneth." 

Ira, having fully submitted to the idea of a blown cover, said. "But He-Goats are demons, too. What's going on?" 

Mayvalt tossed him a withering glare. Ira sank into the soft eggplant-toned seats. "Fauns come from a very different lineage than Halflings do. It's like, well. . . New Yorkers from the city versus the farmers. They don't often mix." 

Ira appreciated Mayvalt's attempts at putting all mind-breaking informational loads into simple city terms for him, but among that something stood out much more than her analogies. "Half of what?" 

"Angel." Astaroth answered, gulping another mouthful of steaming tea. 

Ira's eyes widened, finding her in the small lounge. "Angel? Those things were half angel?" 

He thought of the demon brothers, larger than ogres with twisted tusks shoved into their humanoid maws but it did not appeal as wholly angelic to him. 

"Well, it is much less than half by now." Astaroth chuckled. "But yes. Halflings come from the youngest of lineages. The one made by mixing angelic blood with foul and much older demonic blood." 

"Youngest? How many lineages are there?" Ira asked, pressing his palms into his knees to steady their trembling. 

"Many." Astaroth shrugged. "Too many." 

"Fauns," Mayvalt said, "Halflings, Wolves, Beasts, Spirits, the Woodland Folk-" 

"Woodland Folk?" Ira sputtered. 

"Just best to avoid those types, Knight. Even if only in your thoughts." Astaroth lectured. "Animalistic creatures who can not be so easily reasoned with. Kin in a way to the wolves, but spun from a different demon many, many, many eons ago. And for that--they do not get along." 

"Right." Ira nodded slowly. "So about the wolves-" 

"I fear we have fallen much too far off track." Astaroth sighed, "this is not the conversation I sought. I have given you too many answers and have received none for myself." 

"Oh, you have, have you?" Mayvalt growled beneath her breath. 

"Answers are there to find for the quick-witted." Astaroth said. "If you have discovered nothing, you have only yourself to blame." 

Mayvalt's fists curled in her lap. Ira snapped forward, placing his shoulder over hers to steady her and to keep her from launching across the yellow table. "You're right, My Lord. We've been unkind guests. Maybe we should exchange what we know freely--conversate more. . . amicably." 

The Fifth Prince considered this, rubbing her slender fingers across her humming lips. "Fine. After all, I do grow weary of always having to get my way through tricks and pain. It grows exhausting to only speak with those who are screaming for mercy." 

A shudder rushed through Mayvalt and then through Ira where their arms and legs pressed together on the loveseat. He knew she was thinking of the He-Goats. 

"You wish to know why we're here, don't you?" Ira asked. 

"It has crossed my mind." The Fifth Prince admitted. 

"We came for you." Ira answered. "Because the Third Prince said you would help us. And we need. . . help. We have a task ahead, a great one, but we are not familiar with these lands. We need information and aid. The Third Prince said you would give us these things and help us along."

An exaggeration at best. In fact, Ira might have recalled the Prince saying the opposite. But flattery in place of truth had never hurt anyone before. 

The Fifth Prince's fingers curled along the silver drinking cup. Her curled nails scratched along the metal, making it whimper in metallic whines. "And how is it that a Knight and a lamb received such advice from my older brother?" 

"We're allies." Ira answered sharply. Perhaps too sharply. Astaroth's oil-black eyes rolled upwards, placing Ira in the center of her eerie gaze. 

"My brother does not have. . . allies." She scoffed. "He never has. Belzebuth has always stood apart from us." 

"Belzebuth?" Ira repeated. "You mean the Third Prince?" 

Astaroth laughed so fitfully, she grasped the sides of the yellow table to keep from spilling over. "And you think yourselves comrades? Tell me, what name does my dear brother use these days?"

Ira swallowed down the red rushing up into the skin of his throat. "It doesn't matter, does it? He'd hardly be the first to go by a nickname." Ira himself had been known by enough names to fill a book. 

The Fifth Prince smirked, tilting her devilishly sharp cheekbones. "That much I must admit is true. I myself was not always the Astaroth they call today. There were others, in times far from this one, who first named me Astarte." 

"Astarte?" Ira whispered before the realization clicked into place a moment later. "Astarte! She was a goddess in the old Canaan lands. The deity of war, hunting, love, and se-" his voice halted at the back of his tongue, tripping over the pink muscle there to lodge faithfully behind his teeth. The red curled back into his cheeks a moment later. 

