Chapter Thirty-Six
I knew where we were the second I hit the cement. I fell to my side, skidding across the hot, dirty pavement on my arm before Silas could catch me. I looked up from my dizzying place on the ground and watched a car roll by just beyond the alley. The aged brick, the narrow walking paths, the rusted back-alley doors told me we were in the arts district. I knew that if I walked out onto the sidewalk and turned to the building’s front, I’d find the aged wooden door and a window with the words Daily Devils neatly printed across the front. I knew there’d be brown, green, and blue glass bottles containing muted liquids, oils, powders, leaves, and herbs. I knew a kindly woman who worked with demons, advocated for women, had freed a selkie, and who loved chocolate-covered strawberries would be inside.
“Are the angels—”
“I wouldn’t have brought you here unless I knew it was safe. No one from Heaven is here. Not anymore.”
Silas’s hands were balled into fists. Tendons and veins stood out prominently as they protruded from his arms and over the tops of his hands. His eyes were squeezed shut, face turned away from the gut-wrenching sound that wafted through the rusty door. The high, grieving wail could only belong to one person.
I winced against the pain of my impact, nose wrinkled at the faint city smells of urine and refuse as I planted my hands on the baking ground. I slowly got to my feet and moved toward the door as if pulled forward in a nightmare. Shrill ringing stuffed itself into my ears. The edges of my vision went fuzzy as I felt my way forward. My hands wrapped around the metallic handle, thumb pressing into the latch. I didn’t have room for surprise as it opened easily. It didn’t even squeak as I stepped into the dark room. My eyes struggled to adjust from the bright afternoon sun to the dim back room. I stumbled step after step, bumping into wall, then a desk. I blinked past the sooty blotches that dotted my vision and focused on the desk with its candles, sigils, and offerings. I’d seen this altar in the back room of the shop once before.
I followed the jagged, horrible cry.
My mouth was sticky and dry. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. I moved with robotic, disconnected listlessness as my palm wrapped around another handle—the final handle. Betty’s shop would be on the other side. Candles, books, crystals, and incense would meet me. There would be thick, bundled curtains. A cabinet of curiosities would serve as the counter.
Fauna would be there.
I’d recognized the anguish the moment I’d slammed into the pavement. Her pain forced me to twist the knob, to push open the door, to put one foot in front of the other. She’d held me as I’d suffered. She’d gone to Hell with me and back, quite literally. I had to find her. I had to look her in the eye and hear the truth for myself.
But when I opened the door…
The shop was a galaxy of sticky, confusing glitter. I gagged on the scent of frankincense, so overpowering I could no longer breathe through my nose. Gold glinted off the glass, dripped from the curtains, pooled on the floor. I struggled to look at any one thing as gem-like puddle after starlit drop forced my eyes to bounce from one place to the next.
The moment her sobs resumed, I spotted her.
Fauna and Caliban were on the floor. Fauna was kneeling over Betty, one arm under her back to support her. Caliban had her head in his lap, but there was nothing calming about his posture. Hands dripping with golden, shimmering liquid, he held her head firmly, eyes closed, jaw clenched as his lips moved, speaking to no one.
Azrames saw me before I saw him.
The metallic glitter splattered across his monochrome features was the most color I’d ever seen on him. My breath caught as I spotted the glinting, spiked ball of a meteor hammer in his hand, chain clenched tightly in his fist. I didn’t know where he’d gotten it, but then again, I didn’t know much of demons, or much of anything. I took a half step backward before I realized he wasn’t looking at me. He snarled, fangs bared as he lifted his fist.
“Move, Marlow!” he growled.
It took me less than a second to understand Silas was behind me. I lifted my hands. “Az, wait.”
“ Move, or make the Prince clean up your blood next,” he snarled.
Those were the magic words. Everything happened at once. Caliban was between Azrames and I before I could blink. Fauna’s crying stopped as she called out in panic, begging Caliban to return. Her hysterics were hoarse as she commanded Azrames to stand down. I didn’t understand her urgency. I knew only confusion, alarm, metallic gleaming, and the sickening scent of… I recognized the scent. It was similar to the thieves’ oil and myrrh smell every time Silas entered the room.
Angels.
I looked at the shop with new, wide eyes, understanding the gold at long last. This was angel blood.
“I can help,” came Silas’s voice from behind me.
“Your death is the only help I need,” came Azrames’s hateful reply.
