20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
Ophelia
I don’t even realize I’m shaking until I round on Rhys again.
“Are you happy now?!” My voice cracks as I shove the words in his face. “You got what you wanted. He’s gone. So go ahead—celebrate.”
His expression twists, but he doesn’t speak.
“Say something!” I scream. “Say it was worth it. Say you’d choose her again even knowing what it would cost—because you did.”
I take a step closer, shaking, unhinged, breaking apart. “You hated Julian so much you couldn’t even see what he was trying to save.”
Bella steps between us, her eyes wide and glassy. “Ophelia, please,” she says, voice gentle but urgent. “Don’t do this. It’s not Rhys’ fault.”
I laugh. It’s hollow. “Isn’t it? Because when I said it wasn’t Julian’s fault, he tore me apart. But for you? He stands there and says nothing.”
I look between them, bitterness flooding every vein.
“Well, if being silent is enough to be spared, let me make this easy.” I pull away from all of them. “I’ll be good. I’ll be quiet. I’ll disappear again—just like before.”
And before anyone can stop me, I close my eyes. If I still have anything left—if there’s even a shred of power still mine—I use it.
I vanish. When I reappear in my apartment, the first thing I see are the boxes lined up in perfect rows, ready to be taken to Julian’s. Ready to start a new life.
Except there’s no one to bring them to now. No Julian. No bond. Just the echo of what should’ve been.
I stagger a step forward and stop cold. My mark is silent. Empty.
It used to thrum—quiet, constant, like a heartbeat beneath my skin. Now… nothing.
The pain hits so fast, so violently, I don’t have time to scream.
It’s not just gone. It’s ripped out. Like something ancient and burning has been torn from the deepest part of me, taking every breath with it. My knees hit the ground. My hands clutch at my chest. I press my hand over it, like I can force it to come back. Like maybe if I just stand still, he’ll come through the door and tell me it was all a mistake.
But he doesn’t. He traded everything for me to have my family. And now he’s gone.
The sob hits before I can stop it, sharp and shaking and loud in the quiet space. I sink to the floor between the boxes—neatly stacked memories of a future that never had a chance. I try to breathe, but my chest won’t expand. My lungs won’t work. Everything inside me feels like it’s breaking.
I curl in on myself and cry.
Because I’m alone, I’m still here. Because the one person who saw me—really saw me—took my place in hell.
And left me behind.
I do the only thing I know how to do. I call Owen.
Ophelia : Owen. Please… I need you.
He appears in a blink, the scent of smoke and shadow trailing behind him. His eyes widen when he sees me, crumpled on the floor, surrounded by the boxes that were meant to be the start of my new life, my happy life.
He crosses the room quickly, kneeling beside me.
“I’m here,” he says gently, wrapping his arms around me. “I’ve got you.”
I press my face into his shoulder, barely holding together.
“Have you seen him? Is he okay?”
Owen hesitates. “I have. He’s... alive.”
“But?” I step closer. “There’s something you’re not saying. What is it?”
He looks away, his voice lower now. “No one’s ever done what he did. Not like that. No loophole. No trick. Just… offered himself. Completely.”
I feel my pulse stutter. “What does that mean?”
“It means he gave up more than his life.” Owen's voice softens, like the truth might hurt less that way. “He gave up his soul. And when that happens, the connection—whatever bound you two—” He swallows. “It breaks. Or maybe... it burns out. You still feel it, because you loved him. Still do. But he—”
He shakes his head. “He’s not yours anymore, Ophelia. Because he’s not fully... him. Not in the way you knew.”
“So I’m still his… but he’s not mine.”
“Not really,” he says. “Not the way he was.”
I stare at him, waiting—needing more than that.
“Julian gave up his demonhood when he gave up his soul. That’s the cost,” Owen continues. “He has a soul now—fully, painfully human. No magic. No power. No way to shift or command or defend himself.”
My breath catches.
“He’s stuck in Hell,” Owen says, quieter now. “Powerless. And because he’s no longer part of their system, the other demons see him as broken. Worse. They see him as prey.”
I shake my head, barely able to speak. “But he still remembers me?”
“Yes,” Owen says, quickly. “He still loves you. That didn’t change. But he can’t feel you through the bond anymore. He thinks of you constantly—he just doesn’t know if you’ll ever be able to reach each other again.”
He pauses. “And he’s alone, Ophelia. Really alone. Trapped in a place that was once his to control. And now… now he’s something the rest of Hell would love to tear apart.”
