A trail of flames followed Raea up into the air, bathing the sky with a blood-red glow. The remaining halflings on the ground stopped what they were doing and raised their heads, but Raea ignored them, focusing only on her target—the floating cube in the sky. All thoughts of the talking statue were gone from her mind as she planned her approach. What should she do if Raphael refused to help her? Should she beg? Challenge him to a duel? Throw him out of the room until he complied? She rubbed her chin. That wasn’t a bad idea actually. Palan would’ve definitely approved.

Voices reached her ears over the crackling over her flames as she neared the floating room. “That’s her, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Palan’s voice. “Remember what you said. I’ll go confront her.”

“You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

Was that Creed’s voice? Raea couldn’t tell. But she didn’t have time to worry about it. A familiar figure rose out of the room, his body engulfed in a black light. Five tails and one head faced her. Palan landed on the wall of the room and waited with his arms crossed over his chest. Raea’s brow furrowed as she slowed her flight. Her chest throbbed, and the flames surrounding her grew larger. Why should she be the one to give up Palan? Why didn’t Andrea go live in the mountains like a hermit instead? What did Andrea do to deserve Palan’s love? It wasn’t fair.

“Raea,” Palan said, causing her chest to throb even harder. “If you don’t put your flames away, I’ll be forced to fight you.”

Raea snorted. “I can’t control them. I guess that says something about my state of mind, doesn’t it? What the hell were you thinking when you sent Andrea to feed me that cookie?” She narrowed her eyes. “You really thought of me as a tool, didn’t you? Once you were done using me, you threw me away without a second thought. I thought—”

“Wait,” Palan said and held his hand up. “What do you mean sent Andrea to feed you that cookie?”

Raea’s brow furrowed. Was he playing dumb or did he truly not know? “Your sister,” she said, slowing her words. “Came into my room. And fed me a cookie. It was a pink, heart-shaped one. I’m sure you know what pastry I’m referring to.”

“Andrea did?” Palan asked, raising an eyebrow. One of his tails swiveled around to face the interior of the room. His sister was biting her lower lip with her ears drooping and pointing towards the ground, classic signs of her being caught doing something bad. The last time Palan saw her like that, she had been in the middle of eating the goats instead of milking them.

“You didn’t know?” Raea asked. The flames around her swirled in the air, forming random shapes as she prevented them from surging towards Palan.

“No,” Palan said. “I thought it was Pyre who broke our contract. He always wanted to cause destruction everywhere he went. What better way than to make you even more unstable?”

“Hey. I’ll have you know I’m very stable right now,” Raea said and placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t feel the urge to destroy or kill anyone at all.” She pursed her lips as she added in her head, except your sister.

“Really?” Palan asked as he glanced off into the distance at Pyre’s burning laboratory building. Thick black smoke billowed out the windows while the first floor was a sea of flames. The building was on the verge of collapse, and dozens of halflings were running away from it. “Your actions don’t quite match your words.”

Raea followed his gaze. She blushed. “That was an accident. I thought I saw a talking statue and freaked out, but it’s dead now.”

“Accident,” Palan said, expression darkening. “I see. Then … this means you don’t want to fight?”

“I really want to smack you across the face, but that doesn’t mean I want to fight,” Raea said and harrumphed. “So everything was your sister’s plot. Shouldn’t you punish her?”

“We don’t know that yet,” Palan said and furrowed his brow. “She could’ve been tricked by Pyre and told to give you that cookie.” He turned his head around. “Wasn’t that the case?” Andrea’s head bobbed up and down as she inched behind Creed and clutched the hem of her shirt. Palan turned back to Raea. “She said it was Pyre’s fault. I already killed Pyre, so you shouldn’t feel aggrieved.”

“So just because your sister says so, it’s true?” Raea asked. “What about Pyre? I want to talk to him and see if it was really his idea or not.”

“He’s dead,” Palan said.

“So what? Bring him back to life,” Raea said.

“Why are you being so stubborn?” Palan asked. “It was Pyre’s fault, and now he’s dead. What more do you want?”

“I want you to see that your little sister isn’t the perfect person you think she is,” Raea said, glaring at him. “She’s sly, manipulative, and downright mean. She came to me pretending to be my friend and fed me a cookie to break our contract. I can’t stand the fact that you’re defending someone like her.”

Palan tilted his head. “Aren’t demons supposed to be sly, manipulative, and coldhearted? You don’t survive by being a good person.”

Raea snorted. “Don’t give me that. We’re in Div’Nya, not Eljiam. You should at least correct her behavior,” she said and clenched her hands. The fire that was spiraling above her head concentrated into a halberd. “And you. You haven’t even asked me if we were going to reestablish our contract. Doesn’t that mean you approve of your sister’s plan?”

“It wasn’t my sister’s plan; it was Pyre’s.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter whose plan it was; you clearly don’t want me back,” Raea said. “Am I right?”

Palan’s brow furrowed. Why was he hesitating? It was a simple choice. He hated being bound to someone else. He hated having his life dependent on someone else’s wellbeing. He thrived by being alone during his hunts for the majority of his life. Rejecting Raea was the most obvious choice. He didn’t need her powers of wrath or envy or greed. His pride was enough. His sister was already under his protection; he didn’t need to depend on Raea anymore. So why did he feel so uneasy? It wasn’t because he was afraid of fighting her if he told her to get lost. It was something else, and that something else scared him. So he made the most reasonable choice and chose to stay silent.

A cute voice cute through the tension between Palan and Raea. “Levy thinks you two should talk through your grievances like civilized people before you start killing each other. Look. Levy’s prepared two seats and a table for you two.”

“Are those words that should be coming from a demon of slaughter?” Creed asked, raising an eyebrow.

Levy pouted. “You forget that Levy’s also a demon of charity.” Her expression darkened for a brief instant before returning to her cute, smiling face. “And Levy wants to know more about these pink, heart-shaped cookies.” She glanced at Camael and licked her lips.