When Caliban ordered Azrames’s halt, I witnessed a fraught battle between mind and body. His hands lowered. His weapon clattered to the ground. Loathing for Silas, for Caliban, for the command, for the world pulled his lip up in a venomous snarl, but it was with god-like power that Caliban commanded his subject. Azrames could not disobey.
“He’s right,” Caliban said hurriedly, eyes fixed on Az. “His people committed this violence. The angel has the power to undo what his kind attempted. If you let your logic outweigh your rage, you’ll let him try.”
“He won’t get anywhere near her.”
“Az!” Fauna’s desperate, furious word came from the floor. I realized she was not smeared in gold, but in red. Her crimson-soaked dress clung to her, face pale, teeth sharp with her glare as she snapped at him. I’d never heard such malevolence in her voice before now as she bit, “This isn’t just the end of her cycle. They came to smite her. If you are the reason Betty doesn’t make it, Azrames, then you are fucking dead to me. If you don’t let him help, I will never speak to you again.”
Whatever hold Caliban had over Azrames ended. I saw it the moment his body relaxed as if released from an invisible fist. I remained in a shocked state of speechlessness. I couldn’t watch the horror unfold on the ground. I couldn’t focus on anything. It was all too much.
“I healed her physical wounds,” came Caliban’s voice at my side. I knew I should look at him but couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes. “There’s nothing paramedics or an ambulance could fix that I haven’t already knit together. I can work with the body, but if it’s an angel who ended the soul…”
Azrames said, “She is warded against this. No angel should have been able to cross her threshold. Her spellwork is unbreachable. She—”
“Heaven lost two just to break her protective barriers,” Caliban said. “Bringing down the only witch on your side who might pose a threat was important enough that they were willing to sacrifice however many it took.”
Azrames looked away from his Prince. His eyes darkened as he stared into the depths of me. “Why are you here?”
I knew from the bitterness in his voice that he wasn’t asking about me alone.
Caliban rested a hand gently on my arm and stepped to block Azrames from my line of sight. Gold shimmered on his cheek, on the side of his face. The reek of frankincense smothered his forest-fresh scent. His silver eyes softened as he reiterated, “Why are you here?”
I looked at his pale hand on my shoulder, then up at his face once more. I stepped away, breaking his hold on me. His expression changed in an instant. Gentleness became warning.
Fauna’s cry of relief cut through our standoff. With a firm yank, Silas dislodged the curtains from the ceiling, bringing snowy bits of plaster down with him as he bundled up the thick velvet to create a pillow for Betty’s head. Her chest rose and fell on its own as Fauna held her. I remained silent, unsure of what to say, what to do.
My world had changed.
Reality had shifted the moment I’d understood Caliban was real. Silas and Fauna had broken down all of the protective walls I’d built in my mind to convince myself that he’d been a coping mechanism, a trauma response. I’d opened wide and swallowed the supernatural whole, accepting gods and fae and demons as I’d trusted Fauna to lead our dance. She and I wanted the same things, if for different reasons. We had wanted Caliban free. We had wanted our friends back. We wanted…
It had all been a lie.
I wanted to cry at the sight of Fauna’s now-smiling face. Her smattered freckles folded into the dimples on her cheeks. Tear-soaked joy beamed through her as bright as the glistening blood around her. She and Betty were on the ground of a battlefield, and Betty had survived. I’d thought Fauna and I were on the same team. I’d believed we loved each other.
I looked from her to Caliban and took another step backward.
“Love?” he asked, voice catching with true concern.
Free from his soul-saving endeavor, Silas took a few careful steps to position himself beside me. Caliban’s gaze flickered from the angel to me. Behind him, Azrames’s eyes stayed on Silas.
“He told me,” I said simply.
I watched as concern transitioned into confusion, then worry, then fear. The column of Caliban’s throat worked. His eyes flared with almost imperceptible alarm, the sort of dread I knew deep in my gut that anyone else might miss, as he fixed his stare on Silas.
I looked at Caliban. “You knew who Fauna was when you met her.”
He stared back. He didn’t disrespect me by giving me some bullshit about the Phoenician realms or listening walls. He could have told me Fauna’s true name in the cave. He’d chosen not to.
Caliban looked away from me. For now, he had eyes only for the angel. “What did you do.” His tone was flat. Even in the pandemonium-laden freefall of the moment, I knew the question wasn’t What? but How could you?
