24. Leah
Leah
“And the possession was immediate?” Viz asks.
I cast my mind back to the moment when Syrus and I became entwined, recalling the ritual from that night in the chamber.
The demons have managed to smuggle me into the Seraph Seat three more times over the next week and a half.
Even if Asterim hadn’t gotten duping their guard down to a fine art, I might be worried about fledglings at the academy noticing my absence.
Except that as we gear up for the third trial, the atmosphere in the nest shifts.
Everyone is more tense and preparations for the final trial are frantic, with all the fledglings training harder, trying to revisit any skills they might need for the mysterious test. It leaves everyone with less room to worry about their peers.
Which is fine by me. Less scrutiny on me means I can spend more time scrutinizing the list of runes Viz has been putting together. We’ve narrowed it down every session, with Viz asking increasingly detailed questions about the way the sorcerers’ ritual played out.
“I don’t know,” I say, looking at Syrus on the other end of the couch from me. “I mean, there was a moment where you were just there, hovering above me. And then…”
“They wanted someone else to be the host. She was just part of the ritual,” Syrus says, not taking his eyes off me. “But I wasn’t going to do as I was told, obviously.” He swallows. “I chose her.”
“You were in my body then,” I agree, picking up the thread as I lift a hand to my throat, remembering the sensation of it, how overwhelming it was that first time.
“I thought I was choking, maybe drowning,” I add. Syrus winces but says nothing as I continue. “Then you moved my hands, testing what you could do, I think.”
“Yes,” Syrus says, finding my gaze again, his voice low. “I had never possessed anyone before. You were my first.” His eyes spark mischievously at the double entendre.
I don’t look at Viz in the armchair across from us, though I’m sure he’s rolling his eyes as he gets this down.
“Then you asked me if I wanted to be free, and I said yes,” I say softly.
Tell me, little lamb, do you want to be free?
Yes! More than anything.
The memory echoes in my mind.
Viz’s pen stops scratching across his parchment.
“Wait,” says the skull-faced demon, lifting his head. “He asked your permission?” He turns to Syrus, so stunned he repeats himself. “You asked for her permission?”
Syrus’s brow furrows as he tries to remember.
I answer for him. “Yes, I suppose. Except he was in my mind and body before then. It’s just after that he really, um, got involved.”
“That must be what sealed it,” Viz says, frantically writing.
“Is that bit important?” I ask.
“Normal possession requires consent from the host,” Viz says, eyes sparkling with epiphany. “Except with the blood magic element of your ritual, the sorcerers skipped that part and simply made you open for business—if you’ll excuse the expression.”
I glower at him but let it pass. “Excused. Go on.”
“As you said, Syrus took control of your body. In typical possessions, he would’ve never been able to do that before securing a yes,” he says, as if working something through in his mind.
“Except she had the blood runes on her, and that gave me a way in. You’ve covered that already,” Syrus says with a flicker of frustration.
“Yes,” Viz says, standing up and crossing to the table, slapping the parchment down on it with an exasperated huff. “And that’s what I’ve been focusing on this whole time!”
Asterim, who’s been napping in the corner, stirs.
“What’s happening,” she murmurs sleepily. “Is Viz finally having a breakdown?”
“Maybe just a little one,” I smile.
“I’m an idiot,” Viz says, ignoring us both.
“I thought that because the blood ritual made the possession unique that that provided the key to undoing it. I mean, it’s at least part of the reason for the strength of your connection.
The fact that it’s a two-way street, with Leah absorbing some of your characteristics. ” He waves a hand at Syrus.
“But even with what should be a complete list of the runes we need, something’s been missing. It just hasn’t—” he threads his fingers together “—fit.”
“You’ll have a fit if you don’t calm down,” Aster comments, stretching out.
Again, it’s as if Viz can’t hear her. “And now I know why. None of my formulas have lined up because none accounted for that thread of consent between you. An inverse ritual will need to revoke that permission before the bond will break. Otherwise, even if we strip everything else away, you’ll still stay linked to each other. ”
“And let me guess. You need a rune for that?” I say.
“Yes.” Viz grins, his mood downright exuberant now that he has the answer. “An extra one. And I know just the book to find it in. Aster can fetch it for me the next time she goes to Infernum.”
She groans. “Tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll go tomorrow. Let me sleep today.”
“All right, then we’ll try breaking the bond the day after,” Viz says. “I’m sure it will work now.”
I meet Syrus’s gaze, a stream of unspoken things passing between us.
The day after tomorrow, we’ll be truly separate for the first time since the day we met.
I know there’s good reason for it. Breaking the bond will save me from death when we get to the third trial. It’s hard to argue with that.
But now that I’m looking into Syrus’s eyes and it’s becoming real, it feels like a little piece of me is already dying just thinking about it.
Syrus
I’m still sitting on the couch after Leah has gone, staring at the spot where she sat. Aster returns from sneaking Leah out, putting a hand to my shoulder.
“How are you holding up, my dear?”
I blink wearily, unable to muster more than a grunt.
“You know, if you want me to lose that book on the way back from Infernum, I can.” She lifts her eyebrows meaningfully.