Owen doesn’t wait for a response. He steps back, eyes shadowed with something that looks too much like mourning. He vanishes.
And I’m still here—sitting in the ruins of a life I barely got back.
The boxes Julian packed are still lined against the walls, untouched.
I walk to the one marked paintings, press my hand against it, and feel nothing. No spark. No echo. No warmth through the mark on my chest.
It’s still there. But he isn’t.
I sink to the floor, knees hitting wood, fingers curling into the edge of the box like it might hold me together.
I break. No noise. No screams. Just the quiet collapse of someone who loved too much and still lost everything.
I don’t know how long it’s been.
Days blur into nights, and nights stretch into something that doesn’t feel like time at all. Maybe it’s been a week. Maybe it’s been a month. Or maybe I died the second he was dragged beneath the earth and no one bothered to tell me.
I don’t care anymore. I’ve barely eaten. I don’t sleep. I stare at the wall until the light changes. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I can’t, sometimes I think the silence will finally swallow me whole. I wish it would.
He's gone.
And not just gone—not the kind where someone might come back. Not the kind that leaves a door open. He gave up everything, and the world just… moved on. Like he never existed. Like I imagined it all.
I tried to call Owen. The others, anyone. I begged—whispered their names through the bond, over and over like a prayer.
No one answered. They can’t hear me anymore. And I can’t feel him.
My mark is still there—barely. A faint shimmer under my skin, like a burn that never healed right. It used to pulse. It used to sing. Now it just… hums. Faint. Hollow. Like a memory trying not to fade.
I remember what the council said. Their voices echo every day. The longer you're apart, the weaker the bond becomes. Until one day, there is nothing left at all.
I wake up sometimes with my hand clutching my chest. Right over where the mark used to burn. Like I can hold onto it the same way I held onto him.
But it’s slipping. So am I.
My apartment is still filled with boxes. Lined up just like he left them. Every time I look at them it feels like a joke. Like the universe gift-wrapped his absence just so I could open it again and again.
I talk to him sometimes. I tell him how sorry I am. How I would’ve taken the deal if I’d known. How this kind of loneliness doesn’t feel like heartbreak—it feels like torture. Like something inside me is decaying one memory at a time.
And every day I wonder if he regrets it. If he remembers me at all. If the part of him that loved me is buried somewhere deep in Hell, screaming to come back.
Because I am. And no one is listening.
I don’t hear the knock. Or maybe I do, and I just don’t care. The door creaks open, soft and slow, and I brace for someone I don’t want to see—someone here to tell me to eat, to sleep, to pull myself together.
But the voice is softer than I expected. Familiar in a way that disarms me. “Ophelia,” Rosalind says gently. “It’s just me.”
I don’t turn around. I’m still curled in the corner of my room, knees pulled to my chest.
I hear her walk in, her heels clicking once against the floor before she slips them off without a word. She doesn’t hover, doesn’t ask for permission. She just sits beside me, silent, until it becomes something I can breathe in.
“You weren’t answering,” she finally says. “And I figured… if there was ever a time you shouldn’t be alone, it’s now.”
I want to speak, but my throat burns. I don’t even know what I’d say. So I just whisper the only truth I have left. “I can’t feel him anymore.”
Rosalind doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t try to fix it. She lays her hand over mine, warm and solid. “I know.”
It’s those two words that undo me. “I talk to him,” I admit, the words breaking apart in my mouth. “I tell him I’m sorry. That I would’ve done anything if I’d known. I don’t even know if he’d want to hear it. I just—”
My voice catches. “I just want him back.”
Rosalind nods, still so quiet. There’s no pity in her face. Just grief. Real, quiet, maternal grief—for the daughter she chose, and the man who gave himself up so that daughter could live.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love,” she says softly. “And I wish I could say it gets easier. But it doesn’t. It just… changes.”
She squeezes my hand. “You’re not selfish for hurting. You’re not weak for breaking. And you’re not alone.”
I lean my head against her shoulder. My breath shakes, my body aches in places grief has taken root. “I don’t know how to keep going.”
“Don’t try to yet,” she whispers. “Just let yourself feel this. Let it hurt. Let it be messy. I’ll sit with you through every second of it.”
And I do.
I cry until I can’t anymore. Until the pain becomes too heavy for tears and all that’s left is the sound of breathing, hers and mine.
“Rosalind said it’s been four months,” he says gently. “That you haven’t spoken. Or eaten.”
Four months. So that’s how long it’s been. Time stopped mattering, days blended together and folded in on themselves until I forgot how to tell them apart.