Astaroth cackled, placing her manicured hand over her chest in jestful sympathy. "Ever so faithful, little choir boy? Shall I finish for you?" 

Ira shook his head and settled into uncomfortable silence. 

"Yes, names and roses and all those pitifully romantic things Heimrians write poems about." Astaroth huffed. "But do you know when it truly matters?" 

Ira glanced at Mayvalt who shook her head slowly. 

"It matters when trust is the payment." Astaroth answered. Ira squinted his eyebrows together, clashing them over his sea-blue eyes. "I see your confusion, little one. Then let me say this. There was a time when my brother refused any name--only answering to his title of lord in the old tongue." 

Mayvalt flinched beneath her leathers. The jolt of her limbs traveled down into the pit of Ira's stomach, cramping the organ into painful shakes. 

"Tell me." Astaroth hissed. "When you whisper to my brother, under the dark of night in a place only you two exist, do you call him Ba'al? It is fictitious. He is no lord--lord only of flies, and worms, and lowlier creatures than that." 

"Boss protected us!" Mayvalt hissed. "His secrets are his to keep. It makes no difference. He's still our boss."

"Boss," Astaroth repeated, "Ba'al." 

"Wha-" 

"So he is not so changed as I would have hoped." Astaroth whispered thoughtfully, pressing her wicked talons to her lips. "He still hides from who he truly is. Such appetizing secrets as his can not stay where no one can enjoy them. Tell me, little doe, does he still hide it?"

Mayvalt's cheeks drained of her rich bronze color. She slammed her teeth together and forced her eyes downwards. If they had cards in their hands, she would have lost. Astaroth smirked. A dangerously wicked smile that carved her face into two. 

"It?" Ira whispered, glancing at Mayvalt. She shook her pink curls in warning and said nothing more.

"You've fastened your chains to anchors." Astaroth pardoned. "My brother is far too weighted to keep afloat, any attempts you make will see you all drowned. I don't know what deal you think you struck with the Third Prince, but I would swiftly disband it. It would be entirely foolish to sink myself as well." 

"What do mean?" Mayvalt choked.

"I will not help you." Astaroth said plainly. "You will have to discover the lay of this land on your own. Though it is muched changed since my idiot older brother began raising his armies. I doubt you will make it far. It is best you take your sheep and return to Heimr. As you discovered in Heneth--the enemies are many and touch each stone." 

Ira's heart galloped behind his ribs. It twisted and stung, shaking at the bars of its cage with alarm and warning. He should have keep his mouth snapped tight, eyes lowered. He should have let the Fifth Prince say her useless quips. He should have used her lulled concentration to pry about the location of the Ze'ev in the Tachtadh or about where to find Mammon. He should have done a lot of things but lessons were hard learned. Ira shot to his boots, startling both Mayvalt and the Fifth Prince into stunned silence. 

"Who cares?" Ira snarled. The Fifth Prince's jaw dropped, nearly landing on the horrible yellow table positioned beneath her. Mayvalt turned white and snatched Ira's wrist with her forcefully tight grip. Ira shook her off. "Angels, how much more complaining will we have to listen to before you reach the point? So you don't like the Third Prince? No one does!" 

"Ira!" Mayvalt gasped. 

"But it doesn't matter! So what if he goes by Belzebuth, or Beelzebub, or Bezel Pangeran? So what if he doesn't know who he's supposed to be? Inside this little castle you can play pretend, act like a Prince of Hell and rule over your trembling subjects, but back in my world things aren't so simple. The centuries go on. Endlessly. And he's survived all of them. So, who cares if parts of him change? Or don't change at all? At least he's trying! At least the Third Prince is actually doing something! What have you done? What will you do to stop Mammon? If you had tried, then maybe then the Third Prince wouldn't have to clean up after you and I wouldn't have to be dragged down behind him." 

Astaroth blinked. Mayvalt swallowed audibly. And Ira squared his shoulders. The moments trickled by as slowly as molasse. Ira stood over the Prince, his eyes narrowed, until Mayvalt made another pass at breaking off his stance.

"Ira." Mayvalt warned, her voice pitched low. 

"Ira?" Astaroth repeated, her eyebrows rising. The Bishop's heart squeezed in his chest, his stomach curled. He was tensed, standing on the edge of a drop. The next words, he knew, would be the thing to cement his fate. She could call for guards to have him wrung out for his rudeness, she could simply dispatch him herself. She could do anything--she was a Prince of Hell and a fallen angel. And what she did instead, was somehow more shocking than any of that.

