Chapter 22
Croesus holds my hand, necessary, he says, or I'll get lost in the fold, and pulls me through a mirror that shouldn't exist. The glass ripples like water, and then we're between. Not in the House. Not in the mortal world. Somewhere else entirely.
Traveling through the spaces between is like drowning in static.
Everything is gray. Formless. The air tastes like ozone and old magic. I can feel reality pressing in from all sides, trying to collapse back into shape, and the only solid thing is Croesus' hand in mine.
"Don't let go," he says, voice bursting through the static. "And don't look too closely at anything you see. The spaces between show you things that aren't meant to be seen."
I keep my eyes on his back and try not to think about the shapes moving in my peripheral vision.
We walk for what feels like hours or minutes, time doesn't work right here, until Croesus stops in front of what looks like a door carved from living wood. It's covered in symbols I don't recognize, pulsing with faint green light.
He knocks three times.
The door opens.
"Croesus." The woman standing in the doorway is around forty, with dark skin, silver-streaked black hair pulled into a messy bun, and sharp brown eyes that assess us both in a heartbeat.
There's something else about her too, a faint shimmer in her irises, a heat to her presence that speaks of demon blood somewhere in her lineage.
She's wearing practical clothes, jeans, a flannel shirt, boots caked with dirt. "It's been what, fifty years?"
"Sixty-three." He inclines his head. "Wren. Thank you for seeing us on short notice."
"Short notice?" She laughs. "You sent word three hours ago and expected me to drop everything. Lucky for you, I was between projects." Her eyes land on me. "And this must be the sin eater you mentioned. The one with a watcher problem."
"Raven Vesper," I say, offering my hand.
She takes it, her grip strong and warm. "Wren Lindsay. Come in, both of you. Let's see what we're dealing with."
Her home is interesting.
The door opens into a cottage that shouldn't be able to exist in the gray nothingness of the spaces between.
But here it is, cozy, lived-in, with wooden floors and a fireplace crackling with real flames.
Herbs hang from the ceiling to dry. Books line every available surface.
A fat orange cat watches us from a sunny windowsill, though there's no sun here.
"Ignore Pumpkin," Wren says, closing the door behind us. "He's judgmental but harmless."
The cat meows like he disagrees.
"Sit." She gestures to a worn couch. "Tea?"
"Please," I say, because I'm still shaking from the journey through the between.
Croesus remains standing, but I sink onto the couch gratefully. Wren moves around a small kitchen, putting a kettle on a stove that probably runs on magic, pulling down mismatched mugs.
"So," she says, not looking at us. "Watchers. That's a problem you don't see every day. How'd you piss off Heaven?"
"By existing," I say. "Apparently, that's enough."
"Must be some existence." She brings over three mugs of tea that smells like chamomile and something sharper.
Sits in an armchair across from us. "Croesus said you're researching angelic curses.
That you're a sin eater with angel blood serving all seven houses.
And that your grandmother was killed for asking the wrong questions. "
"That about sums it up." The idea of my grandmother being murdered is still something I haven’t fully grasped, but now isn’t the time to get into it.
"Ballsy. I like it." She takes a sip of tea. "Your grandmother came to me, you know. About six months before she died. Wanted protective wards. I told her the same thing I'm going to tell you: wards can hide you, but they can't save you if Heaven really wants you dead."
My chest tightens. "She was here?"
"Twice. Once for wards. Once for information about old rituals." Wren's expression softens. "She was brilliant. Cold as winter, but brilliant. I'm sorry she's gone."
"Did she say why she needed the wards?"
"She said she was looking into something dangerous. Something that could change everything or destroy her trying. I got the sense she knew she was playing with fire." Wren looks at Croesus. "And now you're asking me to ward her granddaughter. History repeating itself."
"With better protection this time," Croesus says. "I'm asking for something more."
"A binding." Wren sets down her tea. "You want me to tether her to the House of Gold. Make her part of your domain so thoroughly that watchers can't touch her without declaring war on you directly."
"Yes."
"That's not a small ask, Croesus. Binding a human to an angelic domain? That's permanent magic. She'll never be fully free of you, even when her contract ends." Her eyes fix on me. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
I think about the tracking crystals, about my grandmother's murder, about Heaven watching, waiting for an excuse to eliminate me. "I'm sure," I say.