Viz’s head snaps up. “You’ll do no such thing.”
“Oh, shush,” she snipes back. “Why should I care what you want when you treat me like some kind of errand girl, making me traipse through Strata every time you decide you need a new scrap of paper?”
“Well maybe if you weren’t out late every night, darkness knows where, you’d have more energy for it,” Viz says.
“I’m doing recon, and you know that,” she says primly.
Miraculously, Aster has won over our security, and they let her hang out in other parts of the Seraph Seat keeping them company—supervised at all times, of course.
Ephilium that a few months ago wouldn’t have so much as spoken to a demon seem almost at ease around her.
If I ever want to send an actual, genuine diplomatic mission to Aradis, she’d definitely be the demon for the job.
Viz makes a noise at the back of his throat.
“Look, I’ll try to work on a direct rift between Aradis and Infernum. It’s just the aether’s being tricky.”
Aster glides over to Viz and pecks him on his bony cheek. “That’s all I ask, darling.”
That seems to appease my chamberlain, and he strides off to get started. Meanwhile, I haven’t escaped Aster’s attention, as she pivots back toward me and gives me a studying look.
“So,” she says.
“So,” I reply, then sigh, knowing she won’t leave me alone until I give her more than that. “I’m glad Viz figured it out. Now Leah can be safe here.”
“But not as safe as if she always had you watching out for her,” Aster says knowingly, settling down in the spot Leah occupied a few minutes ago.
I think about the wolf in the first trial, and teaching Leah how to use her sword, and disposing of that murdering classmate of hers.
Leah thanked me for that a week ago, though assured me she would’ve dealt with the cockroach on her own terms eventually.
I took it as a good sign she wasn’t angry about the lengths I’d go to protect her.
Even if they include cutting myself out of the picture.
“You’ve decided then,” Aster pushes when I don’t answer her. “This is the end? And once the bond is broken, we pack our bags and go back to Infernum as if you were never anything to each other?”
I close my eyes, trying to absorb the words, but it’s like reaching out to wrap my hands around a branch covered in thorns.
“She’s serious about staying in Aradis,” I say. “She’s made that clear. But maybe…”
I open my eyes, wondering how foolish it would be to voice the thought out loud.
“Maybe?” Aster prompts.
I remember then that Aster saw me crawling out of the Morphos, naked and terrified, on the day we were both reborn.
She watched me step into my role as demon lord, even as I was as shaky-legged and wide-eyed as a fresh calf.
And not so long ago, she watched me fall in love with an impossible person, after centuries of carefully building up my walls.
And she never once judged me for any of it.
“Maybe I’m holding onto a small hope that she might still change her mind,” I admit.
“You hit her where it would hurt most,” Aster says, lifting an eyebrow. “That’s hard to move past.” Aster hasn’t been shy about letting me know she respected Leah’s reasons for leaving.
I rub my thumb and forefinger over the bridge of my nose.
“Yes, I see that now.” It took me longer than it should have, to understand what wound I caused.
I should have known, from the suddenness of her departure and the drastic destination she chose, that I’d crossed a serious line.
What would Leah go so far to protect, at the cost of almost everything else—even contact with the sister she’d sacrificed everything for not so long ago?
Her freedom.
She’d given it up once, agreeing to marry Hathwell, but at least that had been by her own choice.
Then I came along and told her she didn’t need to sacrifice herself on any altars to deserve what she wanted so desperately.
I pushed her to take what she was entitled to—and then what did I do?
After all those lessons, I turned around and tried to take exactly the same thing from her, without even realizing what a betrayal it was.
“It took me seeing her here to understand it,” I tell Aster. “I thought it was about me.” I look out the window, skimming lightly around that still-tender hurt within myself. “About how I wasn’t enough. Not enough to convince her to stay.”
Yes, I had—still have—good reasons for the things that I kept from her. And yes, I wish she’d trusted me more, given me more time to explain them. But was that a reasonable expectation?
Aster leans over and pats me on my knee. “Of course it wasn’t about that. Being the master of her own life came first for her. And if she was so ready and willing to choose you over that, she wouldn’t be the woman you fell for anyway.”
She’s right, and it has a bittersweet irony, considering that Leah and I only met because I was given the chance to dive into her mind and control her.
“So what do I do?” I ask helplessly, as if there’s some secret answer that will fix everything, and my best friend happens to have been holding onto it this whole time.
Aster shrugs, “You keep showing her who you really are by giving her what she wants. By breaking the bond.”
“But that’s happening in two days,” I point out. “And then we’ll leave Aradis, and I won’t be able to reach her anymore.”
“There’s no other way, darling. You either let her go and see what happens, or you lose her now for certain.”
I throw my head back, letting it rest on the back of the couch. I don’t see any other answer either, but I hate it anyway.
“I like you better when you’re drunk and don’t make so much sense,” I grumble.
Aster laughs. “Darling, that’s when I make the most sense. Speaking of which…” She rises from the couch and sweeps toward the drinks trolley she talked the ephilium into delivering to our rooms. “It’s six o’clock, and I’m parched.”