I don’t respond. I haven’t in weeks. Maybe longer.
He steps inside, carefully. Like the air might shatter if he moves too fast.
I’m still in the same spot. The corner of the room. Back against the wall, knees hugged to my chest. The boxes around me are untouched, still lined up like soldiers waiting to be dismissed from a war that never ended.
Dominic lowers himself to a crouch. “You don’t have to talk,” he says. “I’ll talk.” And he does.
He talks about Melanie. About regret, guilt, how he’s not sure what he’s mourning anymore—his wife, his marriage, or the man he used to be.
I barely register the words. They drift past me like smoke. Until he says it. “He didn’t trade his soul so you could disappear too.”
That cuts through everything. I look up at him for the first time in months. Really look. And the moment our eyes meet, I know he sees it. What’s left of me… isn’t.
He stands slowly, and his voice drops. “I don’t know how to fix this. But I want to try. For him. For you.”
My voice is barely a whisper. “There’s nothing left to fix.”
He doesn’t argue. He just leaves. And I don’t stop him. Because he’s right. Julian gave up everything so I could live. And all I’ve done is vanish.
Four months since I watched him vanish into the earth. Two since I stopped pretending I could survive it.
When the knock comes, I don't move. The door creaks open, followed by soft footsteps and a sharp gasp that barely registers.
"Ophelia?" Bella's voice wavers like it's already breaking.
I’m on the bathroom floor. The tub behind me is stained with blood from last night—maybe it was this morning. I’ve lost track. Of everything. The lights are off. Curtains closed.
I don’t look human. I haven’t in weeks. My skin is ash-gray. Lips cracked. There are deep bruises on my arms from where I’ve clawed at myself trying to feel something. My ribs show. My hair is matted. I smell like sweat and iron.
My collarbone—the mark—has been torn open more than once. I’ve tried everything to wake it up. Burned it. Carved around it. Bled for it. Nothing worked. It just sits there, cold and faded, like a tombstone etched into my skin.
“Dominic—get in here,” Bella calls, and her voice breaks mid-word.
He enters with Rosalind and Rhys on his heels. The sound of Bella sobbing is the only thing louder than the silence I’ve lived in.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dominic mutters, dropping to his knees. “What the hell did you do to yourself?”
I lift my gaze slowly. My eyes are hollow. My voice is a whisper. “Tried to make it stop.”
“Stop what?” Rhys demands, but it’s not anger—it’s desperation.
I hold up my hands. My wrists. My thighs. My chest. The scabs. The burns. The empty bottles of pills scattered on the floor. “Everything.”
“Ophelia, no.” Rosalind drops beside me, cradling my face in her hands. “You didn’t—please tell me you didn’t—”
“I did,” I breathe. “And I failed.”
“Why?” Bella chokes out. “Why would you—”
“Because I don’t want to be here without him,” I snap, suddenly too loud, too sharp. “I don't want to breathe if he’s not breathing. I don’t want to wake up. I want the pain to end.”
Rhys has tears in his eyes. Dominic turns away. Rosalind can’t stop whispering “I’m here, I’m here,” like maybe if she says it enough, I’ll believe it.
Bella falls to her knees beside me. Her hands hover over mine like she’s afraid to touch me—afraid I’ll disappear.
Dominic pulls out his phone, voice low but urgent. “We’re getting you help. Real help. I’m not losing you too.”
“No.” My voice is raw, but steady.
Bella steps forward, eyes shining. “Ophelia, please—”
“No help.” I back away, hands trembling. “Nothing.”
“You need—”
“I need him!” I scream, and the sound cracks the silence open like glass under pressure.
Rhys opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off too. “You want to patch me up? Put me in some white room with humming lights and strangers who don’t know his name? That’s not healing. That’s pretending. And I won’t fucking do it.”
Bella’s crying again. Silent tears. Her hands are still hovering.
“I’m not sick. I’m grieving.” My voice cracks, but I don’t look away. “I lost my soulmate. I lost myself. I don’t want to be fixed. I want to disappear.”
Rosalind’s eyes fill, but she doesn’t speak. None of them do. Because now they see it—the depth of it. The void I’ve become. I’m not broken, I’m not sad, I’m not even depressed.
I’m gone. And I have no intention of coming back.
Find the summoning. The words echo again, but they’re not spoken. Not really. Just a pulse in the back of my mind—louder now, as if the silence made room for it.
