Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
There are some monsters you never outrun.
CELINE
The pieces are right in front of me, and I’m coming apart at the seams.
Malach, used by my father and trapped by his silence. Dropped in my home as what exactly? A sleeper agent, put in place to sabotage me? Insurance to prevent me from bringing my father down?
My heart thuds painfully in my chest. It’s breaking, even though the details are fuzzy.
Is this why Malach wanted me to return to the celestial realm so badly?
He might have been planning to turn me in all along, leveraging years of trust to steer my decision.
Trust I couldn’t erase, even though I told myself to be careful.
I wasn’t careful, and now I have to make an impossible choice: Malach or everyone else.
He stands unnaturally still beside my father, ankles uneven and bent, his face rigid with pain. My heart is adamant, but my head is unsure . . . because my magic detected no direct lies.
That should be the end of it, except my father is a master manipulator. I know this. I’ve lived it. And no one knows how to skirt the truth better.
Logically, it makes sense for Malach to want revenge on me, and working with my father is the perfect way to do it. He doesn’t look complicit, though. Malach’s jaw is clenched so hard that the vein in his temple is throbbing.
Head or heart: which do I choose?
In the end, it’s no choice at all.
“I don’t believe you,” I shout. “You’re the only angel here who’s corrupted their word. Malach wouldn’t—”
“Malach would,” he snarls, “and Malach did. And you’re as much of a fool as you’ve always been if you believe he wouldn’t. There’s no radiant code of honor, Celine, only what you can make of the magic you’re given. Malach has learned that truth, yet you refuse to.”
“Then let him speak.” A gust of icy wind smacks my face. “If you’re confident he’s loyal to you and not me, then cut your leash and let him tell me himself.”
Father rolls his eyes and waves his hand.
A sickly wave of magic rolls over Malach, coating him in a dingy haze.
He stumbles and falls to his knees. When he looks up at me, his green eyes are swimming with pain but free of outside control. He clears his throat. “I did it, Celine, and I have no regrets.”
My stomach flips.
We vowed to never use our radiant words against each other. If I use my truth on Malach now, I’ll be betraying the promises I made to him all over again. They’re already strained. Can they survive another blow? Vows aside, I’m not sure I can.
“You don’t mean that,” I whisper. My fingers curl at my sides.
Alistair and Riven are holding me back, even as every instinct in my body—physical, emotional, and magical—urges me to get Malach away from my father.
Something passes over Malach’s face, but the light is fading and I can’t be sure what it is. I don’t know what’s real anymore. Any second now, I’ll wake myself up and realize everything was a bad dream.
I shudder and glance around me. I wasn’t imagining the darkness; the eclipse is coming. We’re running out of time.
“Tell me, Malach,” I beg. “Tell me he’s lying.” My voice breaks. My father smiles. I can’t bring myself to care. This isn’t about him, no matter what he thinks.
This is about Malach, the boy who tried to protect me, the teen who never abandoned me, and the man who followed me to an unknown realm even after I left him behind.
He holds a piece of my heart. A piece that I gave away before I was even old enough to know what love was.
I’ll never get it back, no matter what happens here.
“Please,” I whisper, my voice thick with tears. “Tell me the truth.”
Malach’s face shutters. He might as well be carved from stone. The dimple in his chin and the twinkle in his eyes are nowhere to be found. He’s a shell of his former self. A stranger to me all over again.
“You left me,” he says. “And you were quick to accept the absolution you desperately craved. I’m the angel of judgment, Celine—did you think I would forget what you did?”
I recoil, curling into Alistair’s chest as every part of me rejects what he’s saying. My magic trembles inside me. It wants to know for sure, but I hold it back.
“Swear it,” I tell him, hating every second of this torture. My business, my heart, my greatest shame put on display for everyone to see. My wings droop. Drops of water glide down the feathers, freezing before they can reach the ground.
“I dare you to lie to me, Malach.” I’m shouting now, but I can’t stop. “Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll leave and never think of you again.” The sting of my lie rips through me, but I’m hurting so badly that I absorb it without flinching.
Malach lifts his chin, and a muscle in his jaw ticks. “I don’t want you, Celine. I don’t love you. You’re not my truth, anymore. You never were.”
Agony tears through me. Alistair and Riven are no longer holding me back, they’re holding me up. My wings smack the ground, the frozen tips too heavy to support. I don’t have the strength. Malach took everything I had left in the span of thirty seconds.
My father gives the creepy veydran lookalikes a signal. In sync, they pivot and face the portal.
“Now,” Alistair hisses.
Riven lets me go and smacks the dial. Magic whirls to life, and a violent wind kicks up around us. I scream at him to turn it off, but he doesn’t listen.
The shifter realm blots out the sun, bathing us in darkness. As the portal activates, the veydran lunge for me as one. They’re too late.
The portal has already sealed us inside its perimeter.
I fall to my knees and bang my fists against the barrier, but there’s nothing for me to break through. My body is already leaving this plane.
Everything blurs. I hear myself screaming. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.
The last thing I see before we’re ripped away is Malach, his face twisted with agony as my father advances on him.
We land in the street, and familiar heat rolls over me. A neon sign buzzes above a corner dive bar, and the arid breeze blows a piece of crumpled paper across the stained pavement.
My wings melt, leaking huge drops of water onto the asphalt.
We did it. We’re home.
And I feel nothing but pain.
“Baby.” Luca’s voice is gentle. Too gentle. He thinks I’m broken—I can sense his worry throbbing through the bond in my chest. And godsdammit, he’s right. This misery is as sharp as the day my mom died. Different, but every bit as painful.
It feels like I’ll never live without it. Like I’ll never draw another breath that isn’t tinged with hurt. Wall it off, Celine. Lock it up with all the rest. If I shove this memory into the vault with all the others, I’ll be safe. Except . . . it doesn’t seem real.
Moments with Malach rush through my head. Here in the Fringes. Trapped in the monster realm. His loyalty, his steadfast support. Every interaction like coming home.
I poke gingerly inside me for the tattered remnants of our vows. They’re bloody and bruised, cowering inside me, but they’re not gone.
I climb to my feet.
My hands fist.
If the vows remain, then everything Malach said to me was a lie.
I replay his words. It’s easy because they’re playing on a loop in my head.
Everything he said was calculated, but calculated to do what, exactly?
To inflict maximum damage or drive me away?
My stomach flips. If he’d made it obvious, I never would have left.
Hell, if Riven hadn’t taken the choice from me, I would still be standing there arguing with him.
Could it be that the only lie Malach has ever told me was to keep me safe?
“I’m sorry, angel.” Alistair sighs, and the sound is heavy. He hands Luca his sweatshirt so he can cover himself, and music spills from the corner bar as the door swings open. Three people stumble out, laughing and jostling each other.
Hope flickers to life inside me.
My wings stop dripping.
Anger follows, and steam rises from every feather.
I don’t need to know what happened in the monster realm. My mind is made up. The promises I made to Malach were permanent. Maybe my father took him from me, and maybe he didn’t, but I’ll get him back either way.
S’lach doesn’t get to win.
And Malach is mine.
Riven clears his throat. “I’m sorry, Celine. I had to activate the portal. The veydran—”
“I know.” I turn my head to survey them all, and my wings erupt in flames, bathing their faces in orange swirls of light. “You made the right call.”
His face warps. He’s confused.
“We’re safe, angel,” Ali whispers. His voice is laced with shock and disbelief, Ciprian’s unconscious form supported between him and Luca. “It’s over.”
“No,” I say grimly, rolling my shoulders back and planting my feet wide. I know what I have to do, and there’s no point pretending otherwise.
“This is only the beginning.”