Chapter 10
Ten
Sunday evening arrives with the same silver twilight that permeates every other moment in the House of Ruin.
I'm sitting on the edge of Seraph's massive bed, phone in hand, staring at Luna's contact photo. It's from two years ago with her laughing at something I said, backlit by sunset, looking young and carefree and completely untouched by the supernatural world that's consumed my life.
Two minutes.
The bindings pulse faintly. The angels I’m connected to rising to the surface. Some curious. Some indifferent. All of them aware.
I'm never alone anymore.
The thought should comfort me. Instead, it makes me feel trapped.
6:00 PM.
I hit the call button.
Luna picks up on the second ring. "Raven! Oh my god, finally. I've been waiting all week."
Her voice is warm and familiar and normal. It cuts through me like a knife, sharp and painful and necessary. A reminder of what I'm fighting for. Why I'm here.
"Hey, Luna." I try to sound casual. Light. Like I'm not sitting in a fallen angel's bedroom, marked by gold chains and changing in ways I don't understand. "How's school?"
"Boring. Exhausting. The usual." She laughs, and I can hear rustling; she’s probably flopping onto her dorm bed. "Professor Martinez assigned another twenty-page paper on carbon sequestration methods. Like, I get it, climate change is important, but twenty pages? That's excessive."
"You'll do fine. You always do."
"Yeah, but it's due next week and I haven't even started the research." A pause. "But enough about me. How's the consulting gig? You sound... I don't know. Tired?"
My stomach clenches. "Just working hard. Learning a lot."
"What kind of consulting is it again? You were vague last time."
Because I lied. Because I told her I was doing freelance work for a private client. Because the truth would destroy her carefully maintained ignorance about the supernatural world.
"Contract analysis," I say, which isn't technically a lie. "Breaking down complicated agreements, finding loopholes. That kind of thing."
"Sounds boring."
"It is." Also not technically a lie. Most of what I do is tedious. It's just the parts that aren't tedious that are absolutely terrifying.
Luna sighs. "I miss you. It's been a while since we talked.”
Guilt crashes over me. "I know. I'm sorry. Work has been—"
"Intense. I know. You said." Another pause, longer this time. "Raven, are you okay? You sound different."
My breath catches. "Different how?"
"I don't know. Your voice is... I can't explain it." She stops. "Never mind. I'm being weird."
"You're not being weird." I close my eyes, fighting the urge to tell her everything. To warn her. To beg her to be careful. "I'm just tired. This job is taking more out of me than I expected."
"Maybe you should quit. Come home. We could—"
"I can't." The words come out sharp. "I signed a contract. I have to see it through."
"Contracts can be broken."
If only you knew. If only you understood what kind of contract this is. What it would cost to break it.
"Not this one," I say quietly. "But I'm fine. Really. Just stressed."
Through the binding with Croesus, I feel his pain. He hates hearing me lie. Hates that I have to. Hates that he can't appear and tell Luna himself that I'm safe, that he's watching over me, that nothing will hurt me while he's still breathing.
But he can't. Because Luna doesn't know about him. About any of this.
"Tell me about your week," I say, desperate to change the subject. "Did you go to that environmental club meeting you mentioned?"
She lets me redirect her, launching into a story about some drama with the club president and a disagreement over whether they should partner with a corporation for a recycling initiative. I listen, making appropriate noises, pretending everything is normal.
But I can feel it building. The wrongness. The sense that she knows something is off even if she can't articulate what.
We talk for twenty minutes. About her classes. Her friends. The guy in her biology lab who keeps asking her out. Normal things. Human things. Things that have nothing to do with fallen angels or sin eating or the fact that I'm slowly transforming into something else.
And then, just before we hang up, she says: "Raven? Promise me you're taking care of yourself. You sound... I don't know. Brittle. Like you're holding yourself together with willpower and nothing else."
The observation is so accurate it steals my breath.
"I promise," I lie. "I'm fine."
"Okay." She doesn't sound convinced. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
The call ends.
I sit there holding my phone, staring at the screen until it goes dark. The silence in the room almost has a weight. My shoulders hang forward as if I don’t even have the strength to sit up properly.
"That was painful to listen to."
I don't jump. I've gotten used to Seraph appearing without warning. He's standing by the window, looking out at the impossible garden, his white-gold wings folded against his back.
"You were listening?" I ask, even though I know the answer.
"Of course. It's Sunday. Your sister calls. I make sure no one interrupts." He turns to face me. "Your sister fears you're changing. She's right."
"I'm not—"
"Look at yourself."
The command in his voice makes me stand, makes me move to the nearest mirror without conscious thought. It's that power he has. That ability to make people see themselves. To confront what they're avoiding.
I look.
At first, I don't see it. Just my face. Exhausted. Stressed. The same face I've had for thirty-six years.
But then Seraph is behind me, one hand on my shoulder, turning me slightly so the light catches my features differently.
