Chapter 14
Fourteen
The client arrives early.
I know because I feel Idris surge against the bonds, hungry and sharp, the moment the woman crosses the threshold of the House of Ruin. Envy. Their sin. Their territory. Even from wherever they lurk, they can sense it like blood in the water.
I'm in Seraph's chambers when the shift happens, sitting on the edge of his massive bed and trying to center myself like he's been teaching me.
Breathe in for four counts. Hold for seven.
Out for eight. Feel the bonds without drowning in them.
Acknowledge the other angels without letting them pull you under.
It's working better than it used to.
A month ago, I would have been a wreck before a contract. Shaky hands, racing heart, that familiar cocktail of dread and determination that's been my companion for so many years. Now I just feel... ready. Alert. Like a blade waiting to be drawn.
Seraph did that. His relentless training, his brutal honesty, his refusal to let me hide behind ritual and structure. I hate that he was right about any of it.
But he was.
Inside I feel Croesus stir. Still walled off, still silent, but aware that something is happening. Kael's interest sparks, always eager for conflict. Lysander is bored. Dorian is hungry. Caspian is nothing, that void where feeling should be.
And Idris. Idris is circling.
One of mine, their voice slides into my mind, smooth and curious. How interesting. I wonder what she wanted badly enough to break my deal.
I don't answer. I've learned that engaging with Idris only encourages them, and their presence in my head is unsettling enough without giving them an opening for conversation.
The door opens. One of the silent staff glides in, that smooth, blank face turned toward me.
"The client has arrived. Lord Seraph requests your presence in the receiving hall."
I stand, smooth my hands down my clothes. Training gear today, not anything fancy. Seraph stopped trying to dress me up after the first couple of weeks. Practicality won out over aesthetics, and I think he secretly respects that I refuse to absorb sins in silk.
The walk to the receiving hall takes three minutes.
I've memorized the route by now, learned to anticipate the house's shifts and redirections.
Left at the corridor of mirrors. Through the gallery where the portraits watch with too-knowing eyes.
Down the stairs that spiral like a nautilus shell, white marble gleaming under sourceless silver light.
Seraph is waiting at the center of the hall, and beside him stands the client.
She's younger than I expected. Maybe thirty, with dark hair pulled back in a severe bun and the kind of professional attire that screams middle management trying to climb higher.
Her hands are steady, but her eyes keep darting around the space, cataloging exits, measuring threats.
Smart. Most clients are too far gone to think strategically by the time they end up here.
"Raven." Seraph's voice is cool, professional. The vulnerable man who confessed his broken wings over dinner is gone, replaced by the angel of pride in all his terrible perfection. "This is Margot. She made a deal with Idris three years ago."
Margot's jaw tightens at the name. Her hands flex and she subtly shifts her weight. Whatever Idris gave her, whatever she traded for it, she's been living with the consequences long enough to regret every moment.
"What was the deal?" I ask, directing the question to her, not Seraph. Clients deserve that much dignity, even if they're standing in a fallen angel's receiving hall surrounded by white marble and impossible light.
Margot's throat works. "I wanted my sister's job."
Simple. Brutal. Envy in its purest form.
"Idris gave it to me," she continues, and her voice is steady even though her eyes are not.
"My sister got passed over for the promotion.
I got it instead. And ever since then, I haven't been able to stop wanting more.
More money. More power. More recognition.
More of everything everyone else has." She laughs, and it's an ugly sound.
"I used to love my sister. Now I can barely look at her without calculating what else I can take. "
Idris' amusement trickles through me. She was so hungry when she came to me. So certain that one small adjustment would be enough. Their mental voice is like silk dragged across glass. They always think one will be enough.
I ignore them.
"Three years," I say, studying the chains I can see wrapped around her.
Green and gold, twisting through her chest like vines through a trellis.
They're deep, but not as deep as some I've seen.
The envy hasn't had time to root itself into her bones like pride does, the way greed burrows down until it becomes indistinguishable from the self. "That's manageable."
Margot's eyes widen. "You can break it?"
