by Sarah Piper
He eyed me suspiciously for no more than a breath, then laughed, smug satisfaction distorting his already vile features. “Ah, so our fan favorite has tickled your fancy. She’s quite remarkable, I’m told.”
“You were right,” I said, trying to appear both aroused and ashamed. “My human vessel does have certain… proclivities. The longer I retain this form, the more insistent those proclivities become. I will comply with your terms, and ask only that you grant me this gift of flesh as a show of good faith.”
Still laughing, Sebastian slid the contract and a pen across the table. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
I signed quickly, and the entire envelope vanished.
“I will have Violet prepared and waiting for you in Suite 666. It’s my personal favorite.” He produced a keycard, and I took it without ceremony, sliding it into my pocket.
“Always a pleasure.” He stuck out his hand to shake, but a sudden commotion outside the conference room door interrupted our farewell. The door crashed open, and Ronan shoved his way inside, cradling Gray in his arms.
The sight of her lifeless body… I nearly gasped.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Another young woman stumbled in behind Ronan, breathless and trembling. “I tried to stop him, but he was very insistent that he see you.”
“Indeed. And what have I told you about Ronan Vacarro?” he asked.
“That’s R-Ronan?” She quivered, bowing her head low. “I didn’t realize it was him, sir. He never said.”
“Ignorance is not your savior, child.”
“I know, sir. I’m very sorry.”
“As am I. Now I’ll have to find a new assistant.” He whispered a brief incantation, and then she vanished, leaving nothing but a black wisp in her wake.
“And to what do I owe this honor?” Sebastian drawled. “What an unexpected surprise.”
He couldn’t hide the raw pleasure on his face as he approached Gray. Here in the flesh, after all this time, was the witch he’d been patiently stalking her entire life. Longer, even. From the moment he’d heard about the Silversbane prophecy, he’d known she was special.
Ronan and I remained silent as Sebastian looked her over, barely keeping his greed in check. With her head resting peacefully on Ronan’s shoulder, Gray was warm and alive, the color high on her cheeks, her curls glossy despite her ordeal in the Shadowrealm.
But her soul was gone, just as I’d known it would be. And unless I could find it and successfully reunite the two, her body would decompose, and everything about her that had ever existed would simply cease.
A world without Gray Desario… It was incomprehensible.
Though I didn’t deserve to touch her again, I reached out anyway, brushing my knuckles along her jaw. Her skin was silky-soft, but it felt wrong—a great void where before there had been vitality and warmth and pure magic.
“Do something,” Ronan barked at me, ignoring Sebastian. “Fix this.” His commanding voice broke into something helpless and desperate at the end, heartache soaking his every word.
“I shall do my best,” I assured him, but hopelessness was contagious, and the longer I stared into his desperate eyes, the faster I felt myself slipping into the same dark oblivion.
Neither of us had the luxury of giving up or checking out.
“I see you two are already acquainted,” Sebastian said. “Excellent, that saves me the trouble of introductions. Ronan, your friend and I were just having the most fascinating conversation. I understand the witch’s soul is lost in hell. Can you imagine? What are the chances that my sharpest demon guardian would make the mistake of bringing a demon sworn through the hell portal?”
“We were out of options,” Ronan said, his jaw tight. And swollen, I now noticed. Blood dried in the corners of his mouth, and along a deep gash above his eye.
“Well, I’m nothing if not generous,” Sebastian said. “It turns out there is one more option. One way—and only one—to retrieve Gray’s soul and reunite it with her body.”
Ronan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, composing himself. “What’s it gonna cost me this time?”
“Not a red cent, boy.” Sebastian grinned, jerking his head toward me as he slapped a meaty hand over my shoulder. “This one’s on him.”
Ronan’s head turned slowly, his eyes blazing with twin flames of fury and fear.
“What,” he whispered, “have you done?”
I opened my mouth intending to explain, but there was no time.
And at the moment, I was severely low on courage and valor.