"Look closer," he says quietly. "Really look."
And then I see it.
My eyes. They're still bourbon brown, but there are flecks of gold now. Tiny specks of metallic light scattered through the irises like someone ground up coins and mixed them into the color. They catch the light when I move my head, glinting.
Croesus's mark. His claim. Permanent.
"That's from the binding," Seraph says. "Gold recognizing gold. His greed made manifest in your eyes now."
But it's not just the gold.
My features are sharper. My cheekbones more pronounced. My jaw more defined. Like someone took my face and refined it. Made it more angular. More precise. Less soft.
Less human.
"That's from the sins," Seraph continues.
"Every absorption leaves a mark. Changes you incrementally.
Most sin eaters don't live long enough to notice.
But you?" His hand tightens slightly on my shoulder.
"You're absorbing more than most. Training harder.
Pushing further. The changes are accelerating. "
I stare at my reflection. At this face that's mine but also isn't. At the gold in my eyes and the sharpness in my features and the way I look almost other now.
"I'm turning into something else," I whisper.
"You're becoming what you were always meant to be." He meets my eyes in the mirror. "Your bloodline was designed for this. To bind angels. To hold their power. To transform into something that can bridge the gap between human and divine."
"My grandmother looked like this?"
"By the end? Yes. The gold was different, more silver in her case, from time spent with me. But the sharpness? The otherness? Yes." His silver eyes hold mine in the reflection. "The first Meredith, she had it too. That's how I knew. How I recognized what she was even before she told me."
“And they all died because of it.” I shake my head. What if I had never taken up this work? If I let the magic die inside me and said enough is enough. Would I still be here now?
"Yes." His hand slides from my shoulder to the back of my neck. Not threatening. Grounding. "But you're different. You're bound to all seven of us. You have power they didn't. Protection they didn't. And you have me." His voice drops. "I failed her. Failed all of them. I won't fail you."
I feel Croesus’ complex reaction to Seraph’s statement. Jealousy at Seraph's touch. Jealousy at Seraph's promise. But also: gratitude. Relief. Because he knows what I'm just beginning to understand.
I need more than love to survive this.
I need to be dangerous.
"Luna noticed," I say, still staring at my changing face. "She doesn't understand what she's noticing, but she felt it. The difference."
"She'll notice more as you continue to change." Seraph's thumb brushes the nape of my neck absently. "Eventually, you'll have to tell her. Or cut contact entirely."
"I can't cut contact. She's the reason I'm doing this."
"I know." His touch gentles. "Which is why you need to become strong enough to protect her from the consequences of what you're becoming. Strong enough that when Heaven comes again you can keep her safe."
I look at his reflection. At the perfect angel standing behind my increasingly imperfect human form. "How long do I have? Before the changes are too obvious to hide?"
"Months, maybe. Depends on how many sins you absorb. How hard you train. How much you push." He pauses. "Your grandmother had a year before she couldn't hide it anymore. But she was only basically bound to two angels. And one she didn’t even really notice. You're bound to seven."
"So I have less time," I say, my voice flat.
"Probably."
The certainty of it settles over me like a shroud. I have months before I become something Luna won't recognize. Something that will shatter her ignorance and drag her into a world she should never have to know about.
"I need to get stronger," I say. "Faster. I need to be able to protect her, no matter what.”
"I know." Seraph's hand slides away from my neck, leaving coolness in its wake. "That's why tomorrow, we start combat training. No more just holding sins. You need to learn how to fight."
"I thought that was later in the year."
"That was the plan. But your sister just reminded me: we don't have as much time as I thought." He moves away from the mirror, toward the door. "Rest tonight. Eat. Sleep if you can. Tomorrow, I'm going to teach you how to hurt things that shouldn't be able to be hurt."
"Things like you?"
"Things like me." He pauses at the door. "And when Heaven sends their hunters again, you'll be ready."
Then he's gone, and I'm alone with my reflection.
I touch my face. Trace the sharper angles. Look at the gold in my eyes that will never fade. Evidence of what I'm becoming. Of what I'll never be able to go back to.
Luna's voice echoes in my head: You sound different.
Yeah. Because I am different.
And by the time we talk next Sunday, I'll be even more so.
Through the binding with Croesus, I feel his love. Constant. Unwavering. Even as I change. Even as I become something other.
I'm sorry, I think through the connection.
His response is immediate: Don't be sorry for surviving. That's all I've ever wanted.
But there's pain underneath. Because he knows what I'm just starting to accept.
The woman he fell in love with—the messy, angry, stubborn human who walked into his house only months ago—is disappearing. Transforming. Becoming something new.
And there's no way to stop it.
I turn away from the mirror and lie down on the bed. Stare at the ceiling. Through all seven bindings, I feel the angels.
I close my eyes and try to sleep.
But all I can see is my own face. Sharp and strange and marked with gold.