Lucille
Chapter
Forty-Seven
“Well, Luce, what’s next?”
I scanned my body, grimacing. “To change out of my patient gown.”
I scooted off the bed and entered my closet, switching to a loose long-sleeve shirt and a pair of leggings. Then strapped a dagger to my thigh. Once I came out, Oliver nodded.
“Sporty and hot.”
“We have traitors everywhere. I’m being cautious.”
“Couldn’t you just, I don’t know… shove an icicle through their eye or send an unsuspecting purple ball at them that’ll dissolve their faces?”
“I like to have options,” I said with a sassy shrug and smirk.
“Who knew giving a girl a squad and a butt-load of trauma would make her turn spicy?” He licked his finger and, in a very Oliverly fashion, pressed it to his ass with a hiss.
“Let’s go,” I groaned. “Before I die from your humor.”
We hobbled out of my room, paused in the sitting area while I grabbed my notes, then made it to the hall door right as someone knocked.
For a second, my stomach rolled at the thought of Ronen.
I opened the door.
“Hey! It’s my favorite healer,” Oliver chirped into Sam’s scowling face.
“I did not approve your discharge, Oliver.”
“Lucy needed me. But we’re on our way back now, my grumpy healer.” He booped Sam on his nose, and the scowl deepened.
Sam moved to Oliver’s other side, standing taller than me but shorter than him. We continued toward the stairwell, jumbled and quiet. Then Sam surprised both Oliver and me by picking him up in his arms.
Oliver gazed at him adoringly. “I think this is the start of my fantasy. But we’re going in the wrong direction.”
I hid my smile behind my hand as Sam tried and failed not to be affected by Oliver’s goofy charm.
“And they thought you were evil,” Oliver said, poking at Sam’s twitching lip.
“Evil?”
“Never mind.” He waved it away. “But we are going in the wrong direction. Luce wants to head to the library. We have days to save and prepare Hell, so we need to do some research and get the gang together.”
Sam’s face flushed, and he quite literally looked like he was going to blow. Either from the news or the fact that his patient was trying to make demands.
“I swear you’re going to give me gray hairs,” Sam muttered softly, then louder, “If that’s the case, I need to get back to the lab.
After talking with Aspen and Ronen about your attack, I took his blood and need to see how it interacts with the other samples.
And I refuse to leave you to your own devices and risk destroying all the progress I’ve made on your foot.
The draughts were meant to help your pain, not make you think you had superpowers. ”
“But I do have pow…” Oliver trailed off at Sam’s glare.
Watching them tugged at something in my chest. Oliver had found his match. The serious to his goofy. The steady to his chaos. A male who would hunt him down and most likely chain him to a table in his lab if Sam’s glare was anything to go by, if only to make sure Oliver healed.
I couldn’t be happier for him.
I ruffled Oliver’s hair quickly. “You two go to the lab. I’ll meet up with the rest of the gang, and we can reconvene later.”
Sam’s glare melted into a relieved nod, and Oliver only looked half disappointed.
I backtracked to Aspen and Oliver’s room, planning to tell Aspen about the dream-walk I’d had with his mother, and found a note tacked to their door.
Lucille,
You ripped out a piece of me last night by telling me to leave you like that. But why would I think I deserved to hold you, help you, protect you, when I chose not to do it from the very beginning?
Etan has always been a source of fear for me—a past that scarred me and painted me with bloody names.
Yet if I had known that a stubborn, beautiful, unrelenting female would walk into my life and show me what true strength was, what it meant to go through such hardship and still persevere in the face of it, to understand how thoroughly she’d change me, I would’ve told you.
I regret how long it took me to overcome my fears.
I want you to know that I didn’t accept the bond just to save you, but because you gave me the courage I needed to become a better male.
For you. Myself. Maybe even Hell. After realizing that, I knew you were it for me.
And I would rather be permanently bound to the female I love—even if she hates me—than leave myself available for others who I know would never compare to her.
With all that said, this letter was originally intended to inform you that Aspen is with Alexei and me in the pit. If we’re going to war soon, I need to ready our military the best I can, and he has experience. But I’m sending a few others to help you with your research on the Spinewalkers.
—Yours, for all the days I breathe, and every silence after,
Ronen
His honesty and vulnerability seeped into the lingering fissures of doubt, filling them with light, hope, and… frustration. At him.
I carefully folded the letter and tucked it into my pocket to save for when I gave him a piece of my mind.
