Chapter 12
Barnes is shaking harder when I step toward him.
I don’t blame him. Most people shake when they realize what’s about to happen, that I’m going to reach inside them and pull out something they can’t even see.
That I’m going to take the hunger that’s been eating them alive and swallow it myself.
That for sixty seconds, maybe less, they’re going to watch me become the worst version of themselves.
It’s not comfortable to witness.
“This is going to hurt,” I tell him again, keeping my voice level even though my pulse is already climbing like it always does right before.”
“I don’t care.” His voice is hoarse, desperate. He’s forty-seven but looks sixty. The pride has aged him badly, sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, skin stretched too tight over bone. He looks like he’s been dying for months. Because he has been. “Just make it stop.”
I glance back at Croesus. He’s leaning against Barnes’ desk, arms crossed, watching me with those unsettling gold eyes, molten metal which sees too much, reflects too little.
Beautiful in the way a sword is beautiful, perfectly made for a very specific purpose.
In the dim office lighting, his skin seems to glow faintly bronze, and the veins of actual gold running through his black hair catch the light like wire.
“You need to leave,” I tell him.
One dark eyebrow rises. “I think not.”
“I’m serious. When I absorb this...” I gesture vaguely at Barnes, at the golden chains only I can see wrapped around his throat like a collar and his wrists like manacles. “It’s going to get ugly. You don’t want to see it."
“On the contrary.” Croesus shifts his weight, and the movement is too fluid, too predatory. Like a big cat pretending to be relaxed. “I want to see exactly what I’ve purchased.”
Purchased. Like I’m a tool. A thing. A commodity he’s gained to use however he sees fit for the next year. Property, in everything but name.
The thought makes me want to put my knife through his perfect face.
But I need him here for the second part of this anyway, the deal with Barnes, so I just turn back to the human and try to ignore the angel watching my every move.
“Sit down,” I tell Barnes, gesturing to his leather desk chair. “Don’t move once we start.”
He does, sinking into the seat like it’s a throne or an electric chair; he can’t seem to decide which.
His hands are gripping the armrests so hard, his knuckles have gone white.
There’s a photo on his desk: him with a woman and two teenage kids, all smiling at some beach resort.
They look happy. Like they don’t know what he’s become.
Maybe they don’t. Maybe he’s been hiding it from them too.
I kneel in front of him so we’re closer to eye level, pull the knife from my boot, and slice my palm without hesitation. The pain is sharp and immediate, familiar as breathing. Blood wells up, dark against my skin.
“Give me your hand.”
He does, and I cut his palm too. Quick, clean, practiced. He flinches but doesn’t pull away. I press our bleeding palms together, skin to skin, blood to blood, and feel the contract snap into sharp focus.
It’s written in golden script across his soul, each letter perfectly formed and absolutely merciless: glory in exchange for dedication to excellence.
Beautiful language hiding a brutal truth.
The contract has been feeding on him, draining every drop of self-worth, every moment of satisfaction, replacing it all with this gnawing certainty that he’s never good enough, never perfect enough, never enough.
I can see how it’s killing him. The chains are so tight they’re cutting into him, golden barbs buried in his psyche like splinters of glass.
God, I hate angels.
I close my eyes and pull.
The pride hits me like lightning.
Not the gradual build of lust or the creeping numbness of sloth, this is instant.
One second I’m myself, and the next I’m perfect.
I can feel it flooding my veins like warm honey: absolute certainty that I am the best thing that has ever existed.
The smartest, the most capable, the most deserving.
Everyone else is just background noise to my brilliance.
Look at what I can do, break contracts no one else can touch, survive sins that would kill lesser beings, bend angels to my will through my competence.
No. No. That’s not me. That’s the pride talking.
But it feels like me. That’s the worst part. It feels like the truth.
I’m dimly aware of Barnes gasping, stumbling back as the chains fall away from him in a shower of golden sparks.
Free. He’s free. But I can’t think about that right now because the pride is swelling inside my chest like a balloon about to burst, and I can’t breathe, can’t think past the overwhelming certainty of my own magnificence.
My knees buckle.
Strong hands catch me before I hit the floor.
“Easy,” Croesus murmurs, and his voice is closer than it should be. Right next to my ear. When did he move? I didn’t even hear him. “I’ve got you.”
