Page 72 of The Demon Prince

She flinched away from him, staggering back from the table as her entire body rebelled at the accusation. Vomit rose in her throat at the mere thought. “What are you saying?”

“He’s made you into a monster for him,” Alexander muttered, before lifting a hand and pointing his finger at her. “It’s not safe to have you around my patients. You are no longer allowed in this clinic. Nor are you allowed to step foot anywhere near it.”

“You can’t fire me, Alexander. I’m your best stitcher.” Katherine tried her best to reason with him. “This is just a misunderstanding, and I can prove that these are not the same marks that he’s left before.”

“Get out!” he shouted. His voice rang out through the surgery room, echoing down the hall, and she knew that all the other people who worked here had heard him. “Get out, demon!”

Flinching, Katherine realized this could quickly turn into a dangerous situation. She did need to leave. She should run, but she couldn’t because of her damn leg.

So she strode out of the surgery room with her head held high. As she left she looked for Grace, but her friend wasn’t here any longer. The only people looking back at her were unfriendly faces filled with suspicion.

They would believe anything they were told, she realized. And this town was no longer safe for someone like her.

ChapterTwenty-Six

“Envy?” Gluttony said, pushing his glasses up his nose as he looked at his newest experiment. “Get out of my lab.”

“I’m just looking.”

“No, you are not. You’re touching.” He sighed and spun around on the stool, watching his brother poke at everything he could get his fingers on. “You’re leaving smudge marks.”

“I am not.” Envy lifted a vial up to the light, tilting it back and forth. “See? Perfectly clean.”

“Still touching.”

His brother heaved a rather dramatic sigh and then placed the vial back on the table. “You really are too finicky about these things. I can replace any vial I might break.”

“But not what’s inside it.”

“Yes, yes, we all know how finicky you are about your things.” At least Envy put the vial down, but apparently he was taking this opportunity to talk.

Gluttony didn’t want to talk. He was getting significantly closer to solving his brothers’ problems, and that was all because of a small amount of lunar caustic he had left over from a while ago. He’d found the dust covered bottle in the very back of his lab and thought to give it a try.

The black mist had turned a pretty deep blue. Which meant, unsurprisingly, he was correct. The mist that had been used to attack both him and Greed was alchemical in origin, and he could figure out what it was made of.

Envy was only prolonging that process, however, and he needed his brother to leave.

Envy, apparently, had other opinions. His brother snatched another stool and set it in front of Gluttony, plopping down beside his workstation and grabbing yet another vial.

“Has she forgiven me, yet?” Envy asked, looking at the pale yellow substance through the glass.

“For telling her that she was less worthy because of her past injuries?” Gluttony snorted. “Oh, sure. She’s forgiven you.”

“Well, that’s good then.”

“I was being sarcastic.” Gluttony pushed his glasses up again and turned back toward the vials, ignoring his brother’s spluttering anger. “She will not forgive you without a reason to, and all you’ve done since then is hide or lurk around us. You need to actually apologize for it.”

“I did.”

“You haven’t said a word to her since the whole ordeal.” Gluttony rolled his eyes, trying his best to focus on his work and not on his idiot brother. “She’s not a toy for you to play with. She’s a woman who was extremely insulted by what you said. And has every right to be.”

“I’m not good with women. I’m better with toys.”

“Is that what you call your conquests these days?” he asked, while tilting a slight amount of ammonia into his vial. “I’m sure they appreciate that very much. They probably return to their mother and sing your praises about how the demon of envy thought they were fun to play with.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

“Oh, it always has. You just don’t like hearing that you aren’t a very good person.”

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