Lucille
Chapter
Nine
Ididn’t go to the healers’ wing like I’d planned. As much as I wanted to lean on my best friend, I had to find the answers.
At her funeral, I gave myself a horrible moment to consider what I’d do if my mother were sent to Hell’s Circles.
I had created an insane plan to ask Ronen for Tsal-mawet, open Portal Lake, and search every circle until I found her.
All I needed was to learn the other sigils to open the different circles.
And if Ronen decided to come with me, so be it. No one would’ve stopped me.
Except, she wasn’t sent to the circles. She was a disembodied soul, and I had no idea how to help her.
Which was why I was currently standing in front of the floor-length Doors of Moirai, hoping their red, black, and white tiles would switch from the scrolling rune and Tsal-mawet to answers on how to save my mom.
But the image never changed.
Why? What was the purpose of that rune? I’d never seen it before in Cato’s books. I didn’t know what it did or why the dagger was depicted next to it. A dagger, I might add, that wasn’t in my possession. Why couldn’t the damned doors give me clear instructions?
I stormed into the library. My shoes slapped against the white marble floors as I passed the tall bookshelves and stopped at my book-covered table.
I threw open the giant tomb on runes with a bang and scanned the pages.
They began with Prima Runes—what I considered easy runes.
Then Implexus runes, the kind that require a cost. The final section held Velatus Runes, veiled markings only visible to those who knew what to look for.
Like the Wrath Rune Michael had placed on me and my mother.
Page after page, I found nothing that matched the rune the doors depicted. At the very end of the Velatus section, a small category caught my eye: Sanguis Runes.
There, I found two runes that were close, but each was missing details.
“Of course.” I scoffed to myself. “It’d never be that easy.”
Annoyed, I pulled out the book on the Seven Circles and read something new about the grades of sin.
Then I laughed.
The sound was mocking and loud. It vibrated through the quiet library, most likely alerting Cato to my presence.
My mom would’ve gone to the circles.
She lied. She stole. She poisoned me. But that wasn’t even half of it. There was more she hid from me, so scared that if I found out, I’d hate her.
Maybe I would.
Maybe I’d hate her as much as I hated myself right now.
I turned the pages to the chapter on death and finally found what I was looking for.
My mocking laughter turned aching, and I slammed my fist against the book again and again as a shill scream wrenched free.
“You’ll bloody my books if you keep doing that.”
My hand paused mid-slam, and I twisted toward his emotionless voice. “And if I said I didn’t care?”
He blinked. “You wouldn’t be welcome in my library. That would make whatever you’re searching for difficult, now wouldn’t it?”
I swallowed back my curses, the lingering scream clawing up my throat, and slumped back in my chair, defeated.
Averting my gaze to my red knuckles, I admitted, “My mom has two months to be released from her anchor or she’ll be gone forever. No peace. No afterlife. Nothing.”
“A disembodied soul,” Cato said, as if answering his own question.
“How do I release her from her anchor?” I asked, pleading for the answers that’d ease this ongoing pain.
“Children were never meant to bear the choices of their parents,” Cato remarked softly.
Did my desire to help my mom somehow garner sympathy from the normally detached angel? “And yet we still do. Now, how do I do it?” I demanded. “What is her anchor?”
“Hell’s gates, like the rest of the disembodied souls here. Once they open, they’ll release her to Limbo. But if her soul is meant for Hell, and the gates are again closed, she could become a lost soul if she lingers too long in Limbo.”
He actually told me for once, and I wished he hadn’t.
The gates not only had to open, but stay open. No one had figured out why Hell’s gates were closed or why they opened when they did—if they did. How was I supposed to figure out the answer when those who had been here longer and understood this world better couldn’t? What hope was there?
“She chose to give me all her energy, and I chose to take it to save them. I killed her. I killed my mom, and she won’t even exist after two months.
” My voice cracked as the words kept tumbling out.
“Maybe if she would’ve just told me everything from the beginning, we wouldn’t be here!
She had all these damned secrets she wouldn’t tell me.
She—she—” I flung a hand out at Cato, my thoughts a hysterical mess. “She even had secrets about you!”
I jerked my head up to the skylight, to the starless night. My chest compressed, and I remembered her revelations before she died. They poured out of me but weren’t directed at Cato. I practically screamed them at my mother, wishing she could hear me.
“Tell the grouchy old male in the library to stop being afraid and mentor you? Tell him ‘I need to start at the beginning?’ To find Miriam? Aspen’s freaking mom, who was burned alive by Marcus?
That’s what you wanted? We could’ve found another way!
You gave up! You didn’t even give me a chance to save you! And I let you!”