His arms are around me, holding me upright, and the shock of it cuts through the pride just enough for me to remember how to breathe. Angels don’t touch people like this. Not with care. Not with gentleness. They seduce, or they destroy, but they don’t comfort.
But his grip is steady, his chest solid against my back, and I can feel the heat of him against my skin like standing too close to a fire. It shouldn’t help. Nothing should help when you’re drowning in someone else’s sin.
It does though.
“How long?” I manage to gasp out.
“Forty seconds.” His breath stirs my hair. “Can you hold it?”
“Have to.” The pride is still there, still screaming that I’m invincible, untouchable, perfect, but his presence is grounding me.
Anchoring me to something real. Reminding me that this isn’t mine.
This is Barnes’s curse, Seraph’s poison, and I just have to hold it long enough to get out of here. “Barnes. Are you okay?” I grit out.
“I’m fine.” Barnes’s voice sounds like he’s been crying. Maybe he has been. “I’m free. I can feel it. It’s gone.”
Good. One less soul in Seraph’s collection.
Croesus shifts his grip, and I realize he’s basically carrying me now, my weight entirely against him.
His hands are splayed across my ribs, fingers digging in just enough to remind me where my body ends and the sin begins.
He smells of old gold and older incense, something rich and heavy that makes me think temple vaults and buried treasure would smell like. Secrets and mysteries.
“We need to go,” he says quietly. “Before Seraph realizes his contract has been broken.”
Right. Right. Can’t purge the pride here. Too exposed. Need to get back to the House, to the ritual room Croesus said he prepared.
I try to stand on my own. My legs cooperate, barely. The pride is making everything sharper, brighter, more significant, like I’m the center of the universe and everyone else is just orbiting around my glory. It’s intoxicating. Nauseating.
I hate that part of me loves it.
“Barnes,” Croesus says, his voice sliding into that smooth, persuasive register that makes people want to agree with him. “You’re going to forget we were here tonight. You came to work, felt a weight lift, and went home to your family. Do you understand?”
Barnes nods, dazed. “Yes. I understand.”
“Good.” Croesus guides me toward the door, one hand still on my waist like he’s afraid I’ll collapse if he releases me. He might not be wrong. “And Barnes? When your time comes, and it will eventually, I’ll be there to collect. That was the deal.”
“I remember.” Barnes is already looking lighter, younger, like someone lifted a boulder off his shoulders. “Thank you.”
We leave him there, walking out of the office and through the empty halls of the firm.
Croesus navigates as if he’s been here before, which he probably has.
Angels always know where their deals are, where their contracts hide.
They can feel them the way I can see them.
I know everything there is to know about angels and their prey.
The pride is getting worse. My skin feels too tight, like I’m going to burst out of it any second. Every step feels monumental. Every breath is proof of my superiority. Look at me, walking through this corporate building with an angel at my side, carrying sin that would kill anyone else.
And I’m doing it perfectly. Better than Gramms ever did. Better than any sin eater in history.
“Stop it,” I mutter to myself. “Not real. Not me.”
But it feels real. It feels like the truest thing I’ve ever known.
“Almost there,” Croesus says, and his hand tightens on my waist.
I pull away from him. “I can walk.”
“Raven.”
“I said I can walk.” My voice comes out sharp, imperious. The pride swells at his doubt, at the implication that I need help. I don’t need anything. I’m the best sin eater alive. I can handle this. I’ve been handling worse since I was seventeen years old. “I don’t need you to carry me like some...”
We step into an empty conference room, and the world shifts before I can finish. The corporate blandness melts away like wax, replaced by black stone and golden light. The House of Gold, pulling us back into its pocket dimension.
A ritual room.
It’s small but bigger than the one at my apartment, maybe fifteen by fifteen, with walls of smooth black obsidian that seem to drink the light.
Golden bowls sit on stone pedestals in each corner, filled with salt and iron and herbs I don’t recognize but can smell: bitter, sharp, medicinal.
The floor is inlaid with a purification circle in gold and white, not paint, but actual precious metal hammered into the stone.
In the center sits a low altar, black marble veined with gold, holding my tools: athame, chalice, lengths of iron chain.
I walk toward it without stumbling. See? I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m exceptional.
“You need to start the ritual,” Croesus says behind me. “Now.”