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My feet crunch on the gravel as I climb the steps to the front door. It seems fitting that we should do this here, in the same place where my nightmares began so long ago. In the place where my mom read those bedtime stories to me. I never thought they'd turn out to be more reality than myth, or that they'd still be playing out all around me, but it feels fitting that this ends where it began.
I'm not stupid enough to waltz inside, though. If they're going to move against me, they can do it in broad daylight, while the neighbors peek through their curtains.
"You wanted me," I call quietly, speaking to the door…or through the door. I'm not sure. But I'm speaking to whoever is on the other side who makes decisions. "I'm here."
No one answers. Nothing moves.
"I came alone," I say. "But you know that already. You've been watching me since I made it to this neighborhood."
Still, no answer.
"I came to make a deal with you. But if you'd rather fight instead…" I reach for my power now, letting it fill me. I know the neighbors can't see it, but the Forsaken can. "I can do the same thing to you that I did to yourvarulv."
The door cracks open. "We don't make deals, Valkyrie," a man says, his face obscured in shadow.
"Well, you're going to want to make this one."
"Come inside."
"No, thanks. You can send Genevieve and Jessa out, though."
"No, thanks," he says, mocking me.
"Then I guess you don't want to hear my deal." I take a step away from the door.
"We'll hear the terms of your deal, and then decide if the mortal girls live."
It's not great, but it's something, at least.
"Is my father still alive?"
"He is still breathing. At least for the moment. Your deal, Valkyrie."
"His soul for my mother's," I blurt.
The Forsaken says nothing.
"You agree to allow me to ferry the souls of the innocent across the Veil, you can keep the souls of the damned, the souls of monsters like him."
The Forsaken laughs, a rasping sound that freezes my blood. "Why would we give you half of what already belongs to us?"
"Because we both know I'm the only thing you fear," I say, far more confidently than I feel. I've never been more afraid in my life. But I know they're afraid too. They have just as much to lose as the Light. More, perhaps. The Light has been losing for millennia. And for the first time, the Forsaken have to face the realization that for all their manipulations and all the battles they've won, it still might not be enough.
But Dax was right. I don't have to fight yet. All I have to do right now is survive. I have to keep myself and the people I love alive. And the best way I know how to do that is to find a way to give the Light time to grow.
"If you weren't afraid, I never would have made it up these steps. But my power scares the crap out of you. There are hundreds of you, thousands maybe. But I could wipe you all out, just like I did yourvarulv."
"You could try," the Forsaken says, his face looming into view.
I skip back a step, startled. Either I drank way too much in the bar, or the Forsaken I spoke with was playing with magic, because this man has no face. He's just shadow and malevolence beneath a black hood. Two glowing yellow eyes whirl in the center of it, but everything else is just shadow.
I reach for more Light, pulling it into me. The nimbus around me expands.
The Forsaken hisses and jumps backward before it touches him.
"Come near me again, and I'll burn you and every one of your buddies to ash," I growl. "Either take the deal or don't, but don't play with me. I'm not your toy."
"We want all souls touched by shadow."
