Arcadius narrows his eyes but Ignatius waves him off.“The Societas members were chanting it during the fight.”
“I see.Well, they’ve spent the last two days gathering forces.They’re now peacefully protesting all over the city.We don’t know what their next move is, but I suspect they’ll make their way back here.We believe Interitus will be looking for a source of pow—oh.”
Ignatius swallows hard.
“When you said the contract was born of you both…” Arcadius starts.
Ignatius nods.“Pure power.”
“Seven devils.No wonder Interitus went after her.We need to send forces to find her.She cannot be allowed to reach Lucy.”Arcadius’s neck flushes a deeper shade of red.
Ignatius holds his hands up in a gesture of peace.“It’s not just Interitus, Architecti disappeared into the underworld too.Be reasonable.We need to make a plan, not just knee-jerk send soldiers to die.”
“REASONABLE?Fucking reasonable?My right-hand devil lied to me for four decades, unleashed a fallen angel that’s making demonkind look like hellspawn, and now you tell me Lucy is not only a ticking bomb if she chose to be, but there’s an angel after her who is planning to quite literally destroy our entire demonic system?”
Arcadius lurches forward, grabbing Ignatius.This time when he circles his neck he squeezes.“You will never be the archdevil.Not after this.I will see to it that you remain exactly where you are.Beneath me.In second place.”
Arcadius smashes his forehead onto Ignatius’s nose.If it wasn’t broken before, it absolutely is now.I wince.
“If this goes wrong, it will be on your head, not mine.Fix this.Trap both fucking angels, clean up the damned campus.”
“I don’t have enough power to trap them.Not without bringing Lucy back.”
“Then find your fucking daughter.I want her on a leash, preferably one we can utilise.Fail again and it won’t be Lucy’s soul that’s reaped, it will be yours.And when I take it, I will send you so far into the underworld even your darkest prayers won’t save you.”
He head-butts Ignatius again for good measure, a sick crunching of bone and tearing cartilage fills the medical room.It makes bile lick up my throat.The moan of pain that spills from Ignatius’s mouth is so acute it makes my stomach furl in on itself.I refuse to feel sorry for that man, but the beating his face just took was savage.
My mind circles back to Arcadius’s words.
Bring Lucy back.
Bring Lucy back.
Bring Lucy back.
When the door clicks shut, Ignatius turns to me and I know, know the way my heart sinks and my toes chill that he is very aware of how long I’ve been awake, and he is pissed.
8
Lucy
Interitus.
Fuck.
I blink up at her.Everything I knew of Thalia melting away.Every bottle of wine we shared, every coffee and shoulder to cry on.All of it was a lie.
She’s an angel.
No.She’s afallenangel.
When she threw me into the underworld, I didn’t want to believe it.But as I stare up at her, those enormous wings tipped in jet black quivering behind her, everything I knew and loved about Thalia died, and in its place stands a venomous fallen angel: Interitus.
If I’m here, the Veil fell and Architecti was released.Interitus got what she wanted.So why is she here?Why has she come for me?
The runes on my arms and legs hum in response to seeing her, as if they already know why she’s here.As if by standing in Interitus’s presence, there’s some unspoken covenant forming between us.
Well, not this time.Not over my dead bo— I halt mid-thought, because I’m not dead.