I strode toward the library, wondering who Ronen would’ve sent to help me research and commending him for knowing my habits.
This morning, the Doors of Moirai’s mosaic revealed the six-pointed star we’d found painted beneath Anya’s bed. I hadn’t thought to ask her about it before, but now it seemed important that I did. And what did that sixth rune mean?
Maybe Cato would know.
I entered the library and blinked just to make sure what I was seeing wasn’t a mirage.
MJ, Ichi, and Zera sat at my table, each with a book open in front of them.
Ichi and Zera stood when I approached. MJ stayed seated, only lifting her head in acknowledgment. Mocking humor danced in her fiery amber eyes when Ichi and Zera bowed, murmuring the word, “Princess.”
I raised my hands. “Please, don’t. Sit.”
Ichi bowed again because she couldn’t help herself. Zera slumped back into her wooden chair like the effort of standing had sucked the energy from her. Her blonde pixie cut fell into her face, covering the puffy redness beneath her lashes and reminding me of her loss.
“I’m so sorry, Zera.”
She fiddled with the book in front of her. Quiet.
I didn’t think she was going to respond when she snorted, then giggled, which turned into strange laughter.
The three of us frowned. Or two of us. MJ looked more like she thought Zera had lost her mind.
“It’s not funny. But it kind of is.”
We waited for her to elaborate.
“She was already dead. Now I’m crying over her kinda dying again?” She glanced at us. “It’s ironic, right?”
“I…” Had no idea what to say to that.
Ichi touched the large sword resting against her chair. “I imprisoned my dead sister’s soul in my sword.”
Well, if that was the direction we were going…
“I plan to kill my best friend’s adopted sister, who’s possessing my father, eating his soul, and planning to take over Hell.”
Silence.
Did I go too far?
“You all are messed up,” MJ muttered, then pulled out a white dagger I’d never seen before. “I made a knife out of my dead cordistella’s rib and only use it on people who deserve my revenge.”
The four of us grinned, and the sun beaming through the skylight bore witness to the forming of a bond.
A trauma bond, but a bond nonetheless.
“Are you finding any information on the Spinewalkers?” I sat beside MJ.
“No more than what we already know.” MJ pushed the handwritten text in front of me. “This is the only passage that might’ve had value.”
It only gave a warning about the Spinewalkers; everything around it appeared blacked out.
Spinewalkers inhabit Veil Forest. They’re dark entities whose bodies act as living voids. Touching them is ill-advised. Those who do are seldom recovered and are believed to be forever lost in their abyss.
The blacked-out passages reminded me of when I tried to read about the creation of Hell.
I searched through our piles until I found that book and opened to the blacked-out page. But that wasn’t the only similarity between the books. They were written by the same hand.
One that wasn’t Cato’s.
“Thrones write all our history, right?” I asked, my mind working through something.
“Yes,” Ichi answered.
Which meant whoever wrote these books had to be a Throne from years ago. A Throne who’d once been living and was now dead because of Lilith, who’d made some sort of deal with the council. The same council that forced Lucifer into becoming king.
I grabbed Cato’s quill and quickly scribbled something on my notes, then stood with the paper and book on Spinewalkers. “I’ll be right back. I need to see Cato.”
I was onto something. I just needed a little help.
The hallway to his door appeared less ominous now that I wasn’t trying to sneak into his room. Not that it did anything to prevent my hands from turning clammy as I raised my fist to knock.
I paused, steeling myself, and the door opened.
How did he do that? Was I wearing some kind of magical bell that signaled to him whenever I was near?
“Yes?” he inquired as if I’d interrupted his morning tea.
I shoved my notes in his face. “What does this rune mean?”
His irises flashed from brown to black and speckled.
They settled back to brown, drilling straight into my soul with unsettling intensity.
“Unmaking.”
Why did I get the feeling he was implying something with that word? Did he figure out I’d snuck into his study? A prickling dread ran down my spine, draining the warmth from my face.
“Do you know what it has to do with this pentagram?”
“No.”
He pulled back like he’d fulfilled his one-answer quota for the day, and I wedged my foot between the door before he could shut it, holding up the book.
Because I sure as hell wasn’t letting him get away without answering more of my questions.
He knew things.
And this wasn’t one I’d let him avoid.
“Who wrote this? And how do I dream-walk to the moment they did?”
Cato looked at the handwriting, and his dry expression shuttered. He took the book from me, closed it, and caressed the cover like one would a lover.