Chapter 31 #2
"He asked if I was okay," Luna continues, and there's warmth creeping into her voice now, the fear loosening its grip as the memory of a cute boy takes precedence the way only a cute boy can when you're nineteen.
"Not in a creepy way. In a genuinely concerned way.
He came inside and looked around the apartment like he was checking if anyone else was there.
He even looked in the bathroom and the closet, which I thought was weird but also kind of sweet?
And then he sat down across from me and asked me to tell him exactly what those people had said. "
"Did he give you his name?"
"Yeah. He said his name was Ash. That's it, just Ash. No last name." A pause. "He had really warm hands. When he took mine to make sure I was okay. Like, warmer than normal? Is that weird to notice? That's weird to notice."
She didn't wait for me to answer.
"And his eyes were, like, almost black. Really dark. Really striking. He stayed for maybe half an hour and made sure I was calm before he left, and when he went he said, 'Lock your door, keep your phone charged, and if those people come back, you call someone you trust.'"
"He didn't say he knew me?"
"No. Should he have? Wait." A beat. "Do you know him?"
My reflection stares back at me from the window glass. I'm gripping the phone so hard the cracked screen bites into my palm.
"Raven? You still there?"
"Yeah. I'm here."
"You do know him. I can hear it."
"He's a friend. He's safe." I push past it before she can dig further. "Luna, I need you to listen to me. Don't open your door for anyone you don't recognize. Not genealogy researchers, not delivery drivers, not anyone."
"You're scaring me."
"Good. Be scared. Keep your phone on you at all times. Sleep with it next to your bed."
"Raven, what is going on? Who were those people?"
I want to tell her. The urge is so strong it's physical, a pulling in my chest that has nothing to do with the binding and everything to do with years of being the one who explains the world to her. Who makes the scary things make sense. Who stands between her and whatever's coming.
But telling her means dragging her into this. Means destroying the safe, normal, human world I've spent my entire adult life building around her. Means making her a target who knows she's a target, and I don't know which is worse.
"They're nobody," I say, and the lie tastes like ash on my tongue. "Just some scam artists. There's been a wave of them. Fake genealogy companies that collect personal information for identity theft. I saw something about it online."
"That's not what this felt like." Luna's voice is quiet. Steady. "Raven, they knew things. Things that aren't on the internet, things that aren't in any public record. They knew Gramms' full name and when she died and they knew about you. They knew you were gone."
"People can find out a lot these days."
"Stop." The word is firm. More firm than I expect. "Stop lying to me. I'm not a kid anymore. I can hear it in your voice. You know what this is. You know who those people were. And you're not telling me."
The silence stretches between us.
Through the bonds I've been holding shut, I feel Croesus pushing. Awake now, fully alert, his resting state abandoned. His concern is a heavy golden pressure against the walls I've built, and underneath it, fury. Quiet, controlled, lethal. He can feel my fear and it's making him dangerous.
"I can't explain right now," I say finally. "I will. I promise. But not over the phone and not today."
"When?"
"Soon."
"That's what you always say."
"I know. And I'm sorry. But Luna, please. Just stay inside today. Lock up. Keep the chain on. And if that guy shows up again, the one from the stairs, let him help you. Okay?"
"The cute one?" Even scared, she can't quite keep the note out of her voice. "You do know him."
"He's a friend. He's safe. Trust him."
"A friend," she repeats, and I can hear her filing that away, adding it to the growing pile of things about my life that don't add up. The consulting job that never ends. The phone calls that feel rehearsed. The sister who left months ago and came back sounding like a different person.
"I have to go. But I'll call you tonight. Not Sunday. Tonight."
"Okay."
"Luna. I love you."
"I love you too." A beat. "Raven? Whatever this is. Whatever you're not telling me. I can handle it. You don't have to protect me from everything."
The words land like a blade between the ribs. Clean and precise and aimed at the one place I can't defend.
"I know," I say. "Talk tonight."
The call ends.
I stand in the small dining room with my breakfast going cold on the table, and I let my hands shake.
Let the fear come. Let it wash through me, hot and sick and enormous, because my baby sister is sitting in a college apartment with a deadbolt that wouldn't stop a determined human, let alone something from the Pit, and there are things wearing nice suits and perfect smiles that know her name and her bloodline and where she sleeps.