I nodded once, my form of an apology, then vanished without a response.
Gray’s demon guardian would have his answer soon enough.
Four
Gray
I knelt in the bottom of a small wooden boat blackened with rot, floating on an obsidian lake. A striking orange-red sky bled across the horizon, beautiful like the dawn but for the faces looming in its dark gray clouds. They were the ghosts of hell, each mouth stretched and howling in torment, every one of them reflected endlessly in the black-mirror lake.
Their screams roared like the wind, but caused no ripples. When I reached over the side of the boat and trailed my fingers through the water, I felt nothing but air.
It was all an illusion meant to slowly drive me insane.
My predicament was neither a mystery nor a surprise. As a demon sworn witch, my chances of escaping the hell portal had been less than zero. I’d known the risks, but I’d taken them anyway; all I’d wanted was one more moment in Ronan’s arms. To make him understand that I trusted him implicitly, no matter what the consequences. To leave him the parting gift of my unfaltering faith.
He’d earned it.
My eyes watered. The acrid stench of sulfur and burned flesh soaked the air, but I wasn’t scared. Wasn’t cold or hungry or tired or in pain. Stuck on my rickety boat in the middle of this endless yet nonexistent lake, I knew I wasn’t in any real danger.
I was just… empty. Empty and alone.
Though I’d never met him, I was getting a crash course in Sebastian’s precise form of cruelty. I’d no doubt that he’d crafted this version of hell specifically for me—his red-carpet welcome.
Unlike in the Shadowrealm, here I found no fire-breathing, flesh-tearing demons, or needling glass rainstorms, or Jonathan and his monstrous torments. Simply and ingeniously, the Prince of Hell had doled out the worst punishment he could’ve imagined for me: separating me from the ones I loved, leaving me to float helplessly on a boat that would never reach the shore while my rebels were left to fight their wars and face their demons without me. My memories would never fade, and I’d never be allowed to sleep. There would be no respite for me, no escape from the knowledge of all I’d lost. Just this boat, this lake, and all the ghosts that lived in my head. Every hour, ever century. An eternity of regret.
That was his style.
But as much as I was learning about my new captor, it seemed he hadn’t bothered to study up on me. If he had, he would’ve known that being a hostage wasn’t really my strong suit. After all, Jonathan’s cave prison hadn’t been enough hold me. And hadn’t I managed to escape the Shadowrealm? Out of the frying pan and into the fire, maybe, but an escape nevertheless. One that should’ve been impossible given the fact that I’d banished an unwilling soul.
Yet Sebastian thought an unplanned side trip to Hell would stop me?
Hard pass, asshole.
I smiled, and something flickered beneath all that emptiness and despair inside. An ember of something that felt a lot like hope.
I got to my feet and climbed onto the narrow foredeck, the boat rocking but not tipping over as it probably should’ve. I knew my voice would never carry above the vicious howl of those ghastly clouds, but I felt the need to say my piece anyway.
“I am not your hostage,” I called out. “You can burn my body, but my soul is and will always be mine. You hear me? I am mine. I am mine.”
It started softly, but the words t
hemselves were like a spell, magic gathering in the air before me, crackling with power, swirling into a hot wind around me that lifted my hair and gave me strength.
“I am mine. I am mine. I am mine.” I repeated the words a hundred times, a thousand, a million, each time getting louder and louder until my soft calls turned into a powerful roar that echoed across the lake, drowning out the sounds of the damned, scraping my throat raw and reverberating through my bones. In one final, triumphant call, I lifted my hands to the sky, tossed my head back, and screamed, shattering the black mirror lake into dust.
“I. Am. Mine!”
“I want more than anything for that to be true,” came a dark echo. “But there isn’t enough magic in all the realms to make it so.”
The magic wind surrounding me suddenly stopped, and when I brushed the hair from my face and opened my eyes, I found myself staring into the electric blue gaze of a massive white raven.
He flapped his great wings, then transformed into a pillar of smoke that roiled and churned before me, finally falling away to reveal a familiar site.
