Maybe I was stuck in this purgatory to find a way to atone for the sins I committed, but I want to double down on them. My head is full of sweet ways I could torture Max, if she let me, and all the ways devils like me worship angels like her.
A sudden wind blows the fine hairs framing her face forward, and the other candles flare to life. Salt scrapes across the floorboards, poking holes in the circle.
“Fuck. It’s working.” Her eyes bulge, and her blush deepens. She sounds surprised and proud and terrified all at once. “How are you feeling?”
“Delirious and hungry,” I whisper darkly.
Goosebumps rise along her lower arms, and she rubs the chill off. Her cheeks are so red, I could just take a bite out of them.
“How about that cane? Could you move it now?” she asks.
Right. She’s not trying to give me strength because she wants me to kiss the life out of her. She needs me to open the hatch for her. The realization pops the dangerously heated bubble I was caught in.
A pang of regret twists my chest as I float upward to the attic.
My newfound strength tapers off too quickly, leaving me just enough time to wrench the cane away. The wooden stick hits the floor a heartbeat later, marking the moment I become fully ghost again. I make peace with my decision not to kiss Max, because that stolen second would never have been enough. But now that I know it’s possible, I’ll practice—every waking hour of every day, if that’s what it takes.
“I did it!” I announce proudly.
Max pulls the attic’s trapdoor down and unfolds the ladder tucked between the two floors.
I’m grinning from ear to ear, which she can’t see, but she mirrors that grin right back anyway and starts to climb.
“Well done, boo,” she teases.
Just as she’s about to step off the folding ladder, a powerful gush of air rustles the papers on the desk. The drawings on the walls glow blood-red. Magic snaps in the air like elastic stretched too far, and shoves Max back violently.
She falls to her bum on the floor below. “Ow.”
The elation from the séance drains out of me as I zoom to her side. “Flaming hells. Are you alright? I should have realized what those drawings were—or at least slowed down your fall.”
“No, it’s my own fault. I should have known Mabel would have warded the place.”
Without thinking, I offer a hand to help her up.
She takes it without seeing it and springs to her feet, my hand clenching around her knuckles in surprise.
Fuuuuck.
Shock widens her eyes and shortens her breaths.We remain locked in that touch, her green gaze searching the empty space in front of her. She blinks at the deep grooves left by my fingers on her skin before I soften my hold, but if I listened to the roar in my ears, I’d only grip her tighter.
With a nervous laugh, she slinks away and brings her hand to her chest.
I touched her. Actuallytouchedher.
Her hand was so small in mine…
“How did you know my hand was there?” I croak.
“I didn’t—” Another stifled laugh quakes her throat, her cheeks flushed with the deepest blush yet. Lovely. Full of life. “Instinct, I guess.”
Max rubs her knuckles down with her thumb and tilts her head toward the attic. Her pupils are huge, her wild pulse visible at the angle of her neck. “Wait here. I’m going to get my sketchbook so you can describe the runes Mabel used.”
She veers off toward the stairs, racing down. I can’t shake the sense she wants me to stay behind, to give her space, as though she caught a glimpse of my wretched soul and needed to get away.
The way she flees, so quick, so deliberate, only sharpens my need to chase.
I’m losing control. I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t want her. And yet every instinct screams to hunt her down, to take what I cannot, to pull her close and never let go. The impossibility of it only feeds my hunger. Forget the ring, forget her dumb fiancé, forget the life she had before we met.
