Page 8 of Just One Little Bargain

There’s a response I should give here, one that proves I’m capable, that I understand the stakes, that this assignment will be different. But my mind is blank. The harder I search for the right words, the further away they get. It happens every time I sit in this chair. Decades of conversations, and I’ve never once found the sentence that makes him look at me with the approval he gives a completed contract. Satisfied and proud.

“I will,” I finally manage. “I’ll do better.”

“This is your final opportunity.” He glares at me, and I suppress the impulse to shrink in the chair. “You will be reinstated into active summoning eligibility. You will secure a contract with a mortal. You will return to Hell with a soul. No excuses or second-guessing. You will do your job.”

I nod again, more firmly this time.

“If you fail . . .” He stops there on purpose, and my imagination does the rest. “There will be no more chances. No reassignment to grunt work while we debate your future. Your sentence will be transfer to the Soul Furnace. Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes. But I won’t fail. I can do this. If you just give me this chance, I swear I’ll—”

“I have given you chances.” He cuts through my spiral. “This is your last one.”

The Furnace is where Hell sends demons who couldn’t cut it in contract work. It’s where you spend eternity maintaining torture systems for damned souls. Inflicting suffering, watching people break, and participating in cruelty you can’t prevent, stop, or escape.

For a demon like me, who couldn’t even trick mortals properly because I felt too much sympathy, it would be worse than death.

“I understand,” I say again, quieter this time.

He lets that sit before reaching across his desk for a sealed envelope. He slides it over the polished stone toward me.

“Take this to HR. They’ll process your reinstatement and register you for summoning assignments.”

I reach for it carefully. The envelope wobbles between my fingers anyway.

“Don’t waste this, Zavian.” His voice loses its edge, and that hurts more. “This is the last time I will help you.”

“Thank you.”

The words are inadequate for what he’s done for me.

He goes back to the ledger, his version of dismissal.

I stand and walk toward the door.

“Zavian.”

I turn back, and stupid hope rises. Maybe he’s going to say something else. Maybe there’s more.

“Close the door on your way out.”

The hope dies.

“Yes, sir.”

I pull it shut behind me and stay there with my hand on the handle, listening as the scratch of his pen resumes. My brain, unhelpfully, points out that this might be the last conversation I ever have with my father.

When I was young, I used to linger here, pressing my ear to the wood and hoping to catch him saying something to himself. Some private proof he was softer when no one watched. I never heard it. Eventually, I stopped listening, which should have been growth, but felt more like giving up.

“You have his door memorized by now, I assume.”

I jolt sideways and nearly drop the envelope.

My mother stands at the bend of the corridor, arms folded, looking unimpressed but unsurprised, which is her default setting for most interactions with me.

Azhyra is striking. Her black hair falls past her shoulders, perfectly straight, not a single strand entertaining the concept of disorder. Delicate plum horns curve from her temples, smaller than my father’s but infinitely more refined, polished to a sheen that matches the ebony gemstones around her neck. Her eyes carry a violet glow that I inherited in a paler version. On her, the color communicates power. On me, it communicates this boy might be slightly unwell.

Her robes are layered silk, with structured panels in shades of midnight and deep amethyst, threaded with fine silver embroidery so precise it could only have been done by someone who was terrified of making a mistake.