"Why?" It's not a challenge. Just genuine curiosity.
"Because I'm going to finish what my grandmother started. And I can't do that if I'm dead."
Wren studies me for a long moment. Then she smiles, warm and a little sad. "You remind me of someone I used to know. Someone who thought she could change the world through sheer stubbornness." She stands. "Alright. I'll do the binding. But first, we talk price."
"I'll pay whatever, " Croesus starts.
"Not you." Wren cuts him off. "Her. This is her binding. Her choice. She pays the cost."
I set down my tea. "What's the cost?"
"A memory." Wren moves to a shelf, pulls down a glass vial. "One memory, freely given. Something precious. Something that matters. That's the price for old magic, a piece of yourself traded for protection."
"What will you do with it?"
"Keep it safe. Add it to my collection." She gestures around the cottage, and I realize some of the glass bottles on the shelves are filled with swirling light.
Memories. "I've been collecting them for two hundred years.
Stories, moments, pieces of lives. It's how I stay connected to the world outside these spaces between. "
"Why do you live here?" I ask.
"Because the mortal world moves too fast. People I love die. Places I know disappear. Out here, in the between, time moves differently. I can exist without constantly losing everything." She sits back down. "But it's lonely. So I collect memories. Little pieces of other people's lives. It helps."
I understand that kind of loneliness. The kind that comes from being outside normal life, watching it flow past while you stay frozen.
"What memory do you want?" I ask.
"Something happy. Something real. I have enough pain and loss in my collection." She leans forward. "What's a moment when you felt completely, perfectly content?"
I close my eyes and search through my life. Not the big moments, not absorbing my first sin, or learning my grandmother died. Something small. Something pure.
"I was nineteen," I say slowly. "My mother had just died.
I was living with my sister, taking care of her.
One morning, I woke up and Luna, my baby sister, she was two-ish, had crawled into my bed.
She was having a nightmare and came to find me.
And we just...laid there. In the early morning light.
She fell back asleep, and I held her, and for maybe twenty minutes, everything was okay.
I wasn't scared. I wasn't alone. I was just.. .enough."
When I open my eyes, Wren is smiling. "That's perfect. Thank you."
She stands, opens the vial, and touches my forehead.
I feel something pull, gentle, careful, and a thread of golden light flows from my temple into the glass.
The memory doesn't disappear. I can still remember it.
But it's...dimmer now. Less immediate. Like looking at an old photograph instead of living in the moment.
Wren seals the vial, holds it up to the light. Inside, the golden thread swirls like captured sunshine.
"Beautiful," she murmurs. Then she sets it on the shelf with the others. "Alright. Let's get you protected."
The ritual takes three hours.
Wren clears space in the center of the cottage, drawing a massive circle on the wooden floor with salt mixed with ash and crushed herbs. She places candles at seven points, white, black, red, green, blue, silver, gold. Each one carved with symbols that make my eyes ache if I look too long.
"Strip to your undergarments," she says, lighting the candles with a snap of her fingers. "The magic needs access to your skin."
I strip down to my bra and underwear without hesitation. Croesus has already seen me naked, hell, he's bathed me and changed my clothes when I was too weak to do it myself. There's no point in modesty now. The cottage is warm from the fire, but I still feel exposed. Vulnerable.
"In the circle," Wren instructs.
I step over the salt line carefully and stand in the middle of the circle. The candles flicker, and I feel power gathering like a storm about to break.
Wren walks the perimeter, chanting in a language I don't recognize. Not Latin. Something older. Each word makes the air thicker, heavier, until I can barely breathe.
She stops in front of me, holding a small knife. "Your blood and the house's essence. That's what creates the tether. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
She cuts my palm, quick, clean. Blood wells up, dark and red. Then she pulls out a small vial filled with liquid gold. Not metaphorical gold. Actual gold, molten and glowing.
"From the foundations of the house," she explains. "Croesus had to bring a piece of his domain with him. This is it, distilled, concentrated, the pure essence of everything he's built."
She tips the vial over my bleeding palm.
The gold hits my blood and ignites.