Chapter 16 #2
Derek nodded, pulling up another slide. “The bond makes you exponentially more valuable. Marchosias wouldn’t just be acquiring one soul. He’d be acquiring a direct line to one of the most powerful demons in existence. A pressure point. A weakness he could exploit for centuries.”
“So the ‘loophole’ Samael gave me is actually just a more elaborate trap.” Ava stood, her chair scraping back.
She paced to the window, putting distance between herself and Victor’s too-perceptive gaze.
“Trade my parents’ souls for mine, but hand Marchosias something even more valuable in the process. ”
“Exactly.” Victor’s voice was tight with barely controlled fury. “Samael knew this. He knew the Right of Substitution was worthless to you specifically because of what we are. He took your memory and gave you nothing useful in return.”
Ava nodded. Said nothing.
But the ritual still burned in her mind, clear as crystal. Samael had taken the feeling of learning it, not the knowledge itself. Every word was still there. Every requirement. Every step of the ceremony.
Worthless to you. Maybe. Maybe not.
“Not nothing,” she said carefully, turning back to face them. “We know Marchosias’s name now. We know Lilith used his authority without permission: his seal, his binding magic, all without consulting him. That’s leverage.”
“Against Lilith, maybe.” Victor started pacing, his controlled movements barely masking the rage beneath. “But Marchosias is a Duke of Hell. One of the oldest. He wrote most of modern demonic contract law. We’d be gambling that his pride is bigger than his greed.”
“Is it?”
Victor stopped. “I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with him directly. He’s…” A pause, searching for words. “Methodical. Patient. The kind of demon who builds traps that take centuries to spring.”
“Like Lilith.”
“Worse than Lilith. Lilith is ambitious. Marchosias is inevitable.”
Ava’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and went still.
Mom: The restaurant is busy today! Everyone wants the Saturday special. Wish you were here to see it.
A photo attached. Her parents in the kitchen, steam rising around them, her mother holding up a perfectly folded dumpling with obvious pride. Both smiling. Both completely unaware that their souls hung in the balance.
Dumplings.
Something flickered at the edge of Ava’s consciousness. Not a memory—memories had shape, texture, the weight of lived experience. This was just… an echo. A shadow. The sense that once, long ago, small hands had learned to fold those same edges. That a warm voice had guided her through the motions.
Gone before she could grasp it.
She stared at the photo. Waited for the grief. For the rage. For anything at all beyond this terrible, hollow calm.
“Ava?” Victor was beside her suddenly, his concern flooding through the bond. “What is it?”
“My mother sent a photo.” She showed him the screen. “They’re making dumplings. The Saturday special. And I’m looking at it, and I know this should mean something to me. That somewhere in my past there’s a reason dumplings and my grandmother and this pendant are all connected. But I can’t feel it.”
Her voice cracked on the last word. Not from grief; she couldn’t access that. From the horror of its absence.
“I can see the shape of what’s missing,” she continued. “Like a hole in a photograph. I know something was there. I just can’t remember what it looked like.”
Victor took the phone from her gently, studying the image. His expression was unreadable, but through the bond she felt his anguish: layered, complex. Grief for her loss. Guilt that he hadn’t stopped her. Fury at Samael, at himself, at the universe.
“I should have been there,” he said quietly. “Should have stopped you from going.”
“You couldn’t have. I made sure of that.”
“I know.” He handed the phone back. “That’s what terrifies me.”
Derek cleared his throat awkwardly from across the room. “So… where does that leave us? We can’t use the Right of Substitution. We can’t find a legal loophole, and believe me, I’ve looked. Every precedent either doesn’t apply or was specifically overwritten by Marchosias himself.”
“We petition him directly.” Ava straightened, boxing up the hollow feeling, storing it somewhere she could examine later. “Bring evidence of Lilith’s unauthorized use of his seal. Appeal to his ego.”
“That would require going to Hell.” Victor’s voice was flat. “Literally. The Court of Wailing Contracts. Marchosias’s domain.”
“I know.”
