He shook his head, his face unusually grave. “Not this time.”
And that more than anything terrified me. If Beezle couldn’t crack wise about the Maze, then maybe there really was something to be scared of.
Maybe it really was worse than Ramuell. I hadn’t thought that was possible.
I scrounged up a small bag of almonds that Beezle had somehow overlooked, drank some bottled water, and changed into my regular, non-ambassador clothes. I’d packed my favorite blue jeans and a long-sleeved black tee plus my black Converse sneakers. I took down my stupid updo and carefully braided my hair into one long plait that ended in the middle of my back. Then I wrapped the plait around my head so I looked a lot like Princess Leia, but at least my hair was out of the way and couldn’t be used as a weapon by anything scary that I might meet in the Maze.
I looked at myself in the mirror. This was as good as it was going to get. I was ready for battle.
“It would be nice to have a machete or something, though,” I muttered to my reflection.
“Would a sword do?” a voice said from the connecting doorway.
I whirled around. Nathaniel stood in the doorway watching me. He clutched one arm around his middle where I had burned him. I saw white bandages showing under his unbuttoned dress shirt. His face was pale and he looked like he was in horrific pain.
“You look terrible,” I said with a total lack of sympathy. “Why haven’t you healed yourself?”
“It seems,” he said, struggling a bit with the effort of speaking, “that the spell you used on me cannot be healed in the usual way. I must wait for my body to reknit itself.”
“You know it’s no less than you deserve,” I said.
He nodded. “I am well aware that my behavior was reprehensible. But there was something . . . You must believe that I did not feel like myself.”
“You felt like a ra**st?”
“No,” he said slowly. “More like I was under the influence of a power not my own.”
I didn’t want to give credence to this. Nathaniel had hurt me. But I had a flash of remembrance, the feeling I’d had of something alien looking out from Nathaniel’s eyes.
“What power could have overcome you?” I asked. “You’re not the weakest of Azazel’s court.”
Nathaniel’s eyes flashed. “Whose castle do we presently reside in?”
“Amarantha? Why?”
“Perhaps she wanted to drive a wedge between us. Perhaps she wanted to destabilize your base of power in her court.”
“Well, she succeeded,” I muttered. I crossed my arms, then let them fall at my sides again. I wasn’t going to hide from him. “Was there something you wanted?”
“The gargoyle told me that you are to enter the Maze.”
I was surprised. I didn’t think Beezle would have left me only to talk to Nathaniel, who was not one of his favorite people at the best of times.
“What’s it to you?” I said.
“I would rather you returned from the Maze alive than dead,” Nathaniel said. “I have come to give you a gift.”
He stepped out of the doorway, and it was then that I saw the sword he carried in his free hand.
It was about four feet long, and the metal was silver in color, but it gleamed like no metal I had seen before. The blade was carved with a series of strange sigils that glittered in the lamplight. The cross guard and grip were black as obsidian but shone with a strange light in their depths. A serpent was carved around the hilt. Its black eyes seemed to see me, weigh me, judge me in a moment.
I knew that I was looking at something that was not of this earth.
“It is the sword of my father, the angel Zerachiel,” Nathaniel said. “He had dominion over the earth at one time. Lucifer gifted him with this sword many millennia ago.”
I reached out to touch the strange blade, but then drew my hand away. “Why would you give this to me?”
He looked away from my questioning gaze. “I had hoped to give it to our son one day. Since that future is no longer to be, I wish you to use the sword to survive the Maze. It was forged by Lucifer’s own hand, and it has powers of its own. The sword would be pleased to be held by Lucifer’s blood again.”
I still hesitated, and Nathaniel read my hesitation correctly.
“It is a gift freely given. There will be no price to pay. I ask only that, if you return from the Maze, you think better of me. You cannot know how I regret what occurred last night,” he said.
I didn’t think I’d be thinking any better of his character anytime soon, and it was difficult for me to reconcile his apparent regret with the terror and helplessness I’d felt. Even if there was a strong possibility that he had been under a spell, the memory would stay with me forever.
But I appreciated any help I could get surviving the Maze, even if I didn’t know the first thing about swordplay. I just hoped that I wouldn’t cut off one of my own limbs accidentally.
“Thank you,” I said, and I reached for the sword.
As soon as the hilt met my palm, I felt something deep inside me sing out with joy. The snake seemed to writhe against my skin, and the blade noticeably gleamed brighter.
“It recognizes you,” Nathaniel said softly. “It has been waiting for you.”
There was a power surging in my blood, a power that had been buried so deep that only the sword could have drawn it from me. I looked up, and Nathaniel gasped.
“Your eyes,” he said.