“She deserved to know,” Silas replied, voice terse.
Caliban took a step forward. When I took a half step back, placing my body partly behind Silas’s, I saw the pain on his face, then in his entire posture. “I’ve never kept anything from her,” Caliban replied. Then to me, he said, “I’ve told you many times. I’d tell you again. I’ve spent lifetimes protecting you, Love. I’ve slaughtered thousands for you. I risked my kingdom to keep you safe in this cycle as I have in the last and will again in the next.”
No. Don’t put this on me. Not now.
Darkness comforted me as my eyelids fluttered shut. I blocked out the room, the slaughter, the pain. I couldn’t carry the weight of his emotions. Not until I understood my own.
“And what?” Caliban asked. I looked up at him as he worked through a controlled smothering of his anger. His eyes flitted from Silas to me only once, boring into me as he said, “Now you trust the angel over me?”
I couldn’t help the truth of the words that came out next. “Not you, Caliban. But…right now? Yes. He’s been more honest with me than any of you.”
I looked at Fauna, whose smile faltered. Her eyes left Betty and met mine. Her face folded into an unrecognizable emotion. I returned my gaze to Caliban, though I was acutely aware of how Fauna carefully rested Betty’s sleeping form on the ground before moving to stand beside Azrames.
“Every one of you knew. Caliban, maybe you would have told me. But, Fauna…” I fixed my sights on her once more. “I’ve stood beside you as you’ve wielded the Prince’s human time after time to further your cause. You knew what you were telling everyone. You knew precisely what you were leveraging. And most importantly: you knew I didn’t understand what you were actually saying, because I had no idea who you were.”
“Mar…” Her delicate fingers lifted toward me, then folded over her heart. For once, there was no witty sarcasm, no irreverent playfulness. She was blood-soaked and broken.
“I know your name.”
The color drained from her face.
“Angrboda.” I said the name, voice laced with venom. “The bringer of chaos and destruction.”
The room remained silent. The bloodied reek of slain angels choked me as I struggled to look her in the eye.
“There’s only one sentence about you in the Poetic Edda. Some lore said you were married to Loki. Some say you had children with him—but you gotta fuck a centaur for the plot sometimes, isn’t that what you said? All of the stories underscore your one and only purpose.”
Her words were strangled. “That’s not—”
I couldn’t breathe. “You aren’t denying it. That’s how you knew where Fenrir was. That’s how you were able to set him free. Some lore says you’re his mother, but the other stories got it correct, didn’t they? You were his keeper until the end times.”
“I swear, you don’t know what you think you know. Please, listen to me!”
I neither saw nor heard her through the blinding rage. “You were designed for Ragnarok. Your one line. That’s why you exist, right? To bring about the end of the world. And here I am, with Nordic blood. Lucky you. At long last, Fauna found her golden ticket, a use for her apocalypse dog, a conduit for her motherfucking chaos.”
Tears flowed freely as she pleaded with me. “Marlow—”
“No!” My ears rang. My eyes stung. My cheeks were hot from the pain. “You know how hard it is to make a whore feel used? Congratulations. You used me. I thought you loved me. I thought we…”
Azrames was in no mood for pity. Clearly, he didn’t give a shit about Fauna’s true name or her role in the end of the world. He’d undoubtedly read the Poetic Edda and the theories surrounding his beloved. He loved her for being wild and free, and probably loved her all the more for being the goddess destined to usher in the end of the world.
Azrames had calmed now that Betty was safe. In place of his anger and vitriol was something blank and purposefully expressionless. Maybe he’d cared about me. Maybe that much was real. But he’d known precisely who she was, and what she was doing.
They’d made me a victim without giving me a choice.
Venom remained in his throat as he scoffed. “So, what, you stand with Heaven now?”
I looked into his dark eyes and saw no trace of the friendliness I’d come to know and love. He was drenched in the gilded blood of those who’d tried to slaughter Betty, not only in this realm, but at her core. Of everyone in the room, his emotions were the only ones I understood. He had every right to feel betrayed by me. Azrames had never lied to me. He’d loved Betty. He’d fought for her, and for me.