A man with sun-streaked hair and a worn flannel shirt, gazing back at me with ancient blue eyes that swirled with all the mysteries of the universe.
My heart leaped. It felt like I’d conjured him. Like he’d heard the call of my magic across the realms, and then he’d appeared, ready to sweep me into his arms and escort me out of this terrible nightmare.
“My knight in shining flannel,” I teased, unable to hold back my smile, even as fresh tears filled my eyes. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
I stretched up on my toes and kissed the corner of his mouth, wrapping my arms around his neck, but Liam didn’t respond.
“Liam?” I pressed. “You… you are here to rescue me, right?” Why else would he have tracked me down in Hell if not to help me fight my way out? To warn me against all my crazy schemes, and then back me up as I put every single one of them into motion?
“I’m so sorry, Gray. I’m not here to… I’m… Not this time,” he sputtered, sounding as scared and uncertain as a child lost in the woods. He pulled out of my embrace and looked at me, eyes flashing with a deep and endless pain. He grabbed my upper arms so tightly I was certain he’d leave bruises.
“Liam?” I whispered.
“I am here to offer you a choice.” Holding me just beyond the reach of his warmth, of his now-familiar strength, he said somberly, “The very last you will likely be allowed to make.”
Five
Gray
I’d turned Hell’s black lake into dust, and now our rotting little boat drifted on a sea of nothingness, our knees touching as we sat across from each other on cold, damp benches .
Minutes passed in deadly silence, time stretching before us like hours. Days. Even the ghostly clouds had drifted away, as if the trapped spirits had grown tired of waiting for Death to explain.
“Jonathan is trapped in your realm,” he finally said. “I chased him through the black forest, but he eluded my capture. Something is very, very wrong with him. He’s no longer part of the natural order, and therefore not subject to its rules. He didn’t seem to recognize where he was, or how he’d gotten there—only that he wanted out.”
“He’s a hybrid now,” I said. “Vampire, shifter, who knows what else. He jumped through the rune gate, and then…” I closed my eyes, my body trembling at the memory of the winged beasts that attacked us. That stole Darius’s memories. “Liam, Darius lost his—”
“There’s no need for you to relive that pain. I know what happened. ”
“Oh. Right.” I opened my eyes, and he lowered his, his cheeks colored with something that looked a lot like shame, though I couldn’t imagine what he had to be ashamed about. It wasn’t Liam’s fault he knew all possible outcomes before they happened. That was just one of Death’s many burdens.
At least, that was how I saw it. God, I couldn’t imagine carrying that kind of weight.
I reached for his hand, but his own was cold beneath my touch.
“I could do nothing to help you,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. “Nothing to warn you or turn back the ceaseless march of time. The attack, Ronan’s decision to bring you through the hell portal, Darius’s memory loss… all of those things belonged to an infinitesimal set of possibilities in an infinite sea of others. I saw those terrible events unfold, but I also saw you arriving in your magical realm to meet me as we’d planned, and returning home safely. I saw other outcomes where Ronan died, where Darius was lost in the hell portal rather than you, where you were the one whose memories were swallowed. I watched you turn on your beloved demon, stabbing him in the chest with your blade because you perceived him as a threat instead of your guardian. I saw the three of you enter your portal at the Pool of Unknowing, arriving in the magical realm unharmed together. I saw you healing Jonathan rather than attacking him, reversing the damage his twisted experiments caused his own body and urging him to relinquish his evil quest. I saw you sending Ronan and Darius home through the hell portal, only to remain behind to fight the memory eaters yourself. In one version of events, you even became Queen of the Shadowrealm, sacrificing yourself once again for all those you cared for. And I saw Jonathan escaping into the material plane, unleashing his terror on the remaining witches of Blackmoon Bay… and beyond. It wasn’t until I felt the pulse of your soul in this terrible place that I knew the final, irrevocable outcome from all of those possibilities.”
