“Put it on,” Eilahn said gently, and I realized I’d been frowning at it for at least a dozen heartbeats.
I glanced up at her. “You said it was a shackle. What did you mean?”
“Artifacts of this type have been used to keep practitioners of the arcane from using their abilities, or to control when they used them”
“In the demon realm?”
“In both worlds,” she stated. “I borrowed this from the storage room of a museum in New Orleans.”
“Borrowed?”
The demon gave a light shrug. “I suspect that none there knew of its true nature, else it would not have been in a storage room with only a padlock for security. I will return it when you no longer have need of it, or I will make appropriate recompense.”
I’d have thought the demon sense of honor wouldn’t have allowed “borrowing” without asking, but apparently there was wiggle room in there according to whether the borrowed item would be missed. Apparently I still had a lot to learn about their honor. Hopefully I wouldn’t need the artifact for very long, and she could return it before anyone missed it. “Why couldn’t you just ask Rhyzkahl to bring one with him the next time I summoned him?”
She shook her head. “Because of its nature, it is not something that can be transferred through a portal without extreme effort.”
I winced. “Oh. Right. Something that mutes the arcane would screw up a portal pretty good, huh.”
“Precisely.” She watched me steadily. “The lock has been disabled. You will be able to remove it whenever you wish.”
I gave an unsteady smile. “I know. I’m just a little weirded out by the idea of putting on what’s essentially a slave cuff.”
She lowered her head, eyes steady on me. “You can wear this cuff here, or you can truly be made a slave in the demon realm after being summoned and bound,” the demon said, voice abruptly hard.
I clenched my jaw, then gave a curt nod. I was being a weenie. Lifting the cuff, I quickly snapped it onto my wrist. I expected to feel something unusual—a tingling, or, well, anything. But the cuff could have been made of plastic for all I felt.
“I don’t feel any different,” I finally said.
She gave a satisfied nod. “It will take a little time for you to feel any effect. But I would not have you wear anything that caused you harm or made it so that you were unable to function.”