Free Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3) by S.M. Reine

gotten military Tasers wasn’t nearly as much of a concern as the fact that they had them at all.
    Only two things could hurt Elise: light and electricity. There were no great sources of light in Hell; most demons preferred to live a life in constant twilight. But they had somehow obtained electricity, which meant that they had known that they would need it. Furthermore, the nightmares hadn’t been impressed by the sight of the Father. They had been warned.
    The assault was deliberate. Someone knew Elise was in Hell.
     
    Reaching Vassago’s house from the slave market required a long walk around the walls of the Palace of Dis. Elise had been avoiding it since she returned to Hell, but there was no way to stay away now.
    The Palace loomed out of the ashen darkness of the city, towering high overhead in black spires of iron and obsidian. The tallest of the towers had fallen during Elise’s last visit. The curve of buildings against the sky looked empty without it.
    If the House of Abraxas was a self-sustaining village, then the Palace was its own city. Over the crenellated walls, Elise could make out the shape of the building where her father, the former Inquisitor, had tortured the demons that he arrested. She could see the apartments where visiting touchstones used to live, as well as the Council members’ quarters, all linked together by delicate iron bridges that looked like they should have snapped under the hard desert winds. They were heavily trafficked by demons that flitted from one door to another, black shapes against a red sky.
    They had been rebuilding the grand tower for some years. For now, it was mostly a honeycomb of exposed steel climbed by black brick, but there were already the beginnings of a crystalline bridge being constructed at its apex. Unlike the others, this bridge didn’t lead to another. It would soon climb all the way to the fissure—if Elise didn’t do anything about it.
    From the ground, the Palace’s roofs were an impressive sight. Like the bottom half of a fanged jaw jutting from the ground. Even with a thirty-foot-tall wall between them, heavily warded with magic both mortal and infernal, Elise couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that it might bite down on her.
    In contrast, Vassago’s house seemed almost mundane. It emulated old Victorian homes Elise had seen on the East Coast with bay windows and red brick. The gate was tall, but not so tall she couldn’t have jumped over it; the barbed wire was a better disincentive than the height, and the runes stamped on his gate better still. They were used to incorporeal attacks in Hell. Elise wouldn’t be able to phase into Vassago’s house any more than she had been able to phase into the House of Abraxas.
    She peered through the wrought iron gate to the garden. Human hands jutted from the flowerbeds in front of his windows. They hadn’t been tended in a long time; some of them had wilted, limp at the wrists, and others had overgrown nails ribboning from their fingertips. The fear that had been keeping the citizenry of Dis out of the streets had been keeping Vassago from gardening, too.
    “He may not be home,” Devadas said in a high, almost whining voice. “We shouldn’t allow ourselves to remain exposed for long.”
    “Is there a doorbell?” she asked, searching the brick gates for a button or pull cord.
    “There are likely guards watching from within. If they wanted us to visit, they would open the door.”
    She frowned. “What about spontaneous visitors?”
    “Only Stewards can cross the wards,” he said. “We’re bound to restrictive contracts that prevent us from causing trouble. You can’t visit without his permission.”
    “But Stewards can,” Elise said.
    He shook his head. “Oh, no. No. I don’t think so.” In his fear, he had reared up on his tail, growing a full foot and flaring out his hood. The right side of his face was a swollen bruise. “There are rules. Regulations. Customs .”
    Funny. Elise