We didn’t have to wait long.

  A single tentacle-faced, dark green monster crawled through one of the festering holes in the wall of the Bequeathal Chamber. It straightened up to almost eight feet tall as its yellow eyes glared down at me.

  I stepped forward as I saw Kara and Rix draw their weapons and move to flank me. Despite having set up this meeting, it seemed like Rix didn’t fully trust the other side.

  “There is no need for weapons, I have not come to fight.” The demon held up its webbed hands to show that they were empty. The tightly bound brown robe that it was wearing looked spacious even to conceal a weapon and I knew that with how rich the magic was here, it could have a weapon or cast spells instantly.

  “You wanted to talk with me.” I spread out my hands. “So talk.”

  “I am Simel, first of our glorious master, Kinwel.” The demon knelt on one knee so that it was my height. “I come to offer apologies on behalf of our leader.”

  “You..?” I looked over at Rix. “You what?”

  “The interaction that happened here is a gross misunderstanding.” Simel pointed at Mive and the mass of shadowy bindings that were squirming at his feet. “The ones you interacted with were merely supposed to research the Mantles to see if they could help us maintain our forms while in your world, but it seems that they became overly enthusiastic.”

  “You mean by possessing people, putting Mive in a coma, and kidnapping my whole team?” I shook my head. “How is that a misunderstanding?”

  “They…” The dark green demon paused. “It is imperative that our presence remains a secret. They were just trying to remain discreet.” I nodded at me. “And before you say that they revealed themselves after they tried to possess you, they believed that your father had learned of our presence here, though after some review, we have discovered that is not the case.”

  “You did… Wait. How did you ‘discover’ that my father didn’t know about you?”

  “We have faithful to look into such things.” The demon shrugged. “It was a misunderstanding and now I am here to offer a treaty.”

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  “A treaty?” I shook my head. “What is it that you want?”

  “We want to be able to walk in the sunlight and bathe in the oceans without being dragged back into the Abyss, but you don’t have the power to do such things.” Simel shook his head, causing the tentacles on his chin to waggle. “What you can do is let us continue our research in peace. Tell the Goddesses that you made the whole thing up.”

  “You want us to…” I couldn’t believe the brazen request. “You want us to tell the Goddesses that this was all just some story that we made up to get attention, so that you can continue to carve the souls out of people’s bodies so that you can wear them like a suit?”

  The yellow-eyed demon blinked with both sets of eyelids. “We only possess the willing.”

  I was starting to feel upset, but I didn’t want to let it show. Too much anyway. I gritted my teeth until I could unclench my jaw. “That’s a really big ask. What are you offering in return?”

  The demon blinked again. “It is a treaty. You leave us alone and we leave you alone.”

  I looked over at Rix. “Did you know about this part?”

  The golden woman shook her head. “They told me that he would show you how to wake up Trent in exchange for not looking for them once they left the city.”

  I was starting to get a bad feeling about the whole thing. “How exactly did he contact you?” I nodded at the demon in front of me.

  “He was inside a priest from the Temple.”

  The chill that ran down my spine felt like it was replacing my backbone with ice cubes. They already had more people that they could possess. It made a little sense in a way that if Mive’s High Priest had been possessed, there would be more people at the Temple in Mive that were also possessed.

  “So basically what you’re saying is that you want me to get the Goddesses to leave and forget you are here so that you can keep doing what you were doing before we got here?” I shook my head. “And all you’re offering is to what? LET us leave town?”

  “I don’t think you realize…”

  “NO!” I cut him off. “You tried to take my friends and the best apology you can give is ‘we’ll forget how many of us you killed to get your friends that we were about to kill back’?” I shook my head. “I thought demons were supposed to be good at deals. Offering things that people wanted. Do you even have the first idea about what a human would want?”

  The demon started laughing. It was a deep bellow that seemed to echo off of the walls of the Chamber. In that moment, it also felt like he was mocking us.

  “What’s so funny?” I tried to give him my best glare.

  It shook its head as it stood up. “You’re not human. Even without that flimsy magical coating that makes you think you’re a god, you aren’t human.”

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