She sighed, breathing a lofty huff from her nose and poured herself another cup of steaming tea.

"Ira," she murmured, "it's a traditional name for your people, isn't it? For the Progeny? It's beautiful. Did your mother give you that name?" 

Ira's throat tightened. He cleared it forcefully and met her gaze. "I don't know. My mother. . . I don't know much about her." 

Astaroth's lips curled down into a frown. She glided around the edge of the oddly shaped table, coming to a halt near Ira's feet. Her hands reached up, clasping his. Her fingers were warm where they touched--too warm, as if there was fire just beneath her night-toned skin.

"Poor child. I understand your pain. I did not know mine either. All I can remember of her now is the night she attempted to kill me. The night of my birth, in fact." Astaroth clicked her tongue against her teeth and shook her head, sending a whiplike curl down her thick braid. "I don't blame her. She was only. . . human. And so terrified of me. She was driven mad by the event. In having a child so suddenly. She didn't have much say in the matter. It was my father's will that I be born on Heimr. He called it amusing. My mother called it a curse. When she could not take mine, she settled for her own life instead. So, no, I did not know mine either." 

"That sounds. . . horrible." Ira whispered hoarsely. 

Astaroth nodded. "Indeed. There is only agony where Ely tread. Heimrians are much too fragile, shattering at our touch. I prefer Avernians. They bend a little before they snap."

"I don't-" Ira stammered. 

Astaroth's grip became tight, pressing into Ira's fluttering pulse. "That is a lesson we all learned. All of my siblings that had been split from the All-King and unwillingly planted in Heimrian women. Especially him. He knows first hand what he's done. The devastation his presence brings to Heimr. He is the poisoned blood in the veins of your homeland."

"Boss has only helped us!" Mayvalt snarled, stomping her thick leather boot. "He saved me! If boss hadn't found me that night all those centuries ago, I would have been slaughtered alongside my parents. Just another casualty of the Demon-Born war."

Astaroth's shimmering black eyes rolled towards Mayvalt. Her lips twisted into a mask of pure pity. "Sweet lamb, he only saved you from a war he began. You know the story, don't you? How the Ely came to such a partnership with Heimrians: creating the first folk of the Progeny."

Mayvalt nodded stiffly, but Ira only stood in shocked stillness. Astaroth's eyes fluttered to him, and she began to speak. Her words became cold, her tongue stoic. As if she had told this story so many times it had been engraved on the flesh of her throat.

"My father, the All-King, lived for many millennia. During his time of rule he often grew lonely. To dispel such feelings he made children. Not to love, or to hold near, or to play catch with--no, but to watch. To enact his will for closeness upon. He dropped us into Heimr and watched our pitiful miserable lives like it was the rainbow after the floods. The suffering of our disjointed lives was merely his favorite pastime."

Ira stood still, letting her words flow over him.

"Astarte they called me--only after they could not kill me. And they tried. For nights they stabbed at me, tore at me, scorched me. Demon-ilk they called me first. Witch, temptress, monster. But, as they only had Heimrian tools, they could not puncture my flesh. And once they realized they could not be rid of me, they decided to use me instead. I was their Prince in chains, forced to lift their mountains and slay their enemies. Anything they asked of me." Astaroth snarled. "Until, that is, I was saved from my Heimrian life. You see, I had no clue of what I even was. I had begun to believe them that I was of the darkest creation. Until he came and saved me."

"He?" Ira pressed. "Your brother? The Third Prince?"

Astaroth laughed. "My brother, yes, but not the Third Prince. The strongest of us, the kindest of us, the wisest of us. The one who had emerged from his Heimrian struggle on his own, discovering the truth of who he was without needing to be saved from it. And so he came for the rest of us. The rest of the seven, finding us wherever we had been planted."

Ira hovered at the edge of a drop, waiting for the entanglements of her loyalty to pan out. As if sensing the tension between them, the Fifth Prince bowed her head and said. "Our eldest. The First Prince." 

"Wait. Seven?" Mayvalt interrupted. "But your father had fourteen children."