“You’re human, Ava. Even with the bond, even with the changes, Hell isn’t like the In-Between. It’s not just strange. It’s designed to break you. It shows you your fears. Your failures. Every mistake you’ve ever made, every person you’ve ever hurt, weaponized against you.”
“Sounds like Thanksgiving with extended family.”
Derek snorted despite himself. Even Victor’s mouth twitched.
“I’m serious,” Victor continued, but some of the tension had left his shoulders. “The In-Between is neutral ground. Uncomfortable for mortals, but not actively hostile. Hell is different. It wants to hurt you. The landscape itself feeds on suffering; reshapes itself to maximize your pain.”
“Cheerful.”
“The deeper you go, the worse it gets. Marchosias’s domain is in the Third Circle. To reach it, we’d have to pass through territories controlled by demons who’d see a bonded human as…” He searched for the right word. “Entertainment.”
“Can’t you protect her?” Derek asked. “With the bond?”
“To a point. But Hell strips away defenses. It finds the cracks in your armor and pries them open. And Ava—” He turned to face her fully. “You’ve already lost something. Samael took a memory that was part of your foundation. Hell will sense that wound. It will use it.”
Ava considered this. The hollow space where her grandmother’s kitchen used to live. The missing piece that Hell would dig its fingers into and tear wider.
“Then I’ll have to be stronger than it expects.”
“That’s not how it works. You can’t fight Hell with willpower. You survive it by accepting what it shows you. By not breaking when it makes you watch yourself at your worst.”
“What does it show you?” she asked quietly. “When you go there?”
Victor was silent for a long moment. Old pain stirred in him—memories he kept locked away, things he’d seen and done across centuries of existence. She felt them shifting like sediment disturbed.
“Everyone I’ve failed,” he said finally. “Everyone I couldn’t save. Everyone who trusted me and paid the price.” His eyes met hers. “If we do this, you’ll see things about me. Things I’ve never told you. Things I hoped you’d never have to know.”
“Will it change how I feel about you?”
“I don’t know. That’s what terrifies me.”
Ava crossed the room to him. Took his face in her hands, a gesture that still felt new, still felt like something she was learning to do.
“I’ve already seen demons. Already lost a memory I can’t get back. Already bound my soul to someone I met three weeks ago.” She smiled, small and fierce. “Whatever Hell shows me, it’s going to have to work harder than that.”
“That’s not how it works,” Derek muttered. “That’s definitely not how it works.”
“What’s the alternative?” Ava released Victor and turned to face them both. “Wait here while the countdown runs out? Watch my parents lose everything: their restaurant, their lives, their souls, because I was too scared to try?”
“Twelve days,” Derek said quietly. “That’s what we have left.”
No one spoke for a moment. There wasn’t anything to say.
“We’d need to prepare,” Victor said finally. “Extensively. Protections, offerings, contingency plans. And we’d need something to present to Marchosias. Dukes don’t grant audiences for nothing.”
“What kind of offering?”
“Something valuable. Rare. Meaningful to him specifically.” Victor’s expression was troubled. “I know someone who might be able to help. But it would mean making another deal.”
“Everything in the demon world is a deal.” Ava met his eyes. “I’m starting to understand that.”
She felt him searching. Looking for something in her expression, her emotions, the texture of her thoughts. She made herself calm. Made herself present exactly what he expected to find: a woman processing loss, seeking information, trusting her partner.
Not a woman with ancient words burning in her mind. Not a woman already calculating the cost of a sacrifice she hadn’t told him about.
The bond made secrets difficult. But not impossible.
You just had to know what you were hiding. And hide it so deep that even you couldn’t find it unless you went looking.
“We’ll get through it,” Victor said. “Both of us.”
“Both of us,” she agreed.
The word sat heavy on her tongue.
But she smiled anyway. Reached for his hand. Let him feel her gratitude, her exhaustion, her carefully constructed grief.
Beneath it all, locked away where even the bond couldn’t reach, the ritual waited.
Nine generations forward. Nine generations back.
Someone else can take the binding. Willingly.
Equal value. Willing sacrifice.
Her parents were in the kitchen making dumplings. Smiling. Unaware.
Twelve days.
Ava squeezed Victor’s hand and began to plan.