Nefertem felt it when Sahriel was taken by Seth, not because there was any explosive anger in the wake of it but because you could only possess one seal at a time, and in taking Sahriel’s, Seth had set Nefertem free. He smiled, shaking his head at the stupidity of it. Seth was a fool to trust him so completely; to think he would wait at home, and let him just drag Sahriel to France, where Nefertem knew for a fact he didn’t want to go.
Three days passed before Nefertem came down from his rooms to seek out Seth, still bruised and aching but feeling alive again, his skin no longer burning, cooling to it’s usual low temperature. He went first to Seth’s rooms, but upon finding them empty, made his way downstairs into the pit. His seal was there, in the locked casket beside Seth’s, locked and sealed away where he couldn’t steal it back, but Seth himself was nowhere to be found. Growing curious, Nefertem searched the house, to no avail, then threw his senses out in an ever-increasing arc, expecting to find him at some party, in some noble’s ear, as always.
On the day of Nefertem’s storm and subsequent sojourn back to hell, Seth was enjoying himself at a party. A very important party, the King’s fete at Versailles, which he’d managed to attain an invitation to attend in the palace itself with the King and his most trusted advisors. It was a project he had spent months on, determined to get in the King’s ear, and eventually anywhere else he needed to ensure that at some point France would be his, convinced that if he could take this little corner of the world, he could take Spain, and then Britain, and then the world. He just needed that annoying runt home where he belonged, where the others wouldn’t be able to interfere with him.
Sahriel hadn’t been so nervous in centuries; not since he realised someone had unearthed his seal and he was a possession to a man he’d never met. Then he’d been nervous, but he’d at least known he was the demon and a human couldn’t get as creative as a demon when it came to ordering him about. But this was different. This was Nefertem and deep down Sahriel didn’t want to harm him, but refused to go to Seth, if that was even what Nefertem wanted.
Someone knocked at the door. Teague frowned, almost certain that Sahriel wouldn’t knock even if Jack was there. He got up slowly and went to answer, opening it curiously and then just staring, feeling like the air was being sucked out of his lungs and he had only just enough time to think he looked eerily like Sahriel before a hand slammed around his throat and he was being lifted off the floor like he weighed nothing, the door slamming shut as the stranger walked in. No wonder Jack hadn’t known how to explain anything…there was no way that creature was human, which made Teague have some very strange thoughts about Sahriel.
It was when Jack heard Sahriel was going out for the night that an idea began to occur to him, and if Sahriel was even a little late, it seemed to him that it might be enough time to take advantage of. He hurried a little with his work, getting done as quickly as possible and sneaking up to the room that Teague and Sahriel shared, waiting there.