I gasped, but air wouldn’t come. I couldn’t breathe. I pressed a hand to my chest as Hell’s starless sky mocked me. My vision swam with specks. I was about to pass out until a gentle hand touched my shoulder.
Cato’s expression, although still somewhat dry, held sympathy.
It wasn’t the kind strangers gave you, imagining they knew what loss felt like.
No. His sympathy contained a sad understanding.
The signs were subtle. But I could see it in the slight downturn of his lip, his lowered head, and I could feel it in his hand as he squeezed my shoulder.
Over the last few weeks, Cato couldn’t be bothered to talk to me, and now the old, bald librarian was trying to comfort me.
He was doing what I wished Lucifer had. But I squashed whatever hope I had for having a relationship with my father. He hated me now. Probably would rather see me dead than alive.
“You have the means to see her again.”
I frowned up at him. “How?”
Grieving as I was, I figured Cato would be merciful and spell everything out in detail. But no. The time for simple answers had passed. Instead, he responded the way he had for the past two months—by luscelering away and then coming back to drop a book on my table.
The book stood out against the pile behind it. Cracks wove through the brown leather encasing the pages, and unlike the glue that bound most of the books I’d read together, this one appeared sewn. I unwrapped the leather cord holding it closed and opened to the first yellowing page.
Throne History
Recorded by High Archivist Cato
“How does this…” My voice trailed off as I glanced up at the empty spot where Cato had stood. I guess his sympathy had an expiration. I sighed, gently turning the crackling page. I was almost nervous it’d fall apart in my hands.
On the second page, in the very center, there were three sentences:
One word could shorten a lifespan.
One action could destroy a kingdom.
We observe to know, not to change.
The paragraph was a warning, but I wasn’t sure for what. It seemed a bit dramatic if it was simply warning about life itself.
I turned to the next page titled Introduction, and in big, bold letters beneath it appeared the word Throne, followed by a large description.
I had half a mind to skip it. I already knew what a Throne was.
But something nagged at me to continue reading.
Cato may refrain from giving me straight information, but he usually had a good reason to give me a book to read.
The first paragraph described things I already knew about Thrones, but the last shook the entire foundation of my knowledge.
There is one name we define ourselves by, a term we hide from all others.
The term carries a power too tempting for our brothers and sisters to bear.
So we, the Thrones, bury it beneath falsehoods.
We tell them it’s a dark power—born of demons and dark angels, sinful, punishable.
We alter the truth to shield ourselves. Knowledge always exacts a price, and ours is paid in the burden of witnessing the past and present while keeping them unchanged.
That is the weight we carry as dream-walkers.
I read the paragraph over and over, unable to believe what I was reading.
“I knew what you were the moment I saw you.”
I snapped my head up to find Cato standing beside me once more, his long robes stilling as if he had just luscelered in. His eyes flashed black, silver specks dotting the dark expanse. “You have the eyes of a dream-walker, Princess.”
So his whole emotional episode when I revealed myself to him and my father was what? All for show? A way to keep his secret identity hidden?
“My father doesn’t know this about you?” I asked, but I was confident he didn’t or he’d probably order Cato to do something about my mother. At the thought of her and her words to me, my stomach sank.
“I’m not a dark angel then.”
“No. You have the power of a Throne, stolen from my brethren and given to you through Lilith’s blood.”
“She killed the other Thrones?”
The small frown that had appeared before returned, along with haunted eyes. “Yes. I’m the last Throne left.”
He knew more loss than I could comprehend. Was that why he always seemed so detached? Did he purposefully withhold himself from connection, or was that a Throne trait?
“My mom knew, didn’t she?”
Cato blinked, neither confirming nor denying, but he didn’t need to.
Why else ask me to tell Cato to mentor me? The whole dark angel thing was another lie. She might’ve read the book. It might’ve even said that they were taken away for their sinful natures. But she told me what I wanted to hear, something vile enough to satisfy my suspicion. Not what she was hiding.
“Do you know mother’s secrets?”
“Yes.”
The word echoed like a hammer against a nail in an empty room.
“Tell me.”
Cato straightened, lifting his head and gazing down at me with a severe expression. “If I am to mentor you, if you want to see your mom again in any capacity, then you must follow our creed.”
“Your creed?”
“One word could shorten a lifespan. One action could destroy a kingdom. We observe to know, not to change. I will not teach you the ins and outs of dream-walking until you understand that. We keep time. We do not alter it.”
“How does that have anything to do with her secrets?”
“That’s what you must find out.”
I planned to. But more than that, I planned to ignore the creed. If I could change the past and save my mom, I would.