“So all of those things… those were all actual possibilities?” I asked, still uncertain about how it all actually worked. Still in awe.
Liam nodded, then tipped his head back, gazing up at the now cloudless sky. It’d faded from orange to the palest gray, not unlike the skies of Blackmoon Bay just before a misty rain. I could almost taste the salty air of home on my tongue.
“Each one of those scenarios was equally likely until the decision just prior to it. In all things, Gray, with each decision one makes, hundreds of other pathways branch outward. No matter how large or small the choice seems in the moment—which side of your mouth you start brushing your teeth on, whom you confide in about your deepest secrets, where you decide to live, which route you take to work, the words you speak to express yourself, the way you style your hair on a given day—you are changing your possibilities, and therefore your fate, with every one. As Death, I see all of those possibilities at once, at all times. Unless…”
“Unless?” I prodded, losing patience with his obvious stalling. He’d come here to offer me some kind of choice, and so far all we’d done was rehash the terrors that had landed me in this rotten boat. I didn’t blame him for trying to ease into it, but really, what was the point?
“Rip off the Band-Aid, Liam.” I spread my hands, indicating the hellscape around us. “How much worse could things possibly get?”
Liam finally met my gaze again and took my hands, his touch gentle, his eyes filling with an emotion I recognized instantly. I was intimately familiar with it, in fact; I’d stared it down in the mirror almost every day for the last decade.
Guilt.
“I see all of those possibilities,” he repeated, so softly I had to lean in to hear the rest, “unless there are truly no other options.”
No.
Other.
Options.
Each of those words echoed across the black sea, hammering into me like another nail in the coffin.
“Before you came into my presence,” he said, his voice ragged with an ache so deep it made my own bones hurt, “I did not know it was possible to feel such a deep well of regret.”
“You… you regret meeting me?” I tried but failed to keep the hurt from my voice. I couldn’t imagine my life without Liam. Or Death. Or any of the ravens or owls or smoke-and-feathers illusions he’d embodied. He’d taught me so much, but I was starting to care for him so much more than as a mentor, or even as a friend. He’d come to mean something to me I hadn’t even been able to put into words yet. In the absen
ce of those words, the sparks we’d created on the beach had felt like the closest approximation.
I’d mistakenly thought he’d felt that way about me, too.
I released his hands, but he leaned forward and grabbed mine again.
“Look at me,” he whispered. “Please. I need you to look at me. To hear this as well as see it.”
When I finally did as he asked, I found him in tears.
“I could never regret meeting you, Gray. You have been a light I neither expected nor deserved.”
“Then what is it? What are you trying to tell me?”
Crushing my hands in his grip, he shook his head and said, “I have wronged you, Gray Desario. More terribly and irrevocably than you can possibly imagine. And even if your soul is cursed to be hell’s immortal prisoner and I remain here at your side, and together we gaze upon the very sunset of the human race, it still would not have been enough time for me to make amends for what I’ve done.”
Six
Emilio
“The city of Blackmoon Bay has fallen under fae control,” Jael said.
That was it. No small talk, no preamble. The Seelie Prince simply stepped into my sister’s foyer, bringing in a gust of chilly air, and detonated the bomb.
“Explain,” I said, holstering my weapon. Elena followed suit, but like me, she didn’t take her eyes off him.
“The fae have taken the city,” he said grimly, “though I’m loathe to call those monsters fae. Darkwinter are no kin of mine, I assure you.”
At the mention of the brutal fae bloodline, a panicky buzz filled my chest, but there was no time to indulge it.
“I’ve been in touch with my guys at BBPD all night,” I said. “No one mentioned anything about a hostage situation, especially not at the hands of Darkwinter.”
“They are unaware of the circumstances.” Jael lowered his eyes, almost as if he were ashamed. “Say what you will about my people, detectives, but the fae are quite subtle. No one in the Bay feels like a hostage. They are willing participants in this, thanks to the magic. That is the kind of power we’re dealing with here.”