“I don’t know where it is,” I whisper, my voice more breath than sound. “I don’t know how.”
The journals. It’s not a voice, not in the traditional sense. But it answers. Soft. Steady. Like something ancient and patient that’s been watching me unravel, waiting for this exact moment.
My limbs scream when I move. Every part of me aches with the weight of nothing. But I push off the floor, staggering to my feet, half-hoping I collapse before I can go any farther.
But I don’t.
I cross the room, dragging myself toward the stacks of boxes still lined up by the front door. I never unpacked them. Couldn’t bear to.
Now, I tear them open like they’re filled with oxygen.
Not this one.
Not that one.
I dig through old canvases, shattered frames, journals stained with tears and paint and grief.
My hands land on something strange. A book I don’t recognize. It’s old. Bound in something that isn’t quite leather. It’s not mine. It's in a language I know I can't read, but yet I can. The book isn’t just old—it buzzes under my skin.
I flip through its pages, expecting nonsense. Gibberish. A metaphorical scream in ink. But it isn’t that. It’s a manual.
Summoning a Demon Without Knowing Their Name.
My heart skips. The letters feel alive on the page, like they’re watching me as I read.
The summoner must still provide an offering – blood, a personal sacrifice, or a deep emotional cost.
Instead of calling a specific demon, they invoke any entity willing to answer.
The summoning phrase must be general yet binding: “I call to the ones who walk between shadow and flame. Let one who would bargain step forth.”
My breath hitches.
No name. No control. Just… whoever hears me. And they will come. Something always comes.
The strongest, most interested demon will respond – but the summoner has no control over who appears.
A low-level demon may answer and demand a steep price.
A powerful demon may be insulted and punish the summoner for wasting their time.
Some demons will not bargain fairly and will take more than what was intended.
A chill spreads through my chest. Julian would never answer something like this. Not unless fate forced him to.
And it did.
He wasn’t supposed to get that call. But he did. Because the bond tugged the thread. Because fate doesn’t ask permission.
It brought us together when it shouldn’t have. And tore us apart the same way.
I may hold the Loom now. But fate has always known how to pull its own strings.
Before I can turn the page, it flips on its own.
Summoning a Specific Demon.
The words below it aren’t just instructions—they’re obsession. Precision etched in ritual and consequence.
Know the Demon’s True Name.
Provide a worthy offering—blood, memory, soul.
Speak the invocation with intent: “By oath and fire, by shadow and will, I call upon [Name]. Step forth and heed this summons.”
Draw the circle. Blood, ash, chalk—whatever binds the edges of power.
My pulse roars in my ears.
I know I'm calling someone's name.
I’ve bled for him. I’ve died in pieces for him. And if I have to offer what’s left of me to bring him back, I will.
I wipe my nose on the sleeve of the oversized sweater I haven’t taken off in days—weeks, maybe. The journal lies open on the floor beside me, the pages warped and stained with something that might be blood, or just the echo of everything I’ve lost.
Summoning a demon isn’t something you do casually. It’s not lighting candles and whispering into the dark. It’s sacrifice, precision, and intent. And I have all three.
I grab a piece of chalk from one of the old moving boxes, the kind I used to mark canvas edges. It feels wrong to use it like this—but everything about this feels wrong. That’s the point.
I clear a space in the middle of the floor and begin to draw. The circle is messy at first, but my hand steadies with each stroke. Symbols, runes, the binding points—it all comes together like muscle memory I shouldn’t have. Like something buried inside me finally waking up.
I light the candles—each one flickering with a life of its own.
The blade trembles in my grip as I drag it across my skin. Blood wells and drips onto the floor, slow and deliberate. And now the invocation. The book lies open beside me, the words ready.
“By oath and fire, by shadow and will, I call upon Owen Duvain. Step forth and heed this summons.”
The air tightens. The blood begins to sizzle. And the summoning circle pulses, like a heartbeat not entirely my own.
Owen doesn’t answer right away.
He just stares. Not at the circle, not at the blood smeared across the floor—but at me. And something in his expression fractures. “Gods, Ophelia,” he says quietly. “What happened to you?”
I don’t respond.
“You’re… different. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. Your face, your body—there’s no light in you anymore.” His voice dips, low and raw. “You look like someone who already died and forgot to lie down.”
I force myself to stay standing, even though every word cuts like glass. “I’m here to make a deal,” I say, steadier than I feel.
“How did you even know how to summon me?” he asks, ignoring everything else.
“I found a journal,” I say, hesitating just enough for it to matter.
