Chapter 25
Six months later.
The restaurant smelled like every Sunday dinner Ava could remember. Ginger and garlic, black vinegar, sesame oil heating in a wok.
“You’re late,” her mother said, not looking up from folding dumplings.
“Traffic.” Ava kissed her cheek. “Where do you want us?”
“Back table. Derek and Emma are already here. Mia too.”
Victor followed her through the familiar space. Six months of Sunday dinners, and her parents still watched him carefully. But they’d stopped flinching when he entered.
Derek waved from the corner booth. Emma was showing him something on her phone. Mia stole dumplings from the appetizer plate.
Ava watched her for a moment. Six months ago, she hadn’t been sure she’d ever see Mia at this table again.
She still remembered the night it turned. Three weeks after the penthouse conversation, Ava’s buzzer had sounded at eleven p.m. Mia stood on the stoop in sweats, holding a paper bag from the Thai place they used to order from in college.
“I’m still furious with you,” Mia had said from the doorway. “But it turns out I can’t do furious from across town. It’s exhausting and I keep wanting to text you about things and then remembering I’m not speaking to you, which makes me more furious.”
“So you brought pad see ew.”
“I brought pad see ew because I’m hungry and you owe me approximately a lifetime of meals for the emotional damage.
” Mia had pushed past her into the apartment, set the bag on the counter, and turned around with red-rimmed eyes.
“You don’t get to die on me. Not even fake-die. Not ever. That’s the rule.”
“That’s the rule,” Ava had agreed.
They’d eaten noodles on the kitchen floor and Mia had asked hard questions and Ava had answered every single one.
It wasn’t forgiveness. It was something more like a decision—Mia choosing to stay angry and stay close at the same time, and slowly, over weeks and months, letting the angry part shrink until what remained was just this: Mia stealing dumplings at a family dinner, like she’d always belonged there.
“Before I forget.” Derek slid an envelope across the table as Ava sat down. “Grimm asked me to deliver this. Said you’d want it before dinner.”
Ava opened it. Firm letterhead. Three lines of text.
Re: Andromalius Debt (Morningstar/Feng)
Status: PARTIALLY REMEDIATED
Original obligation: 50 years combined service. Credited: 30 years via Lilith Ashwood, Court of Remediation billing. Remaining obligation: 20 years, converted to consultative capacity at Andromalius’s discretion.
Victor read it over her shoulder. His hand found hers under the table.
“How?” Ava asked. “How does Remediation billing cover any of our debt?”
“When a demon is sentenced to Remediation, their accrued service credits get redistributed to outstanding obligations bearing their name,” Victor said quietly.
“Lilith’s vendetta created the Peterson Holdings contracts that generated our debt to Andromalius.
Marchosias ruled her responsible. So her accumulated credit—every favor owed, every service rendered—got reassigned to offset what she caused. ”
“But not all of it,” Ava said.
“Her credits weren’t enough to cover the full term. Thirty years. That still leaves twenty, though the conversion to consultative capacity is significant. It means occasional assignments, not indentured service.”
“She’s going to be furious when she finds out,” Derek said, grinning.
“Good.” Ava folded the letter carefully and tucked it into her bag.
Twenty years was still a long time. It wasn’t freedom—not completely.
But it was the difference between a life consumed by obligation and a life that happened to include one.
Lilith had spent fifteen years building a trap, and in the end, the heaviest part of it had landed back on her.
“Now.” Derek was grinning. “The actual good news. Emma sold her book. Three-book deal.”
“That’s amazing!” Ava grabbed Emma’s hands. “When?”
“Friday. I wanted to tell you in person.” Emma’s face was lit up. “Also, we’re engaged.”
She held up her hand. A small diamond caught the light.
“He proposed in Central Park,” Emma said. “Very romantic. He cried.”
“I did not cry.”
“He absolutely cried.”
Victor slid in beside Ava. “Congratulations.”
“You knew,” Ava accused him.
“I may have helped with logistics.”
Her father emerged from the kitchen carrying plates. Soup dumplings, bok choy, mapo tofu. Too much food, as always.
