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24
ADDIE
“Where is he?” I screamed despite the way my skull throbbed at the sound of my own voice.
Hel towered over me, so I spun and snatched a chair from the kitchen table, slammed it down in front of her, and climbed on top of it. From there, I could look Hel in the eye. Between us, the air grew icy cold.
She stared me down. Her expression was a little less imperious from this angle. It was as if she hadn’t had anyone look her straight on in a very long time. That, or she was simply flabbergasted that her descendant had climbed onto a kitchen chair like a child with a step stool.
“Get. Down.” Her voice was a booming growl.
I didn’t give a flying fuck.
Ryder reached to pluck me from the chair. I served him a hot glare that made him think twice. He turned away, mumbling something about calling Ness.
His mate wouldn’t make it in time to give me a command. Besides, I doubted she would stop me. If anything, my friends would stand behind me. Each of us had challenged the story fate had written for us. We weren’t going to stop now.
“Tell me where Maddox went,” I repeated, slowly this time so she could hear me clearly.
Hel rolled her glowing eyes.
I laughed. “Are you a petulant teenager now? Stop rolling your eyes. Act like the goddess you are.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine. She blew a huff out her nose, which meant a lot considering that she didn’t have to breathe.
“Your wolf opened a portal to the afterlife and fell into it along with the soul-torn shifter. Why should I know where they went? I do not track every soul that enters the afterlife. It is impossible. Why do you think there are several death gods in every pantheon?” Hel turned away from me as she waved her hand in the air like Maddox’s disappearance meant little.
I shook myself and raised my chin. “That’s fine. If you don’t know, then I’ll go looking by myself.”
“How do you propose you’ll do that? You cannot access the afterlife on your own. Not while you are alive, at the very least.” Hel raised herself as high as she could inside Maddox’s house.
The place wasn’t built for the divine.
“Maddox pulled on my arcana to open a portal when he went to Ryder earlier. He usedmyarcana. If he could do that, then I can, too.”
And if that didn’t work, then I had one other option. I didn’t want to try that route, but I would do it for Maddox. He’d gone through enough because of me. I refused to let him suffer just to protect me.
Hel swiped her arm through the air. “If you go in there and drag your mutt out of the afterlife, you’ll risk bringing the soul-torn shifter back. Are you willing to put the world in danger for the sake of your own selfishness? We have won. It is over. Mourn the sacrifices. Do not seek to undo everything good.”
“Fuck you.” The words spilled out before I could even think to stop them. Once I started, there was no stopping. “I have never been selfish in my life. Every breath I have ever taken has been shallow for fear of what I might do to those around me if I’m not careful. Walking on eggshells left me absolutely empty, and I’m done with it.”
Would Vi be proud of me? I was tempted to ask Ryder to call her, too. I had no idea where he’d gone. Honestly, if he was talking to Ness, I was pretty sure she would call Vi, too.
“I will save the world,” I promised Hel. “But I’m not going to sacrifice anything along the way. I gave up my mother, my childhood, and most of my adult years to this arcana that I did not ask for. No more. I will not sit back and let it ruin my future, too.”
What little I had left of it. Reapers died young; that’s what Bastien said. If that was the case, then why was I still alive? Looking back, I realized that my mother was barely older than me before she’d been taken from me, too. The thought punched me right in the gut.
Hel lowered her voice into a threatening whisper. “How could I have begotten such a selfish, impudent brat of a descendant? I can strip you of your power. What you have belongs to me. I can take it back, if you would like. That way the world will stay safe from your foolish hubris.”
This conversation was over. Hel wasn’t allowed to gaslight me anymore. I yanked my arcana up from the deep pits of my core and lashed out at the stiff veil between the worlds before she could stop me.
While I watched the veil part for me, a stray thought occurred to me. Ryder couldn’t see Hel. For all he knew, I’d spent this whole time yelling at the corner of a room. Which made me wonder why he’d tried to pull me off the chair when Hel told me to get down.
Perhaps it was divine compulsion. If that was the case, then I was clearly immune to it.
That was good to know.
Maddox
