Page 26 of Realm of the Wicked

Although, there didn’t seem to be any love lost between him and Clarissa. Damien looked like he was ready to kill her with his eyes alone. Could he do that? So far, I’d just seen him light a few candles, but I doubted that was the extent of it.

I wasn’t sure how to feel. I wasn’t sure how to feel about any of it. I had been thrown off the deep end since last night and expected to swim in the dark, while the sharks circled closer and closer.

At this point, I wasn’t sure if it was easier just to sink.

‘Why… why are you breaking the rules for me?’ If he was telling the truth, Damien was a powerful being, if not one of the most powerful beings. Surely, he could think of something better to do with his endless time than to spend it trying to save my soul?

Damien took a step closer, and without thinking, I stepped forward as well, drawn into his aura, the quiet confidence that commanded the room. His crisp, black shirt emphasized his strong arms. The black trousers he wore were the picture of elegance.

When he spoke, it was little more than a whisper, but it didn’t matter; his words spiraled over my skin. ‘You were spending so much time trying to save everyone else, you forgot to save yourself in the process. I think every so often, we need someone else to save us, no?’

Something in my heart choked, and I knew he felt it. His eyes darkened, and I couldn’t look away. Maybe I’d just drown in his gaze instead, let the sharks consume me as I went. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked out for me, and the fact it was Damien who acknowledged it shifted the once stable ground I stood on. Did he care?

‘Who saved you?’ I whispered.

With my words, the moment finished, Damien’s cool walls slamming back into place as if we weren’t in each other’s personal space seconds before. ‘I didn’t need saving.’

He pushed past me gently and sat at his desk. The glasses were placed back on his face, the notebook opened, and the pen picked up. Watching the process again, I saw it for what it was: a mask, a way for him to shut out the world and turn back into ‘the Devil.’

Well, fine. If that was the way he wanted to be. I turned to leave, deciding to go find Agatha in the garden like she’d asked me to. I needed to find food for Archie as well. But before I crossed the threshold, I turned back, one last question burning through my mind.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Does what hurt?’ he asked, pushing his hair away from his face as he scribbled furiously in his notebook.

‘When you take the soul out of someone’s body?’ I couldn’t imagine it was a pleasant experience.

The pen froze, and he snapped his dark, emotionless gaze up to me. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to take it.’

I huffed. ‘You heard Clarissa. You’ll get yourself in shit if you try and pull that.’

‘Let them try. I’m not taking your soul.’ His tone left zero room for argument, but the logic just didn’t add up.

‘You took Agatha’s soul.’ I crossed my arms in front of my chest, waiting to see his defense.

Damien’s eyes narrowed. ‘That was different.’

‘How? You brought her into the Fringe. You took her soul.’

‘Because she didn’t want her fucking soul, Stella.’ His gaze flashed, and for the first time since I arrived, I felt like I might be in danger around him.

My heart sank, a pit in the bottom of my stomach. ‘Maybe I don’t want mine either.’

Damien’s expression softened, something sad and mournful blurring the edges of his sharp features. A gentle smile flickered across his face, and he shook his head before turning back to his notebook once more. ‘Enjoy your time in the garden. Don’t touch my rose trellises.’

I waited for him to say anything else to call me out on my lie with more than just a shake of his head, but his attention was elsewhere.

I shut the door behind me as I left, leaving him to his mask.

* * *

It wasn’t hard to spot Agatha in the garden. She was right; the grounds were overgrown, ivy twisting and winding its way to the sky everywhere you looked. Bright patches of yellow surrounded the gardens, dandelions left to dominate. And in the middle of it all sat Agatha, a bright-pink sunhat standing out amidst the chaos.

She didn’t look up from her weeding as I approached. ‘You’re still standing then.’ I could hear the smile in her voice, a joke I wasn’t getting.

‘Was it really that much of a risk?’ I spun around in a circle, taking in the endless grounds around me. We were in the middle of what had to be a beautiful garden, once upon a time. Further out, a pond glistened in the sun, surrounded by bulrushes and bright-blue hydrangeas. The colors were almost neon in their vibrancy. Surrounding the entirety of the green space was a thick forest, so dense, I could barely see five feet inside. Something was off about the sky, though. I blinked, looking up, and realized what was wrong. The sun and moon sat in the sky next to each other, equally bright. I must have been too exhausted to notice it before. But it had been dark when I arrived. How did that work?

Looking back at the house, I realized quite how big it really was. It was a sprawling mansion, bricked with a warm brown stone, with wings upon wings spreading out from the center, like the roots of an ancient tree. It would be entirely too easy to get lost in there.