"That's what I do. But you’re aware you came here to have it broken—that means you will have to deal with... " I wave vaguely at Seraph.
She glances his way, her cheeks flush, and I grit my teeth at the spark of jealousy that rises up inside me. Where the hell did that come from? I shake it off and assume she understands when she says nothing else.
Seraph moves to the edge of the room, positioning himself where he can observe without interfering. I feel his attention like a weight, like pressure against my skin. He's watching. Evaluating. Waiting to see if his training has stuck.
I take a breath. Four counts in. Hold for seven. Out for eight.
Then I step forward and take Margot's hands.
The envy hits like ice water.
Cold and sharp and endless, a hunger that has nothing to do with wanting and everything to do with lacking.
I don't have enough. I'll never have enough.
Everyone else has more, and I need it, I deserve it, why do they get things I don't, why is the world so unfair, I want I want I want what they have, all of it, everything, now.
It slides into me like a knife between ribs.
Familiar, like all sins are familiar after eighteen years.
But also distinct, different from pride's burning certainty or lust's desperate ache or greed's bottomless void.
Envy is colder. More calculated. It doesn't just want things.
It wants to take them from others. The having isn't the point.
The having more than someone else is. The having that is taken. ..
I feel myself sway and force my legs steady.
Breathe. Four counts. Seven. Eight.
The envy screams that I shouldn't have to count, shouldn't have to work so hard, shouldn't have to earn control when other sin eaters probably don't struggle this much. What do they have that I don't? Why is this so much easier for them?
It's not, I remind myself. The envy is lying. This is hard for everyone. That's the nature of sin eating.
I reach for the chains.
They resist, like they always do. Coiling tighter around Margot's chest, sinking hooks into the meat of her heart. But I've done this forty-nine times before. I know how to find the weak points, the places where the contract frays, where will and desperation can break through divine metal.
I snatch my knife from my boot and strike fast, a quick slice on Margot’s palm and then my own. I mash our hands together and then...
I pull.
Margot gasps. The chains shudder.
Three years of wanting what others have pours into me in a rush of green-gold light.
I feel it filling the spaces between my thoughts, coloring everything with comparison and bitterness.
My training is good but Seraph's is better.
My power is strong but the other angels are stronger.
My life is meaningful but everyone else's is more so.
The envy tries to convince me that I'm less than. That I'll always be less than. That no matter how hard I work or how much I achieve, someone else will have it better.
I let it wash through me without fighting.
That's the trick Seraph taught me. Don't resist the sin. Don't try to wall it off or push it down. Let it move through you like water through a sieve. Acknowledge it, feel it, and then release it.
The last chain snaps.
Margot crumples. I catch her before she hits the marble, lowering her gently as she sobs with relief and grief and the sudden terrible absence of three years of supernatural hunger.
A new tattoo burns itself into my forearm.
I don't look at it yet. I can feel it forming, the hot brand of another contract broken, another sin absorbed. It joins the forty-nine others crawling up my arms, permanent evidence of what I've survived.
"The purification chamber," Seraph says. Not a question. Not a command. Just a statement of what comes next.
I look up at him. His silver eyes meet mine, and for a moment I see something that might be approval. Or pride. Or something softer that he'd never admit to feeling.
"Yes," I say. "Thank you."
Two words that mean more than they should. Thank you for letting me do this properly. Thank you for not forcing another shared purge. Thank you for trusting that I can handle this alone.
He nods once, crisp and professional, and gestures to one of the silent staff as he turns to Margot. "Show her to the chamber. Make sure she has everything she needs."
I stand on legs that tremble only slightly. The envy is heavy in my blood, cold and corrosive, but it's not overwhelming. Not like the lust was on my first day, or the wrath I absorbed from Kael. This is manageable.
I'm getting stronger.
The thought comes with a curl of fear underneath it.
Stronger means changing. Stronger means becoming something other than what I was.
Every sin I absorb leaves a residue, a stain on my soul that never quite washes clean.
The gold flecks in my eyes are proof of that, permanent marks of Croesus's claim even when he won't speak to me.
What marks will Seraph leave?