Chapter Fifty-Two Charlotte
Chapter Fifty-Two
Charlotte
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Charlotte,” Michael continues, advancing toward me. “You’re going to open the next seal for me, and it’s up to you whether or not I let your friend go.”
My mouth hardens into a thin line. “Of course you’re going to let her go. Otherwise, I’m not going to—”
“Just listen to him, Charlotte,” Lucifer says, nodding to whatever’s on the other side of the darkness. “You don’t want to make him angry.”
Him.
I have a sneaking suspicion he isn’t talking about Michael.
I swallow. “What do I have to do? Stop another flood? Wave off another plague of locusts? Or fight whatever this—”
“Don’t insult it,” Azrael warns.
Act as if it isn’t there, Lucifer sends down the line between us.
But what is—
Not now, Charlotte. He gives the barest shake of his head.
My stomach clenches.
What could possibly be in that darkness that he . . . ?
I don’t allow the thought to continue. I can’t let my panic get the better of me.
I need to stay focused.
Michael shakes his head, grinning like whatever he has up his sleeve for the seal, this time it’s far better. “No,” he says. “All you have to do is choose.”
“Choose?”
My gaze darts between Lucifer and Azrael.
The threat of what’ll happen if I don’t is clear.
Michael and the lance.
Or whatever that thing is.
I don’t want to come face-to-face with one of . . . God’s failures.
My palms slicken.
The thought alone is the thing of nightmares.
Michael waves a hand, seemingly unconcerned with the beast at his back, and suddenly there’s a scroll in his hand and two goblets sit on a small table beside him. I have a feeling neither of them contains anything I’d want to drink.
“Pick your poison, Charlotte,” he says, popping the scroll open unceremoniously. “One grants you absolution. The other, clarity. But neither spares you the truth.”
Pick your poison.
The words are all too similar to what Azrael said to me outside my father’s torture chamber only a few short hours ago. But it feels like a lifetime.
“I don’t—”
“Come on now, Char. Even Judas took the cup,” Michael taunts. “The one on the left saves your friend. The one on the right spares humanity.”
My eyes widen. “Spares humanity?”
“From the pain of the fourth seal.” His gaze darts to Azrael, and my blood runs cold.
With the fourth seal, Death will be unleashed on the world, and I’m not sure I want to gamble with what that means for humanity. Or what Azrael would be forced to do if I . . .
I glance toward him, and he gives the barest shake of his head.
He still doesn’t know. That was part of it. A condition for his freedom.
My gaze falls to the cup on the right.
But if I drink it, doesn’t that mean Jax dies?
“Which one of the Originals is this seal for?” I ask, wishing we’d brought along Lucifer’s siblings. That they hadn’t turncoated on me the moment the Righteous posed a threat to them. It’s probably the only time in my immortal life I’ll ever think that.
Michael lifts a brow. “You can’t tell?”
“Greed,” Lucifer mutters.
Greed.
My eyes widen.
Meaning to open the seal, I have to choose to help the world, instead of save my—
“But for you, it’ll open either way,” Michael clarifies. “The choice is yours.”
I look to Jax.
She’s still barely conscious, but I can see her eyelids flickering, and the words she said to me during that prophecy come rushing back to me.
It’s okay. Just let it happen.
Is this what she meant? To let God’s plan unfold?
She couldn’t have possibly meant that she was okay with dying.
“It should be an easy choice for someone as righteous as you, shouldn’t it, Charlotte?” Michael taunts. “Save the one you love or save countless others?”
My heart pounds.
And then I look toward Lucifer and realize . . .
“I’m sorry,” I say, a lump of remorse forming inside my throat. “I would’ve done the same thing if I were you in your position, and had I known, I wouldn’t have chosen any differently.”
I would’ve let him burn the world down for me. For us.
Lucifer’s chest puffs out, and the hellfire in his eyes blazes.
He’s been willing to admit to himself all along what I refused to see.
He wouldn’t just burn the world for me.
We’d burn it all down for each other.
Lies of omission are still lies, but they’re easier to forgive, it seems.
And he’d never wish that decision on me. Not within a thousand lifetimes.
But this is my decision.
My choice.
I turn back to the cups.
I don’t want to help Michael any more than I have to, and with none of the other angels here, opening the seal for him doesn’t benefit us. But if I don’t—
That thing in the dark stirs.
It’s okay. Just let it happen.
I glance at Azrael. “If I choose her, will you be able to—”
“I don’t know, baby girl,” he says, and the tormented expression on his face nearly destroys me.
This is what it means to love Death.
To not fear uncertainty.
My gaze falls to Jax again.
That had to be what she meant. That Azrael would be able to save her. I have to trust in what she told me. In her prophecy. That’s the only option.
I can’t condemn countless people to death. Even to save my friend.
Even if the choice doesn’t feel easy.
Slowly, I step forward, taking the cup on the right into my hands. I look toward her, her eyes now open slightly.
“It’s okay,” she rasps. “Let it happen.”
And that seals my fate.
I lift the cup to my lips and drink deep, draining it of the communion wine I find there.
When I’m finished, I swipe the back of my hand over my lips, facing Michael as I feel more than sense the fourth seal cracking. “Are you going to let us go now?”
My attention flits to where that monster waits in the dark.
Michael laughs and tips his chin toward the scroll he’s holding like it’s his instruction manual. “Father didn’t say anything about letting you go, now did He?”
He snaps his fingers, and then he’s gone.
The beast in the dark stirs.
And there’s nothing I can do but back away slowly.