by Sarah Piper
“That was before I knew she’d become a bloodsucker,” he said. “I can only imagine why you didn’t feel this change in circumstance warranted a discussion.”
“I’ve only just learned about it myself,” Deirdre said. She flashed her eyes at me, and I heard her warning in my mind.
Don’t say another word, Gray. We will discuss this later.
I downed the rest of my drink and pressed my lips together, but that was more out of frustration than following her orders. Since I’d met my grandmother, she’d left me with more questions than answers, popping in and out my life as it suited her. At this point, I felt very little allegiance to her.
I just didn’t know what the hell else to say.
“Be that as it may, Deirdre,” Sebastian drawled, “my patience on this matter is just about gone. I think it’s time the witch returns with me to Inferno.”
All the sympathy, the humanity, the gentleness I’d seen in him evaporated, replaced once again by the oily, underhanded wheeler-dealer I’d always known.
“We’ve got a penthouse suite all set up for you,” he told me with a smug smile, as if this was a selling point.
At this, I let out a hollow laugh. “Is that a euphemism for dungeon?”
“Hardly,” he said. “As long as you do as I ask, you’ll want for nothing, I assure you.”
“Sorry if I don’t take you at your word.”
“I’ve given you no reason not to trust me,” he said. “In fact, I’ve given you more leeway than any other in my possession.”
In my possession…
The words crept uneasily down my spine. Technically, he had given me leeway. From the moment Liam had burned my life scroll, Sebastian could’ve called in my contract with a snap of his greasy fingers.
But I needed more than leeway now. I needed time.
Steeling myself, I said, “You and I have a deal. You agreed to grant me my freedom until I’ve figured out the situation here. As you can see, we’re still dealing with that situation, and it’s only gotten more complicated.”
“I don’t see you dealing with anything,” he said, glancing around the kitchen. “I see a bunch of witches playing at spellcraft while the world outside falls apart.”
“Sebastian,” Deirdre said. “A word, please?”
“The world outside is exactly what we’re trying to save,” I reminded him, ignoring my grandmother’s pleas. “And if we fail, your operation fails, too. No more human vessels, no one making deals… It’s all just… Poof.” I made a starburst with my fingers. “So I’m real sorry the apocalypse isn’t sticking to your ideal timeline, but unless you’re willing to let it all burn down—including hell and your place in it—you should probably back off and let me do what I need to do here.”
“So let me get this straight,” he said, rubbing his fingers over that ridiculous goatee. “You refuse to trust me, yet at every turn, you’re expecting my trust. Demanding more and more of it. Attempting to break your contract.”
Deirdre’s voice echoed through my skull again. Gray, that’s enough. Tell him what he wants to hear and get him the hell out.
But telling Sebastian what he wanted to hear was the fastest way into another devil’s bargain you couldn’t talk your way out of, and I was not signing up for that.
“I made a vow to you that night at Inferno, Sebastian,” I said. “If that vow is broken, it will be because I’ve made you a better offer, not because I’ve reneged.”
After a beat, he rose from the table and came to stand beside my chair, towering over me.
Screw that. I stood up, meeting him at eye level, refusing to submit.
“Two weeks, Miss Desario,” he said, his breath sharp and boozy. “That is all the time I’m willing to grant, and that is more than generous. See to it that you handle your affairs before then, as there won’t be another extension. And should you even attempt to negotiate for more time, I won’t hesitate to smoke your beloved demons out of existence.”
His eyes glittered as he watched that threat hit the mark, worming its way into my mind. No matter how tall and tough I stood, I knew I couldn’t hide the fear in my eyes.
I was a fool to think for even a second there was anything humane about Sebastian.
“Show yourself out, prince,” I said, keeping my voice solid. “I’m sure you know the way back to hell.”
I turned my back on him, feeling both terrified and more powerful than I’d ever felt in my life.
I sensed his instant departure. Just like that, the air in the room cleared.
“Gray,” Deirdre said. “You must find your sisters.”
I turned to look at her, shocked by the sight. She was slumped in one of the kitchen chairs, her eyes watery, her whole body radiating exhaustion.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
Deirdre held my gaze a long moment, then shook her head, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I need to speak with the three of you. It’s urgent.”
Thirteen
GRAY
I found Addie and Haley with Verona and the other witches in the common room, all of them sitting around the fireplace, chatting and laughing over tea and cookies as if the last twenty minutes hadn’t even happened.
“Deirdre’s here,” I said to my sisters, deciding to leave the Sebastian stuff for later. “She needs to talk to us. Says it’s urgent.”
Haley and Addie headed back to the kitchen with me, Addie smoothing her hair on the way. She’d yet to meet our grandmother, and I had no idea how she’d feel when she finally did, but I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be a happy reunion. Not for any of us.
We found Deirdre sitting alone at the table, exactly where I’d left her. She spared a brief glance for Addie as we approached, her eyes misting at the sight, but then it was like a wall slammed down over her emotions, locking the rest of us out.
Immediately, she warded the kitchen, making sure no one would disturb us.
