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“I will not allow you to take her there,” Malachi snarls, stepping over the remains of the chair to loom over the desk. He looks at his sister with a level of hatred that could curdle milk. “You know what that place does to the mind. I won't let you butcher her sanity just to fill out a spreadsheet.”

“Oh, spare me the theatrics,” Veraxia sneers, her golden eyes flashing dangerously. “I’m not going to leave her hollowed out, Malachi. She won’t even remember it anyway. We’ll find the terms, sever the bind, then I’ll perform a factory reset after—a full wipe. I’ll drop her back in her shoebox apartment safe, sound, and blissfully ignorant. No memory of you, no memory of Hell. And then I’ll turn my attention to your punishment.”

“Over my dead body,” Malachi spits.

“That can be arranged,” she says, pressing a glowing rune carved into the surface of her desk.

“Wardens!”

The doors behind us burst open, the room flooding with the clatter of boots and the clack of pincers.

“Take Malachi and his mortal to a holding cell,” she commands, waving a hand as if swatting away a fly. “Let them cool off until the paperwork clears.”

Chapter 32

Malachi

Twelve steps to the wall. Pivot. Twelve steps back. Pivot.

My boots squeak against the white tiles gratingly as I pace. But I can’t stop, because if I do, the reality of where we are—and what we’re waiting for—is going to crash down on me like a falling spire.

My little summoner sits on the edge of her cot, knees drawn up to her chest. They’ve stripped her of those ridiculous Victorian layers and shoved her into the same thing I’m wearing—a standard-issue, shapeless tunic and trousers made of scratchy, white cotton.

How the fuck did it get this bad?

Powerlessness is a sensation I haven’t felt since I was a babe, and I forgot how much it burns. It feels like acid in my veins. It feels like being chained to a rock while the tide comes in. And all I can do is pace in a glorified waiting room while my sister fills out the paperwork to dig through the mind of the only thing—save for Chain-Chewer—that I’ve managed to keep alive for more than a week. And since he doesn’t have a heartbeat, I’m not even sure that counts.

In two strides, I cross the room and drop onto the edge of her cot, the metal springs groaning under my weight.

I reach forward, raking my fingers through the damp, tangled mess of her hair, trying to coax the chaotic waves away from her forehead.

She shudders, her hands gripping her knees so hard her knuckles turn white.

“I don't want you in my head, Malachi,” she whispers, her voice trembling. “I don't want you—or her—seeing everything. All the ugly parts. It’s... I can’t let you see that.”

“Look at me.” I take her chin, tilting her face up until she has no choice but to meet my gaze. “Eden, you’re in Hell. Do you really think a few dark thoughts or some messy mortal trauma is going to send me running?”

I brush my thumb over her cheekbone. “There is nothing in that pretty head of yours that could possibly scare me. You think a little darkness is going to freak me out? I live in the dark, baby girl. I want to see it. All of it.”

Her shoulders drop an inch, the tension bleeding out just enough for me to continue.

“But once it’s done,” I whisper against her skin, my lips brushing the damp hair at her temple, “the bind will be gone. The link will be severed. You will be your own entity again.”

I pause, the next words feeling like broken glass in my throat—a physical revolt against the sentence I know I have to speak.

“And Veraxia will clear your memory of all of this. She will scrub the trauma. She will clear your memory... of me.”

My stomach twists painfully. To be forgotten by her. To be erased. To be nothing more than a gap in her timeline, a ghost in her history... I’ll be back at my desk, filing endless reports on human misery while she sits in her apartment with the House-Beast, drinking tea and listening to her sister’s boring stories. And I’ll be down here, staring at a stack of soul-claims, knowing I’ll never get to steal another one of her crop tops or argue about the litter box…

“That is what you want, isn't it?” I murmur against her temple. “To go back to your life? To be free of me?”

No answer comes, the silence between us loud enough to deafen, and so my lips continue to press against her face, mapping the geography of her skin with my mouth, memorizing a texture I’m about to lose forever.

“Vesper,” she chokes out. “Will she... will Veraxia let me get Vesper before I go back? I can’t leave her here, Malachi. I can’t go back to that empty apartment without her.”

The question—so small, so practical in the face of oblivion—makes my chest ache.

“I’ll make sure of it,” I vow, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I won’t let the House-Beast rot down here. She goes back with you. I promise.”