My vision smatters.
A slap lands on my cheek.The hot, stinging shiver of pain enough to pull me out and allow me to focus on him.
“Breathe.Deep.Slow.Long,” he demands and for once in my life, I do as he says.
He holds me upright until my body is calm enough I can see reason and have a coherent conversation.
There’s a ticking in his temple that alerts me to the fact I am on very thin ice here.
“Ignatius, wa?—”
“Did I tell you to speak?”
His features soften as he breathes with me.Heavy and slow, we go together.He stinks of coffee and metal; his face is mangled beyond natural repair.The nurse will have to set it and probably use some magic to aid fixing it.I suspect his demon healing will sort the rest.
I press my lips together and stay quiet.Focusing on the details of his mashed face distracts me enough for my breathing to return to normal.
He lifts me off the floor so my toes dangle and brush the cool lino.It takes a feat of enormous strength not to beg, not to plead with him to have mercy and let me go.
What is the point?I owe him a debt, and I have no doubt he is here to collect.I’m on borrowed time given we’re already a couple of days past my reaping.Plus, I have nothing to fall back on, no bargaining chip, no favour.I am a dead woman and he knows that.
“What did you hear?”he growls.
“Nothing,” I bite out way too quickly for it to be true.
His lip curls.Yeah, he isn’t buying my bullshit.
“Midnight, Midnight, Midnight,” he sings my name like the melody of a siren calling me to my death.
I swallow hard and figure the truth is my only way out of this.“I heard it all.”
What I don’t say is that I witnessed Arcadius threaten, humiliate, and promise to dismantle his reputation if he doesn’t fix the mess.I figure this is a situation where less is definitely more.
“He wants you to get Lucy back and imprison the angels… both of them…”
He nods, finally dropping me to the floor and cracks his knuckles.“Arcadius won’t care who is locked up as long as someone pays publicly and he protects our rule over humans.”
I process his words, turning them over and over, probing, poking, looking for the gap.
Ignatius paces up and down the room, the beat of his feet mimicking the churn in my mind as I search for leverage.
There… I’ve got the son of a bitch.
I straighten up, confidence quietly pinning my shoulders back.“You said you need to trap them, surely you wouldn’t lower yourself to such menial work…”
It’s small, a stretch even, massaging his ego so overtly, but it’s a chance and I wholeheartedly launch myself at it.He looks up at me, holding my gaze with a strange intensity.
“There are other ways to trap an angel, but none of them as effective as Lucy would be.”
“Ignatius…” I say, pouring pity into my tone, does he not understand?Is he in denial?“Lucy is gone.I reaped her soul.You’ll never find her in the underworld, she’s probably gone to the other side already.”
Ignatius’s laugh booms out, rattling my teeth and making the spark inside me bloom into embers and flames.
He rounds on me, his already jet-black eyes cooling into voids.
“You have no idea what game you’re playing, reaper.You think a weak little mortal could kill her?”He laughs again, this time it’s pointed, patronising, the type of chuckle designed to humiliate.
“Oh, Midnight, you may have reaped her.But you didn’t kill Lucy…”