“There is no easy way to say this, girls, so I’m just going to come out with it,” Deirdre said. “I’ll fill in the details after. Okay?”
She didn’t give any of us a chance to disagree, or even wait until my sisters and I had gotten settled in our chairs. She just plowed on with the words that seemed to be tearing her up from the inside.
The ones I’d been afraid to hear since she’d first appeared in the kitchen, announcing that the story of my contract was hers to tell.
“Gray.” She took a steadying breath, then met my gaze, her face a mask of control.
It was inevitable, what she said next, and I couldn’t say it came as a surprise. All the clues had been there, and now that I looked backward, I could see them all line up neatly, waiting for me to solve the mystery on my own.
But I hadn’t, and hearing it said aloud rattled me to the core.
“I’m the one who sold your soul to Sebastian,” she said.
Ignoring my sisters’ gasps, I closed my eyes and let the confession wash over me. Word by word, it sank into my skin, winding its way around my heart and squeezing tight.
It was one more betrayal in a long line of broken promises and shattered trusts. So why the hell did it hurt so bad?
The table cracked before me.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been gripping it.
“Gray?” Haley touched my arm, gentle and kind, and I focused my energy on it, coming back into myself. Slowly, the anger receded, settling into a cold stone at the pit of my gut.
I released my death grip on the table and rose to put on the kettle, grabbing a bag of blood and some crushed hawthorn for myself. Something told me this fucked-up fairy tale was just beginning, and I was going to need a lot more than Haley’s touch on my arm to keep from tearing Deirdre’s head clear from her body.
Fourteen
GRAY
When the tea was ready and I felt like I could rejoin everyone at the table without destroying anything, I wrapped my hands around the mug and settled back into my chair, barely meeting
my grandmother’s eyes.
“Talk,” I said, staring at a point just above her left shoulder.
“Sebastian and I go back a long time,” Deirdre began. “Before any of you were even born, when I was still young and beautiful.”
Is that a twinkle in her voice?
“Save us the trip down memory lane,” I snapped. “Get to the point.”
“Oh, but this is the point, Gray. Every step, every decision led to the ultimate one. I could no more unravel this thread from the story than I could undo the outcome.”
I brought the mug to my mouth, biting back another nasty retort. For so long, all I’d wanted to know was who signed my contract—who sold my soul into demonic slavery, condemning me before I was even old enough to know what hell even was. But now that I had my answer, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to understand the hows and whys of it.
But Deirdre didn’t give me a choice then, and she sure as hell wasn’t giving me one now.
“I was fairly powerful in my own right,” she continued, “but hungry. Hungry to prove myself to my parents, who were well-regarded in our community but cruel and cold to their children. Hungry for bigger, more expansive magic, which always seemed to elude me. And most of all, hungry to make a name for myself. One night, after a particularly brutal fight with my parents, I was just angry and volatile enough to do the one thing I’d always known was absolutely forbidden—call upon the demon at the crossroads.”
A chill went through the room, and both my sisters shivered. I wrapped my hands around my mug, willing myself to sit still. To not leap across the table and throttle her.
“At the next full moon,” she continued, “I gathered up my supplies and headed out into the woods just before midnight, looking for the fabled place where two paths crossed—a dark, ominous part of the forest where most witches in my circle had never dared to venture. Once I knew I was in the right spot, I performed the ritual, spilling blood to call forth the demon servant who’d carry my plea to his master.
“Imagine my surprise when the master himself showed up. Oh, he was quite charming back then—in a different vessel entirely, mind you—and he knew exactly what to say to wrap me around his finger. I made my first deal that very night.”
“You sold your soul?” I asked.
“Not then, no. Sebastian doesn’t always trade in souls. There are other favors, other promises, other bits of knowledge and sacred information a witch might offer, and there were many things Sebastian wanted to know about my family. As I said, they were influential in the community, and my mother was a prominent witch from an even more prominent family. So Sebastian and I continued on in this way for years, meeting at the crossroads in the woods, making deals. We used to joke that I’d signed my name in blood so many times I could’ve fed an entire vampire coven for a year.” At this, she glanced at me briefly, but didn’t have the courage to hold my gaze.
“Why are you telling us all of this?” I asked.
“I want you all to understand that Sebastian and I knew each other very well by the time you girls came into my life. Call me a fool for trusting the Prince of Hell, but he’d never betrayed me, which was more than I could say for my own family.”
She paused to sip her tea, and I took a moment to process all of this. I didn’t want to feel sorry for her—not at all. But I also knew what it was like to finally find the one person you could trust after all the people in your life—the people you were supposed to be able to trust—had shit on you.
But my empathy could only go so far. I knew the ending of this story, and the person who’d gotten shit on this time wasn’t Deirdre. It was me.
“Fast forward to the night your mother tried to kill you,” Deirdre said. “By then I had a solid coven, backed by the power of Sebastian, who we’d been working with as a group for some time. After we succeeded in removing you four from your mother’s home, we did a binding ritual on you.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” Addie blurted out. It was the first she’d spoken since Deirdre had begun this story, and though she was initially eager to meet our grandmother, her demeanor toward her had flipped like a switch, as had Haley’s. The three of us now sat close together on one side of the table, shoulders practically touching, staring down our grandmother on the other side, like some kind of tribunal. We were in this together now—three out of the four witches of prophecy, united after more than two decades, never to be torn apart again.