“No,” I said firmly, looking solely at him. “I will never stand with Heaven. I am on your side now and forever, Az. But Silas isn’t on Heaven’s side, either.” The angel hadn’t said so, but I saw no other outcome. He couldn’t share my history, Heaven’s role, how they shuffled us as pawns, and how he’d chosen to tell me anyway, without facing consequences. “Azrames, believe me when I tell you that your enemies are my enemies. But…”
“But,” he repeated, unyielding.
“But my enemies may be more numerous than yours,” I said quietly. “At least you know Heaven is your foe. I thought Fauna was my friend.”
The way her fingers clutched at her fabric, one might have thought I’d stabbed her. Her lips remained parted in silent pain.
“I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve ever truly had an ally.”
Caliban remained statue still, carved from the very marble he resembled. I couldn’t bear more than a glance at him before my eyes fell to my shoes. He’d loved me in every lifetime. But he’d hurt me, and I had no idea how to move forward. I grappled with timelines, forcing myself to remember that I’d sent him away long before he’d met Fauna or had any opportunity to intervene in the bond she and I had already formed.
But he’d had so many opportunities to tell me in the Canaanite pantheon, and he’d remained silent.
“And Silas is your ally?” Azrames demanded. His question sounded every bit as betrayed as I felt.
“I don’t know.” My voice dropped. So much of my fury evaporated upon seeing Caliban’s heartbroken face. I closed my eyes and said, “I know that Betty is breathing right now, soul safely in her body because he helped. I know that he told me the truth and showed me my memories when no one else had. I know that he’s informed me of Heaven’s plans even at the expense of his own kingdom. And”—I looked up at Silas, waiting for him to look over his shoulder at me—“I know he’ll come with me when I move to protect my friends.”
“Kirby and Nia,” Fauna choked out. “You don’t think Heaven…”
“They will,” Silas said definitively. “They started with Betty because she was the strongest. She had more at her defense than anyone else. But if they think they have leverage with Marlow’s found family, then no one is safe.”
“Could they already be there?” Caliban asked, still looking at Silas.
Silas shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything from Heaven. I assume it’s because you’ve slaughtered every messenger. Did anyone escape?”
Caliban moved his head once. No. There had been no survivors.
“I’ll be cut off from Heaven the moment they know,” Silas said to Caliban.
Fauna pushed him from behind. Caliban was a pillar, unmoving. His jaw clenched, eyes flashing slightly, though only I could see.
Her voice bubbled in an angry cry from behind him. “Do something,” she begged, anger burning redder than any other emotion. “She’s going to leave with him! You see it!”
I had no rebuttal, because she was right. I was going to leave with Silas. And Caliban knew it. I recognized it in his face, in the way he held his shoulders, in the movement of his knuckles as he flexed and unflexed his fingers at his side.
Fauna’s voice kicked up into a distressed octave as she pleaded, “You can’t let her go. You can’t let your obsession with free will get in the way of keeping her from walking into a bear trap!”
Caliban closed his eyes. A tendon in his neck flexed as he kept his voice controlled. “She’s had every right to turn away from me in any cycle she chooses, including this one. She always has the choice.”
Fauna scrambled to her feet. She tore through the air, fist wound with the full intention of punching Caliban, had Azrames not dashed between them to catch her wrist. She struggled toward the Prince of Hell as she barked, “But this isn’t other cycles, and you know it. This is the cycle!”
I wasn’t sure what reaction was acceptable for one in my position, but I felt only an empty and bottomless sorrow. Fauna continued talking about me as if I wasn’t there. She confirmed everything I’d feared, everything I’d refused to accept. I was a pawn she, like many fae from countless pantheons before her, had shuffled. She saw opportunity slipping away, and pounded her fists against it.
She wrestled against Azrames, twisting to me just enough to gasp, “Marlow, I love you. I meant what I said. I was ready to betray Heaven and Hell to bind with you! I would have done anything for you. I—”
“You didn’t love me,” I said, eyes on the floor. “You loved what I represented.”
I’d been brokenhearted before. I’d felt pain, and rejection, and loss. I’d been wounded by death and abuse and neglect. Whatever protective shell encased my heart had splintered. Nothing poured in. Instead, whatever I’d held leaked out. Trust, love, intimacy, moments, memories hissed into the space between us as a newly fallen angel and I positioned ourselves against two demons and a nymph.
“I have to go,” I said.
