Chapter 109

I gasp, delighted, clasping my hands beneath my chin as I beam at my ghostly handmaid, who is also kind of my boyfriend now. “I would love pancakes!”

“Well then you’d better conjure up some ingredients, Princess,” Antons says, crossing to me and slipping an arm around my shoulder. Faiza snarls at him, deeply displeased at this clear dismissal of her newly-shackled situation.

“Can you seriously make them?” I ask, looking at Anton wide-eyed, wondering at this mysterious new cooking talent.

“No,” he says, grinning down at me. “But I’m betting Laila can.”

“What is a pan-cake?” Laila asks, frowning over at us, still sipping her coffee.

I snap my head to her with a frown. “If you make them with fish, Laila, I’ll never forgive you –“

“Can we…come back together for a second here?” Orion asks on a sigh, crossing his arms and looking between me and Anton and Laila like we’re very exhausting. “What…what precisely is the plan here?”

“We’ll talk plan over pancakes!” I declare like the Empress of Death that I aspire to be, pointing a hand in the air and marching off to the kitchen.

Faiza gasps and jerks along after me, the magic in her new golden cuffs not letting her be more than five feet away from me, as I currently bid it. I laugh a little, delighted at my power, and head into the kitchen. I’m even more gratified when I hear everyone else’s footsteps following me.

In the kitchen I conjure up all the supplies Orion needs to make his very famous coffee, pointing him over in that direction. He sighs and obliges as I turn to the table, waving a hand and making stacks of pancakes and fixings appear. Laila and Anton wander over, eyebrows raised, as Blythe tucks himself away in the corner of the room, I think disoriented and a little traumatized from his slug adventure.

“Ohhh,” Laila says, sitting down at the table and eagerly starting to fix herself a plate. “Oh, this looks delicious. But don’t you think that a sardine –“

“You cut it with that,” I say, giving her a playful little glare. “Walnuts and whipped cream are the most daring things that should appear on a pancake. A banana, maybe, if you’re feeling very adventurous.” My friend grins at me and I smile back.

“I hate this,” Faiza grumbles, slumping into a chair across from Laila. “I hate all of you.”

“I made enough for you too,” I say, taking my proper seat at the head of the table.

“I want liberty, not pancakes,” Faiza snaps, glaring at me.

“Poor choice, Faiz,” Anton says on a sigh, sitting down next to Faiza and resting his chin in his hands. “I can’t wait to get a body again.”

“And how are you getting a body?” Faiza asks, moody and cruel, turning to glare at him.

“You tell me,” I say, pulling some pancakes onto my own plate and starting to cover them with maple syrup as the scent of Orion’s rich coffee starts to fill the room.

“Let me go,” Faiza says, falsely sweet, leaning towards me with a pretty smile. “And I will!”

“No,” I say on a fairly tragic sigh. “I’ve got bigger plans for you.”

“Yes,” Orion says, dry, wandering over with his arms again crossed and his face very serious. “Can we…talk about these plans, Juniper? What the hell do you have going on up there?” He taps his temple, giving me a fierce little glare that is…

Well. That’s rather sexy, isn’t it?

I blush a bit, glancing over at Blythe in the corner of the room, who still stands with his arms crossed and his head hanging. Then I shift my eyes to Anton, who is already looking at me, predictably with a smirk on his full lips. I clear my throat as I drop my eyes, cutting my stack of pancakes with the side of my fork, suddenly painfully aware that I have…kissed all of the men in this room.

And that two of them are dead.

I shove the thought hastily from my mind.

“I want to go to the temple!” I say, lifting my breakfast to my mouth and taking a bite. “Get some answers.”

“You are forbidden to go to the temple,” Faiza snarls, her voice dropping low and dangerous.

I flick my eyes to her and roll them a bit. “I’m done with things being forbidden.”

“Juniper, this is no joke –“ Faiza growls. “She has said, expressly, that you are not to come –“

“Okay, then why is it forbidden?” I snap, putting my fork down. “Is it because it’s dangerous for me and she cares so much about my safety?”

Faiza narrows her eyes and straightens her shoulders, not answering. But the grim set to her mouth says that’s not it.

“Right,” I say, closing one eye and pointing my fork at her. “It’s not for my protection, it’s for hers. There’s something in there that she doesn’t want me to have, or to know, and I want to know what it is.”

“And you don’t think,” Faiza says, leaning towards me with a glare, “that my Lady will go to rather violent ends to keep her secrets to herself?”

“I am not fucking around either, Faiza,” I snap, all play and joy dropping from my voice, my expression. “This is damn war now and I have lots of power but very little resources and information. We’re getting him a body and me a crown,” I growl, pointing first at Anton and then at myself. “And I’m going to find out if your beloved Lady can help me with all of that.”

“What makes you think she can?” Laila asks quietly, taking a little bite of her pancakes, watching the conversation closely and with interest.

“Because she’s been keeping an eye on us,” I say with a shrug, looking down at my own breakfast plate. “And I don’t think it’s just for fun, as Faiza would have us believe. Or to keep an eye on Orion. No, she seems quite interested in me.”

“Arrogant,” Faiza murmurs.

I flick my eyes up to her, narrowing them a bit, wondering what she means by that. Just because I’m being arrogant doesn’t mean I’m not right. But the way she said it…

“Well, where’s the temple?” Laila asks, interested as Anton slides a little plate in front of Faiza and starts to fill it with breakfast for her. I smirk at him, knowing that he’s half doing it just to get a rise out of her. Faiza complies beautifully, glaring at my handmaiden in a way that makes me wonder if she’s trying to set him ablaze with the force of her wrath.

“The temple is in the City of Life,” Orion says with a sigh, turning back towards the coffee pot as it finishes brewing and beginning to pour out a few cups. “Honestly, Juniper…I’m not sure we should go there.”

“Why not?” I ask, turning my face up to him as he walks over to the table and places a cup in front of me. I don’t miss that he gives me mine first.

Neither does Laila.

“Because,” Orion says, looking down into my eyes with his pretty dark brown ones. “It’s…a city within the Underworld, but I don’t have any jurisdiction there. It’s the only place beyond the Deadlands that Life has claimed for herself. My magic won’t work.”

My eyebrows raise, because I was unaware that there was anyplace in the Underworld that Death didn’t have control.

“Will mine work?” I ask, looking up at Orion and then over at Faiza.

She just rolls her eyes at me, clearly implying that she’s certainly not going to give up any vital or interesting information on this point.

Anton lifts a forkful of pancakes towards her and Faiza leans forward, ignoring me, taking a dainty little bite.

“You’re supposed to be my handmaiden,” I snap playfully, narrowing my eyes at Tony. “How come you never feed me?”

He raises an eyebrow and flicks his eyes to me. “Let’s get you in shackles, kitten,” he says, a slow grin spreading over his lips. “And then we’ll see about that.”

A bright red blush instantly spreads over my cheeks and I glare at him, mentally promising to make him pay for that.

He just laughs a little, lowering the fork to the plate to get Faiza another bite. Faiza just smirks at me, well pleased.

I force my attention back to Orion, who comes over with cups of coffee for Faiza and Laila. “How do we get there?” I snap, willing my blush to fade.

Orion looks down at me, wary. “You seriously want to do this?”

I just grin at him, absolutely sure.