“Is it a burdened conscience?” I ask. “Because I can live with that.”
Vinny shakes his head, grabbing my shoulders. “Resurrection is how demons are made.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in. But when it does, my stomach drops. “That…that can’t be right.”
Vinny continues to stare at me with an alarming mixture of sincerity and regret.
“Demons are people who were resurrected?” I say slowly.
I think about Hades’s undead army. About how the Cult of Hades are all demons. About how every demon is beholden to a Titan. Maybe the Titan that resurrected them?
Vinny nods. “It’s the cost. You can’t go back as you were. That’s not how it works.”
“How do you know this?” Poppy asks.
Vinny shrugs. “I’ve been around the Afterlife. People talk. This isn’t new information. Well, maybe for you it is.”
I shake my head, biting back the urge to laugh. “But I died. Likereallydied. And the plan was just to resurrect myself. Like, oops, let’s just shake that Etch A Sketch, pretend it never happened.”
I glance desperately between Poppy and Dante. My brother’s eyes are wide, and I can see the wheels turning in his head, trying to figure some way out of this, to bring me back to life without consequence, to save the others and banish Hades. And if we had time, I’m sure he could do it. But the clock is ticking, and the others are waiting for me.
I lick my lips. “So if I go back, I’m going to be a demon?”
Vinny nods.
I mimic his movement, processing. “Okay, well. At least I’ll have some bitchin’ powers.”
“Yeah, that cost you your soul every time you use them.”
Poppy blinks. “What?”
Vinny huffs in annoyance like we should know this. “Demonic magic, the power from it is taken out of your soul. Basically, the more you use it, the more evil you become. You don’t think all demons started out as assholes. Power corrupts, that whole thing.”
I don’t respond. I’ve wanted magic my whole life. And now I have it. I have a magic so powerful, most people thought it was a myth. And if I go back, I’ll have evenmoremagic. Nearly unlimited magic. But every time I use it, I’ll rot from the inside out.
Well.
I never had much of a moral ethos anyway.
“Yeah, I’m good with that,” I say.
“Elle,” Poppy says, using herI’m disappointed in youvoice.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask. “Stay Dead?”
Poppy’s face is stricken. Dante blanches.
“It’s not so bad, being Dead,” Vinny says, shrugging one shoulder.
“No, it’s not,” Dante adds, but it sounds a little like he’s trying toconvince himself. “Not now that I have, you know, like, form and consciousness.”
“I can’t,” I say.
Dante nudges my shoulder. “We could be together. Just like old times.”
“No, I really can’t.” I let the obol I had hidden in my sleeve drop into my palm.
I open my hand and reveal the tower. It’s the obol I took from Credence’s grave. The one I was going to plant on Hades before banishing her.