Fauna lurched toward me. Azrames kept his hold at first, but released her at her rallying cry, her free fist coming down against his forearm, body twisting from his grasp. I didn’t even see her move as she covered the space between us. She gripped my shoulders, blood and gold joining the copper and silver of her hair and freckles. The whites of her eyes were too wide as she searched mine. “Please, look at me.”
Tears spilled freely, but silently. I pulled in a ragged breath. She attempted to pull me into a hug, but I pushed back. My forearms created leverage between us before she closed the gap. I pushed against her soft form, forcing her away from me.
“Mar,” she begged. “You have to hear me: I love you.”
“I thought you did,” I said through the watery cloud that blurred my vision. “I wanted to believe you, because I loved you.”
“No, please—”
I shoved away from her. This time when she lurched for me, it was Silas who stopped her.
“The thing is, Fauna,” I said, voice thick with emotion, “if you had told me…if any of you had told me…it would have been hard to hear. I would have made a scene, or cried, or been human with my reaction. But I would have been glad to hear it from you. I would have made my decision. I would have taken the metaphorical pills, no matter how difficult they were to swallow, and I would have chosen you. But no. You didn’t just manipulate me, or exploit me. You betrayed me.”
“Mar…” Fauna’s voice was fragmented, clawing against her breaths, against rejection, against whatever she knew I’d say next. She grabbed Silas’s arm in an attempt to push past him, but he held firm.
“I would have chosen you,” I said first to Fauna, then to Caliban.
It wasn’t shame on Caliban’s face, though the expression was one I couldn’t quite place. It was as if, despite the wounds it caused him, he’d expected this. His shoulders straightened.
“Fauna.” Caliban said her name quietly. “You have to let her go.”
“No!” she screamed. A new ruby rage flooded her as she attempted to claw past Silas. I flinched at her advance, but it was out of emotion rather than fear. She likened herself to many deceptive things—nymph, skosgr?, forest deity—and perhaps some of those things were true. There wasn’t much about her in the Edda beyond the throwaway sentence that led to my undoing. And if she was what she claimed, there were no plants, no wildlife, no wood or thicket or creature here for her to summon at her behest. She had no power here beyond what her pain did to my heart.
Caliban moved past them both. I wasn’t sure if Silas allowed it, or knew he couldn’t stop it. He took several forceful steps toward Azrames, risking his own exposed throat at the expense of returning Fauna to him while she struggled to get to me. I couldn’t watch them. I couldn’t expend what remained of my energy on them. My focus blurred, unable to look at the ones I’d loved so fiercely. My gaze drifted to the pool of glittering angel blood as it crept toward my shoes. I hadn’t even realized Caliban had crossed the room to me when my hands were suddenly swept up in his.
“Love…”
“Betty’s okay?”
He nodded. “She’ll be okay.”
Lead weighed down my eyelids, but it didn’t stop the tears from escaping, one after the other. “Then I have to go. Nia…Kirby…”
“There’s something I need you to know,” he said. It took me a moment to accept the bid for attention. When I obliged, his face was collected. “Be angry. I honor it. If you tell me that you renounce me in this cycle and every cycle moving forward, I will go on loving you. If you tell me to leave you, I’ll continue to protect your friends, and everyone around you. If you force me not to be with you, I’ll pave a path for your employers, your family, your road in every life moving forward. You can send me away, Love, but in ten centuries, my heart will still belong to you.”
My knees buckled.
He pulled me against him, holding my head to his chest. “You aren’t the only victim of this prophecy,” he murmured into my hair. I nearly cried out when he released me. The absence rushed between us like icy water as he stepped away.
Caliban looked at Silas, who had returned to my side.
“I understand that I’m taking her life as much as I’m saving it,” said Silas.
“I’ll take it off your tab,” came Caliban’s dry, broken response.
Behind them, Fauna had slumped into Azrames.
“I didn’t do this, Azrames,” Silas said to the still-feral demon, Az’s pewter eyes etched with hate.
Azrames turned away, burying his face in Fauna’s russet hair.
“You’ll keep her safe?” Caliban asked, looking at Silas. And while some part of me wanted to be angry, wanted to make a comment about agency, about keeping myself safe, about my soul and my autonomy, I understood that this was bigger than my human life.
“I’ll die trying,” Silas promised.
Because I didn’t know what to say, I could only voice the words that clanged through the tin husk of my heart. With hushed brokenness, I looked at Caliban and said, “I love you.”
Mercury-colored tears lined his eyes as he replied, “I’ve always loved you.”