They ate family-style, dishes passing back and forth. Her mother interrogated Emma about wedding plans. Her father watched Victor eat, still taking his measure after all this time.
“October,” Emma was saying. “Small ceremony. Mia and Ava as co-maids of honor.”
“We already have the dresses picked out,” Mia added. “Well, I picked them. Ava vetoed three.”
“They had sequins. Floor-to-ceiling sequins.”
“It’s a wedding! Sequins are festive!”
“And Victor as best man,” Derek added.
Victor paused. “I don’t do weddings.”
“You do now.” Derek’s voice was firm. “You’re standing up there.”
“I’d be honored.”
After dinner, they lingered over tea. Mia left first, rushing to a callback.
“Text me later,” she said, hugging Ava. “About the house thing.”
“What house thing?” Emma asked.
Mia just grinned and disappeared.
Derek and Emma left next. Then it was just Ava and Victor, helping her parents clean up.
Her father washed while Victor dried. Six months ago, he’d barely been able to look at Victor. Now they had their own rhythm—small talk about the restaurant, questions about work that carefully avoided the demonic parts.
At the door, her father pulled Ava into a hug.
“You look happy,” he said.
“I am.”
He released her, nodded once at Victor, and closed the door.
They walked toward the subway. Sunday evening in Queens—families on stoops, kids being called inside for bed.
“I want to show you something,” Victor said after a few blocks.
He led her down a side street. Quieter here. Trees lining the sidewalk, brownstones with small gardens.
Victor stopped in front of one. Three stories, brick, a little worn. A tree in the front yard that might bloom in a few weeks.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s nice. Whose is it?”
He held up a key.
“Victor.”
“Ten minutes from your parents. Close to the subway. The kitchen needs work.” He pressed the key into her hand. “I wanted us to have something that wasn’t the penthouse. Something without history.”
She looked at the key, the house, him.
“You bought a house.”
“I bought us an option.” He was watching her carefully. “If you want it.”
She kissed him. Right there on the sidewalk.
“Show me inside.”
The entryway was dark, dusty. He found a light.
Hardwood floors, scuffed but solid. High ceilings. Through an archway, an empty living room waited. The kitchen was bigger than she’d expected: old cabinets, good bones, windows overlooking a neglected garden.
“What do you think?” Victor asked from the doorway.
“I think…” She turned to face him. “I think I want to marry you.”
“Is that a proposal?”
“Do you want it to be?”
“Ask me properly.”
She crossed to him. Took both his hands.
“Victor Morningstar. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
“Just yes?”
“What else is there to say?”
She laughed against his chest when he pulled her close. “My mother is going to plan the most elaborate wedding Queens has ever seen.”
“Let her.”
They stood in the empty kitchen. Through the window, the garden was dark and overgrown.
Marchosias was still out there, watching from his throne.
That hadn’t gone away. And twenty years of consultative debt still hung over them—lighter than fifty, but real.
Lilith was serving her own sentence now, and some of that weight had shifted off their shoulders, but not all of it.
“Does it bother you?” she asked. “That he’s still watching. That this isn’t really over.”
“Marchosias plays long games. We’re part of one now.” His arms tightened around her. “But we’ll handle whatever comes. Together.”
She was quiet for a moment. The thing she never let herself think about.
“I’m still mortal, Victor. Sixty years, maybe seventy if I’m lucky. And then…”
“And then I’ll find you.” His voice was steady. Certain. “Whatever comes after death, wherever you are—I’ll find you.”
She should have argued. Should have pointed out that nobody knew what happened to mortal souls, that he might search forever and never find her. But standing in their kitchen, in what might become their house, his certainty was enough. Even if hers wasn’t. Not yet.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Okay. Let’s do this. The house. The wedding. All of it.”
They explored the rest of the place: bedrooms upstairs, bathroom that needed updating, an attic with slanted ceilings. They talked about paint colors and whose books would go where and whether her father could be convinced to help with the garden.
When they finally left, locking the door behind them, Ava looked back at the brownstone.
“Ready?” Victor asked.
She took his hand.
“Yeah. Let’s go home.”