Astaroth smirked wistfully. "And thus the problem began. You are right, little doe. My father had fourteen heirs. His first seven he was rid of. But perhaps we were not entertaining enough because the last seven, he kept close in Elysium. His true children, he called them. And then most suddenly, there were us. His oldest children, his strongest children, the children who had been tested in fires and who had endured. Reunited in his realm. Trying to cram for space at a table that had only been built for eight. We only wanted peace after all we had survived, but my youngest siblings were discontent. Their fears grew. Their insecurities, their weaknesses, their jealousy. As my father began to dim, the spirit of his life force expiring, talks of the new All-King began."

Ira ignored the sick feeling rolling in his stomach, pressing his knuckles to his teeth.

"A war began. Against us and them. Brother against brother. Sister against sister. The fallout was immense. Great comets that wiped out all creatures on Heimr. Destruction that would have continued. It would have destroyed Elysium--and so the First Prince ended it. He forced our surrender and we went willingly into exile. After all, we were not meant to enjoy the warmth of that sun." Astaroth's black eyes grew ever more distant as she spoke. "We came to Avernus then. Ely are beings made of pure energy. Without the free supply of it we could claim in Elysium, we sought the next best thing to keep us alive. Avernus has much less energy than Elysium, but it kept us alive as long as we were modest with what we burned off. Like that, we survived several more uncountable centuries. Until one day, the All-King died."

Mayvalt exhaled shakily. Ira shared in her anticipation. His skin was tingling with it.

"The Trammel wall which has long kept the realms apart was made by the All-King. It's a magic so strong it could only feed off his strength. When he died, so did his wall. Beasts poured into Heimr. It was chaos. It was calamity come undone. And it was, as loudly as I could shout it to my dear older brother, none of our concern. The Beasts of Avernus and the Heimrians of Heimr--well, we were the fallen Princes of Elysium. We had no place between them. I pleaded with him to leave it alone. Let them suffer or succeed by their own merit. But my brother believed it was our duty to help those who could not help themselves. He pitied them. Those foul torturers. But perhaps his time in Heimr as a child had been differently spent than mine. I do not know. So he went into Heimr, and we followed." Astaroth exhaled unsteadily. "It was the worst mistake we had ever made."

"The first demon-born war." Mayvalt echoed. "The youngest seven took the Prince's emerging from their exile as an act of war during their weakest. They recruited the Heimrians and gave them the first Vestiges and bone blades."

"A war that lasted centuries." Astaroth agreed. "Blood spill vast enough for six oceans. You Heimirans called it something else. Not the First Demon-Born war but the Crusades."

Ira nodded in hollow agreement.

"When the battle was finally ended, the First Prince ordered us all returned to Avernus. But the Third Prince disagreed. He refused to leave, saying he had found something." Astaroth's fingers tapped along the yellow tabletop. Ira's breath grew still behind his ribs.

"A Heimrian soul." Astaroth snapped her teeth. "One he fell for."

Mayvalt turned ice stiff beside him. Pressed the side of his leg into hers, gently pressing her out of her tight stance. She drooped down into a position of manicured relaxation.

"I told him that he could never truly possess the Heimrian. That Heimrian souls--well, there's not much an Ely can reveal about their potential to a Heimrian but all you need to know is they're valuable and dangerous." Astaroth said. "Dangerously tempting."

"Yeah," Ira gulped. "I've heard that before. The rules or whatever."

Astaroth smirked playfully. "Yes, the rules that keep all three realms in this hesitant peace. The greatest of all being: do not involve Heimrians. And now, here you stand before me. As my brother once against defiled the rules. His lack of respect is truly astonishing. From the moment he stayed. My selfish brother. He stayed where he was most ill-suited. At the cost of the world around him. At the cost of himself. So, why should he not suffer in repentance? Does he not deserve a sinner's fate? To toil until torn apart?" "

"It wasn't the Third Prince's fault." Ira objected. His voice trembled, dipping in and out of the truth he might have been sewing together in his favor. If he went back to the day he had been born, that night in May as Ira Rule, then it was true. The angels had placed him on this path. The Cardinal had conditioned him to accept it. And the bitter pill of losing Melchior had made his resolve. But--because Ira had not always been Ira--if he pushed his mind a few centuries further than that night in May, the Third Prince had begun it all. He had entangled himself with Ira. Over, and over, and over. A countless many times. If the angels had found Ira's soul for that very reason, as a playing card against the Third Prince, then Ira could blame him some in this lifetime, too. But he didn't want to anymore. Blame had made him exhausted. It had fettered his every waking dream and stained his every sunrise and he was so tired of being consumed by it, as if it was a living creature as strong as a Beast of Hell. Ira didn't want to trek into Hell because he had been made to. But because, "I lost someone." 

