There was only one way I could show him without speaking, and so I kissed him.

I am not usually a fan of public displays of affection, especially when I am being so closely observed. But if Nathaniel and I were physically joined, it tended to strengthen the emotional bond formed by our magic. So I kissed him, and I poured all of the things I could not say into that kiss. I told him that I cared, that I needed to protect him as much as he needed to protect me.

In that kiss I felt his love, his anger, his frustration and, finally, his resignation. He would not challenge Lucifer. For now.

I pulled away from him, put my mouth close to his ear. Everyone except Samiel and Beezle could probably hear us anyway, but I wanted at least the illusion of privacy.

“I’ll need you to get me out,” I said.

He nodded, though his anger had merely been banked, not eliminated.

Then I moved away from Nathaniel and toward Lucifer. “All right,” I said. “Arrest me, since that’s what you obviously want.”

“No,” Jude said, and Samiel shook his head rapidly. Beezle watched me carefully. I couldn’t tell whether he approved or not. I know Nathaniel didn’t.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What game do you play now, Granddaughter? First you proclaim loudly to have nothing to do with Evangeline’s death, and now you quietly permit me to lock you away?”

“I did have nothing to do with Evangeline’s death,” I said. “And I’ll be proven right. In the meantime, you can stop wasting everyone’s time with this farce.”

Puck looked at me like he was trying to figure me out. “I cannot tell if you are being very wise or very foolish.”

I shrugged in what I hoped was a mysterious fashion. Let Puck and Lucifer try to fathom my motivations for a change.

“I am certainly not going to allow the opportunity to imprison my fiancée’s murderer to pass,” Lucifer said. “Particularly not if you are going to be cooperative for a change.”

He snapped his fingers, and for the third time two servants appeared. I didn’t know whether he could communicate with them telepathically or what, but these two appeared to be just what the doctor ordered—big, burly characters that looked like prison guards.

For a moment I thought Nathaniel would not go along with my half-assed plan. The sight of the two men flanking me seemed like it might be too much for him to take. But he stayed in control.

Outwardly, I did the same as the two guards led me away from the scene in the hallway. Inwardly, I was trembling. I hoped that I was making the right decision.

It had been pretty apparent that Lucifer wanted me to take the fall for Evangeline’s murder. I didn’t know if it was an act or if he sincerely thought I had done it. But I did know if I stood in that hallway any longer, he would have continued to marshal “evidence” against me. And my best chance of wriggling off this hook that Lucifer had me on was to go along until Nathaniel and the others found the shifter—the real culprit.

The creature was still somewhere in Lucifer’s mansion. What I found shocking was that, if they were to be believed, neither Lucifer nor Puck nor Alerian could feel the shifter’s power or identify him when he was in disguise.

For creatures so old and powerful, this struck me as suspicious, particularly in Alerian’s case. If this shifter was like the ones Alerian had created so many centuries ago, then he should have been able to detect traces of its power signature. Alerian had expressed a decided lack of interest in the shifter. Lucifer, too, had been dismissive of the idea that such a creature could exist. All the evidence seemed to point toward the theory I’d developed earlier at dinner—that Lucifer was the shifter’s master, that he was using the shifter to corner me.

If Lucifer was manipulating all this, then I might have made a huge mistake by quietly offering myself up for imprisonment. But if Lucifer was simply using the circumstances to move things in his favor, then there was hope for me.

It was a gamble, but I hadn’t seen any other way to get out from under Lucifer’s microscope. Any other way that didn’t involve bloodshed, that is.

I was so involved in my thoughts that I’d barely noticed where we were going. Now I realized my two escorts were leading me down—and down, and down. We were on a curving stone staircase in a narrow passage, almost like one that would lead up to a high tower in a fairy tale. Except that in this case, the princess was going in the wrong direction.

We descended into the earth, far below Lucifer’s mansion. I wasn’t sure that any house built near Los Angeles could possibly have a foundation like this—more evidence that Lucifer magically manipulated his home to suit his needs. For all I knew this part of the house could be in a completely different dimension.

At the bottom of the stairs was a short row of cells on both sides of a hallway—metal bars that blocked rooms made of cold stone. There were no windows, and only a few flickering torches of flame provided light.

“Where did Lucifer learn about prison decorating? The Count of Monte Cristo?” I said.

Neither of the two men with me responded. One of them took out a bunch of keys on a metal ring. The feeling that I was suddenly trapped in a Dumas novel persisted. He opened the metal door and the other jail keeper ushered me in. There was a stone bench to sleep on, but nothing more.

As the door slammed shut behind me, I felt a moment of profound panic. I was trapped, pinned like a butterfly on a board. Lucifer finally had me where he wanted me—under his thumb and unable to do anything about it. My baby, who had been so unusually silent and still during the events upstairs, fluttered his little wings in time with the rapid thrum of my heart. Would Nathaniel even be able to find me down here?