“May I ask you a question?” Lily asked. Well, right now she had several. Btu she felt the woman's fear and hesitance, too, and didn’t want to scare her off.

“I don't know,” the woman said, her body pulling back in a subconscious gesture.

Lily kept her voice quiet and relaxed. “How long have you been here?” The woman had to be well past her 29th-year, which meant she went through her new moon. Thought succubus could live to a really long time, like her father did, if they stayed well fed. How was she still alive? A succubus without sex of some kind to feed her, killed her.

“Can't be sure,” she said quickly. “Days runs together, never end. Long time ago.”

“Was it before the Great War?”

The woman's eye flew open with fear. “Not that long. Not that long.” She shook her head side to side and didn't stop.

“Do you...do you know your last name?” Lily's heart pounded as she asked. Something inside her told her this was important. She didn't know why, but maybe if she got out of here then with the help of Telal, she could get this woman out of here. Get all of these prisoners out of here.

“Forgot long ago. Lucky I know my first name.” She paused, her eyes bulging. “If that is my first name. Is my name Mary?” she whispered.

Lily kept her voice calm and low. “Yes, yes it is.” The woman looked relieved at her answer as if she could somehow give her information into her own life. “Can you try to remember your last name? I might be able to help you.”

The woman scurried back a few feet on her knees, scraping the skin but making no show that she cared. Her hands ran jerkily up and down her arms as she rocked. “I don't...I don't know.”

“Can you try, Mary?”

Maybe it was having someone use her first name, or just being kind to her, but she stopped rocking and stared at the floor, her face hidden by hair. “Beagle. Blue. Bells.” After each guess, she shook her head like she knew it was wrong. “Balls, low, bell, bells.” She was rocking hard now, each guess sending her voice higher, more frantic. Her hands gripped her hair in tight fists and pulled. “Bellum. Bellum. Bellum.”

The last word echoed in Lily's mind. She couldn't say anything. Couldn't even wrap her mind around it. At first, she analyzed the woman's words, tried to figure out if when she'd introduced herself she said her last name. But no, she'd been too hesitant to do that. Her last name didn't come up at all. This woman, this older woman... Lily scrambled across the cell to her. The woman jerked at her frantic response and scrambled away.

“Don't come. Don't come near.”

“Are you Mary Bellum? Are you Mary Bellum!”

The woman started shaking, her hands frantically covering her ears as she rocked and rocked, her head held low. “I don't know,” she whispered fiercely. “That...that could be an old friend, just some name I remember from the past. I don't...I don't know.”

Lily did know. It all lined up, fused together. “When did you get down here? Why? How?” she demanded, her patience waning in the need for answers.

The woman backed further into the shadows of her small cage, further away from her.

“Answer me! I need to know!”

“Years ago...years ago.”

Lily gripped the cold bars and leaned in. “How long? About twenty-nine years?”

The woman shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know. Stop talking. Don't talk to me anymore. I don't like.” She wrapped her arms completely around her head and rocked with her head between her spread knees.

A door opened at the end of the hall and some frantic force inside her made her speak to this woman in fast, rushed tones. “Listen to me. My name is Lily Bellum. My father is Francis Bellum. I have two sisters named Willow and Chloe. Does any of this mean anything to you?”

The woman made a whining sound, her voice blocking out Lily's questioning.

“Answer me, please! I have to know. Are you my mother?” The heavy footsteps, two sets of them came closer. One stopped at her cage. Lily only spared the demon a parting glance. “Answer me! Are you her?” she practically screamed as the key in the lock turned and the cage was pulled open.

The woman keened higher as her own cage door was opened. The guard came forward with a length of rope in his hand. Lily launched at her cage. “Don't touch her! Stay away from her!”

The demon gave her a laughing look. “Time to feed, succubus.”

Lily's face paled and she watched as the woman stopped moaning and stood, watching the guard with wide, terrified eyes. The guard made a lunge for her and she hopped to the side and darted for the open cage door. She didn't make it out. The guard recovered quickly and grabbed her in a brutal grip, then wrapped the rope tightly around her wrists until the skin around it turned pink from the circulation being cut off.

“You-you can't take her,” Lily said slowly. Her mind was in shocked overload. She couldn't be witnessing what she thought she was. The truth was too awful to comprehend.

The demon ignored her, and the woman bowed her head as he dragged her out of the cage, her feet scraping against the hard floor.

“Mary, are you her?” she shouted one last time as the demon in her cage pulled her arms behind her and trussed up her hands.

The woman and the guard neared the door. The demon opened it and at the last second before the woman disappeared, her face lifted completely, the hair free from covering her face for the first time, and Lily saw her sister's eyes.

“Mother!” she screamed as the door slammed shut.

Telal braced himself as two guards came into the throne room. One marched ahead while the other dragged a fighting woman behind him. She faced away from him, but he recognized her size and hair color in an instant.

“What is she doing here?

Alrik watched his expression. “You should know. She came here with you.”

“No she did not. The idiot came here alone, probably thinking to help me.”

“Help you do what exactly?” Alrik said.

Telal leveled his hard gaze on his brother's. “To convince you to open the rift.”

Alrik smirked, his dark lips twisting. The guard stopped at the steps of the dais and shoved Lily to the ground. “Move and we'll make you regret it,” the guard said, releasing her.

They had her wrists tied behind her back, and Telal could see the strain it took on her body. But she didn't cry out, didn't make a sound. A small part of him...was pleased with her. Even though her own action brought her here, at least she handled it well enough.

“What do you plan to do with her?”

Alrik crossed his big arms across his chest. “She's fresh, young, and pretty. And she's trespassed. She'll be sentenced accordingly and I believe will become quite popular among the guards.”

Telal kept his expression blank as rage exploded inside him, making his blood race; his muscles tightened with the need to fight. He avoided her searching eyes; he couldn't look at her now or he might lose it and get them both stuck here.

“She's coming with me, Alrik.”

“Is she?”

His mother stepped forward and laid a manicured hand on Alrik's shoulder. “Let me touch her and get a feel for her.”

Alrik nodded and Telal tensed. His family always had strong magical powers. His mother's power was different, she could touch someone and sense things about them, though what good that could do her, he didn't know. Her powers didn’t end there, she had other darker abilities. They weren't made to be dark, but Telal had witnessed her vicious attacks with magic since he was a boy.

The queen took the steps down to the ground floor, her dress glittering in the candlelight like hundreds of little diamonds. She kept her shoulders pushed back sharply, her chin held high, her hands held loosely together. She wore her hair pulled back into an elaborate design that looped at the back of her head and trailed down in a mixture of intricate waves and weaves to her waist. She might look innocent, but he knew better.