Then I lock it down. Push it into the box. Stand up straight.
The bonds crack open as I let the walls drop. Croesus hits me first. A wave of gold, fierce and protective, his consciousness pressing against mine with an urgency that borders on pain.
Seraph is there too. Silver and sharp, his awareness shifting from the training arena to me with clinical precision. He felt the fear. He's already analyzing it.
I don't wait for them to come to me.
I walk through the shifting corridors of the House of Ruin.
They don't shift for me now. They straighten, falling into a direct path, the house itself responding to my urgency.
I find Croesus first. He's in the study, standing at the window, already turned toward the door when I arrive.
He's in shirtsleeves, his charcoal suit jacket slung over a chair, gold-veined black hair catching the light.
His molten eyes are dark with concern and his jaw is tight.
"Tell me," he says.
"Not twice. Where's Seraph?"
"Arena." But even as he says it, I hear footsteps in the corridor behind me.
"I heard." Seraph appears in the doorway. Dove gray today, platinum hair immaculate, wings folded with military precision. His arms are crossed and his silver eyes are mirrors reflecting the room, reflecting me.
"You both heard?"
"Through the bond," Croesus says. "Not the words. The fear."
So I give them the words. All of it. The visitors.
The questions. The names they shouldn't know, the photograph from the 1850s, the phrase contractual inheritance falling from a demon's mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The sulfur smell. The clinical politeness.
The way they touched Luna's hand before leaving.
And Ash, appearing on the stairs like a guardian angel made of cigarette smoke and bad decisions, scaring them off without even knowing what he was interrupting.
When I finish, the silence in the room has a weight.
"That's not Heaven," Seraph says. His voice is flat. Certain. "Heaven's forces don't conduct reconnaissance in business attire. They don't ask questions. They deliver ultimatums."
"Sulfur," Croesus says. He's standing very still, and through the bond I feel something building. Not anger. Something colder. "Smoke. Eyes that pass for human."
"They ran when they sensed Ash's blood," I say. "Demon blood. They recognized one of their own."
"Not one of their own," Croesus corrects. "A diluted bloodline. Unpredictable. Someone they couldn't read, couldn't categorize. Demons don't like variables they haven't accounted for."
"Hell." Seraph says the word like he's setting it on a table between us. A new piece on a board that was already too complicated. "They've noticed."
"Noticed what?"
"You." Seraph pushes off the doorframe. Begins pacing, which is something he almost never does.
His wings shift with each turn, feathers catching the light.
"The binding. What it's becoming. They can feel it the same way Heaven can.
Perhaps even more acutely. Hell was born from what we are. From what we were before."
"They weren't threatening Luna," I say. "She said they were polite. Almost friendly."
"Of course they were." Croesus's voice is bitter. "That's how Hell operates. Heaven sends soldiers. Hell sends salespeople. They don't kick down your door. They knock, and they smile, and they make you feel like inviting them in was your idea."
"They touched her." My voice comes out raw. "The woman touched Luna's hand before she left. Said she was important."
Croesus and Seraph exchange a look.
"What?" I demand.
"If Hell has identified Luna as your anchor point," Seraph says carefully, "as the person you would do anything to protect, then touching her may not have been a gesture. It may have been a marker."
"A marker."
"A way to find her again. A trace left on her skin. Something subtle enough that a human wouldn't notice, but anything demonic would be able to follow like a beacon."
The fear that I'd locked down breaks its box. Floods me. My vision tunnels and for a second I can't breathe.
Croesus is there. His hands on my shoulders, warm and solid, his gold eyes inches from mine. He's pushing calm at me, stability, the immovable certainty of all his years of existence. "Breathe. We'll handle this."
"She's alone."
"She's not. Your friend is watching her. Ash."
I hear him use the name and something flickers through the bond. Not quite jealousy. Not anymore, or at least not the sharp possessive kind from the early days. Something more complicated. Grudging respect, maybe, for a man he's never met who's doing the one thing Croesus can't do right now.
"Ash doesn't know what he's dealing with," I say. "He's generations diluted. If Hell sends something real, something full-blooded, he can't stop it."
"Then we don't let it get that far." Croesus squeezes my shoulders. "Call him. Now. Tell him what we're facing."