“We thought binding your powers would allow you to blend into human society more seamlessly,” Deirdre explained. “But it didn’t work. Already you were all too strong—even Georgie, who was only a baby then. I knew it was only a matter of time before you were truly discovered—before people in the larger magical and supernatural communities learned the truth about your legacy. We knew the witches chosen to adopt you into their care would do their best to shield you, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. I didn’t… I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Sounds exactly like the kind of desperation Sebastian thrives on,” I said, draining the last of my tea. I’d added a little too much hawthorn, and now I felt it working its way into my bloodstream, quickly mellowing me out.
It was probably for the best. All that anger, all that bitterness was making it hard to think, and now that Deirdre had started weaving the full tapestry of this story, I realized I did want to know.
Every last detail.
“In exchange for your eternal protection, I offered him my own soul, my own blood. I’m no Silversbane, but as I said, my line is powerful in its own right, highly coveted by demon lords.”
“What demon lords?” Haley asked. “I thought Sebastian was the boss.”
“He has been in power a long time, Serena—”
“It’s Haley now.”
“Of course. Haley. But like all men in positions of power, he knows his is not guaranteed. There will always be challengers—someone hungrier, dirtier, more desperate, more willing to do whatever it takes to secure that ultimate power.”
“So you thought having access to your magic and your blood could somehow help keep him in power?” I asked.
“That was part of it, yes. But more than my powerful blood, I knew I had another advantage: In all those deals, over all those clandestine meetings at the crossroads, Sebastian had fallen in love with me.”
“Holy shit,” Addie said. “Are you saying Sebastian is our—”
“No. Your grandfather was human, I assure you. With all the same weaknesses and frailties as the rest.” Deirdre shook her head, the muscle in her jaw ticking. “He was long gone by the time your four came into the picture. In any case, I knew as well as Sebastian that my offer meant I’d become his—body, magic, and soul. There was no way he’d turn it down.”
“Well, apparently prostituting yourself to the Prince of Hell wasn’t enough after all, was it?” I asked. Under the table, I felt the touch of Addie’s hand on my thigh, offering a gentle squeeze.
Deirdre shook her head, her eyes glistening with fresh tears. “Nothing is simple when it comes to Sebastian, and this deal was no different. He had conditions, the first being that I allow him to make me immortal.”
Haley gasped. “You’re immortal?”
Nodding, she said, “My soul would always be his regardless, but he wanted my body, too—and not just for however many years or even decades I had left. He wanted to be sure that I was well and truly his possession—for eternity. So yes, I’m immortal, but it’s not the gift you might think. I was sixty-three when he turned me, so sixty-three I am cursed to remain.”
“You agreed to this?” I asked, a flicker of warmth suddenly worming its way back into my heart for her. An immortal existence as Sebastian’s lover sounded like a special kind of hell. “You traded your eternal freedom just so he’d protect us?”
She looked up at me again, a faint smile crossing her lips. In a soft voice full of pain and regret, she said, “Understand, child. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, even t
oday, if I thought it would help keep you four girls safe. I truly believed that by sacrificing my eternity to Sebastian, you and your sisters might have a chance at living your own lives, far away from the legacy and all who’d seek to use it against you.”
“How exactly was he supposed to protect us?” Addie asked.
“Sebastian promised to assign each of you a demon protector, charged with guarding you against hunters and—should she discover my trickery and come searching for you again—your mother. For many years, your guardians did just that, and though I quickly grew to despise Sebastian, I took comfort and joy in knowing that you were all safe. For the first time since you were born, I was beginning to feel like I could breathe again. Your mother believed you were dead. And the guardians were keeping you from danger. To me, every moment spent with Sebastian felt like an investment in your future, and it was a small price to pay.
“Sadly and regrettably, like most desperate people standing at the crossroads, I failed to read the fine print.” At this, she looked up to meet my gaze again, her own burning with shame. “What I didn’t realize, Gray, was that in addition to protecting you for the rest of your life, Sebastian would lay claim to your soul upon your natural death.”
“All of us?” I asked, alarmed.
Deirdre shook her head. “All of you are spoken of in the prophecy—the witches who would ultimately unite our kind. But Gray, only you are the third daughter of a third daughter. The powerful Shadowborn witch foretold to lead the covens. That was the power Sebastian most craved.”
“I still don’t understand how you could make a crossroads deal with someone else’s soul,” I said. “My soul. It wasn’t yours to bargain with.”
Inside, I felt my dark magic swirl, pulsing into my blood, looking for an outlet. My mind was screaming at me to put that woman through the wall, but apparently the hawthorn was keeping me in check.
At least, that’s what I was telling myself. If not, I’d have to admit that my heart was breaking for her. That if this were merely a story about someone else’s life, I’d already be cheering for the old woman to come out on top, despite all her missteps.