Astaroth's eyes were as vast as space. Ira sunk into them as he spoke. 

"No, not just someone." He sighed. "The most important person in the entire world." 

"A powerful ally?" Astaroth guessed. "A guide? A mentor?"

"The one I loved." Ira whispered. 

Astaroth's eyes fell to her fingers where they tapped along the yellow table. Mayvalt's body flinched. Her hands went to the golden cuff in her antlers, twisting it absently. 

"I came to find him." Ira said. "But finding him is only the beginning. I need to save him--and this time I can not fail. Mammon must die, but my allies lack the strength on our own." 

Astaroth shook her head. "I can not." 

"You won't help the Third Prince?" Ira pleaded. "He is your brother. He needs help. The task ahead is too much." 

"The Third Prince of Hell," the Fifth Prince declared softly, "is only a son of my father and nothing more."

"And what about my home?" Ira asked between the knot in his throat. "What about the home beyond these castle walls? The He-Goats? Will you help no one?" 

Astaroth sighed. She pushed herself up to her sandaled feet and shook out her black braid. "You forget, the Second Prince is as much my kin as the Third. I have done a great deal of aiding in your quest by not squashing you here for speaking of his coming death." 

"The Second Prince is-" Ira began to snarl. 

"Vile? Greedy? Selfish?" She finished. "Yes, I do think so as well. But not for his ambition. But because he, like the Third Prince, forgot the lesson we learned all those centuries ago. That there is no place--not in Elysium, nor Heimr, nor even Avernus--that we fit without rotting the ground beneath us. It is far beyond my place. I will not fall victim to the same mistakes as my brother. I will not carve out room where there is none for me. I will remain inside the walls of this prison. I will sit and remain silent so my voice does not ripple the air." 

"This is a waste of time. You've been talking us in circles."  Ira's heart hammered against his ribs, flushing with bitter pain and angry red heat. "Fine, then we'll just do it on our own. As we did in New York when Legion came from the lake. We'll defeat our enemies--and you'll just have to watch from your tower. By now, I'm sure the Third Prince has already found the Ze'ev in the pit-" 

"Ze'ev?" Astaroth interrupted, her spine snapping straight. She tilted her head, fixing her night-dark eyes on Ira's pink face, flushed from his rising anger. "What could my brother ever want with a wolf?" 

"His lost one." Mayvalt said, eyeing the grit lines of Ira's clenched jaws. "He's a Silver-Tongued wolf. We believe he's crossed into Avernus. Into the Tachtadh, with all the other wolves." 

"A Heimrian in love with an Avernian?" Astaroth murmured dizzily. "It's twice as unbelievable as when my brother fell for a Heimrian." 

Ira lowered his eyes, trying not to be figured out as the common denominator in the mess. 

"Then I pity you." Astaroth said softly. "If my brother has gone to the pit, you will not find your lost one." 

Ira's brain rolled on the inside of his skull. His heart squeezed painfully. His throat ran dry. When he attempted to speak, he had to swallow his own spit to make the words fall past his lips. "Why not?" 

Astaroth laughed, tipping her head back to display her sharp white fangs. "There are no wolves in the pit. There hasn't been for nearly a decade. Any remnants you find of wolves down there will be the long-lasting stench of their expired Fetor." 

"Where are they?" Ira said, not caring how desperate his voice sounded. "Where did they go?" 

"They couldn't have left!" Mayvalt snapped at the same moment, seeking a different approach than Ira's sickeningly desperate pleading. "Their leader! The Wolfking wouldn't have-" 

"I can say no more, otherwise I will begin to influence the world beyond my walls." The Fifth Prince finished. "I will allow you your weapons and leave you at the front gates. I advise you do not waste time asking around town. Fauns do not speak without permission--and you will find the Half-Bloods uncooperative." 

She began to rise, her head bowed. Ira's insides wriggled like worms in jelly. Nausea ran up the back of his throat, stinging the inside of his nose. It was all slipping away. It was coming apart in his hands. He was losing Melchior all over again. Again. And again. 

"Wait!" Ira cried. 

The Fifth Prince froze. She turned her black as night eyes on Ira once more. 

"A deal." Ira said, raising his chin. "Let's make a deal."