“What journal?” he asks, brow furrowing.
“I don’t know whose it was,” I say. “It wasn’t mine. It was in one of the boxes by the door.”
“Who told you to look there?” he asks, stepping closer, tension drawing his shoulders tight.
My pulse stutters. “...A voice.”
His gaze narrows. “What voice?”
“I don’t know. I just heard it. It told me to check the journals.” My arms tighten around my middle like I’m trying to hold something in. “It felt... familiar. Like someone I should trust.”
Owen goes still. The kind of stillness that feels unnatural—like something is calculating behind his eyes. His jaw clenches. “Aunt Selene.”
My mouth goes dry. My body sways, like the floor tilts beneath me. “What?”
“She’s done this before,” he mutters. “Shown up when she shouldn’t be able to. Whispers in the cracks between things. She doesn’t meddle unless she sees something the rest of us can’t.”
“So you believe me?”
He nods, wary now. “I believe something wanted you to find that book. And if Selene had a hand in it... this isn’t just grief. It’s fate. And that terrifies me.”
“Good,” I whisper. “Because I’m done being scared alone.”
His expression hardens. “And what do you think happens next, Ophelia? You trade whatever’s left of yourself and hope he comes back the same? You think he’d want that?”
“I don’t care what he’d want,” I snap, voice sharp with pain. “I want him. And I’ll give whatever it takes.”
Owen’s jaw clenches. “And if what it takes is you? You think that’s a fair trade? You think he would let you do that?”
“He did do that.”
“That’s not the same—”
“It is!” My voice cracks, rising. “He didn’t ask. He didn’t warn me. He just left. So now I’m making the same choice. The same sacrifice. I learned from the best.”
Owen steps forward, anger sparking. “That’s not learning. That’s falling into the same damn pit. And you think I’m just going to stand here and let you?”
“You don’t get to decide,” I fire back. “You don’t get to stop me.”
“I’m his twin,” Owen growls. “You think this doesn’t kill me too? I saw him fall. I felt it when the bond broke. And now you’re standing in blood summoning me like I’m your shortcut to self-destruction.”
“I’m summoning you,” I breathe, “because no one else would listen.”
He falters for a second. His shoulders drop, but the fury in his eyes stays.
“I am listening,” he says, softer now—but no less intense. “I see you, Ophelia. I see what this has done to you. But this… this is the part where someone’s supposed to pull you back.”
“You can’t pull back someone who’s already gone.”
His silence is deafening. “What are you offering?” he asks, his voice low and edged like a blade barely sheathed.
“Whatever it takes.” I meet his eyes, steady despite the tremor in my chest, even as my fingers dig crescent moons into my palms.
“No,” he snaps, jaw tightening as he takes a step forward. “Be specific.”
“My soul.” The words leave my mouth like a blade pressed to my own throat, quiet but unwavering.
He flinches, just barely—like I struck something raw beneath the surface. His eyes darken, grief and fury flickering in the depths. “You want to trade your soul for his?”
“Yes.” My voice is steady now, cold, certain. I straighten, refusing to look away.
“And what if I say no?” he growls, his arms crossed like a shield he doesn’t know how to lower.
“I’ll find someone else.” My pulse pounds in my ears, but I don’t back down. “In a heartbeat,” I add, chin lifted, the tremble in my limbs no match for the fire in my voice.
Owen studies me for a long moment. There's no more arguing left in him—only a quiet, heavy understanding. He nods once, sharp and solemn, and pulls a scroll from the air.
It doesn’t burn, doesn’t sizzle with magic. It just exists, the parchment thicker than paper, smoother than flesh. A contract waiting for blood.
Owen holds it between us, and with a flick of his hand, the terms appear in ink that looks disturbingly like it was carved from shadow.
One soul. One return. Equal exchange.
“You sure?” he asks, voice quieter now.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” I whisper.
He hands me a dagger. It’s elegant.
I press the blade to my palm without flinching. Drag it down in one clean line. The blood spills freely and as it hits the contract, the ink glows, the letters sealing themselves with every drop.
The mark flares once on my collarbone—so bright it hurts. The contract vanishes in a single breath, smoke curling into nothing.
Owen doesn't say anything at first. But then… he smiles.
“Good choice,” he says, almost gently. “We’ll make sure your boxes make it to his house.”
The floor beneath me splits. The room dissolves. And in the next heartbeat, I’m standing in the middle of Julian’s bedroom.
Alive. Whole. And staring at the man who gave everything for me.