Chapter 27
The next day I wake up with the kind of resolve that leaves no room for bargaining. Today I’m doing the two things I’ve been putting off.
First, I’m reaching out to Rhea for real.
No more circling the edge of the woods and waiting for her anger to cool.
I’m going to use my powers to communicate with her directly, properly, the way I should have from the start.
I’ve known it was possible this whole time but I never did it because I didn’t want to throw sand in an open wound.
I kept hoping she’d show up on her own and give me a chance to explain.
But the way things are going, and considering what I’m attempting after, I don’t have the luxury of patience anymore.
Once I reach Rhea, I’m facing the other thing I’ve been pretending I could put off forever. The Skystones. The souls trapped inside them. The murderers I’ve been treating like an abstract problem this whole time.
Yeah. That’s right.
I’m actually doing it.
No more letting it sit there like some slow-burning threat I can keep ignoring. It’s time to reach within them and try to reap those souls trapped within.
There’s a chance I fail, of course. There’s a chance I wake the wraiths and get my soul obliterated for my trouble. That’s exactly why I need to talk to Rhea first, to cross one more thing off the list in case I don’t walk away from what comes next.
Cassian, Nathaniel, and Talon don’t know about my plan. Not yet. I’m going to tell them, just preferably closer to the moment it matters, when they don’t have enough time to talk me out of it.
I’ve been thinking about what Cassian said, about how I should stop playing the hero and run if things go south.
A week ago I would have agreed without hesitation.
Now I can see the shape of it more clearly.
That instinct is just fear dressed up as common sense, and I promised myself I wouldn’t let fear steer me anymore.
So I wake before sunrise while the hospital is still quiet and slip out of Talon’s bedroom where the four of us ended up after last night.
I head for the trees in sweats with one of the guys’ jackets pulled over the top.
My grave is right there, only a couple of steps from where I drop onto the grass and close my eyes.
“Rhea,” I whisper, sending her name into the dark space beyond the veil.
The answer isn’t words. It’s sensation. Her mark is still there, unmistakable, a familiar pull that tells me she hasn’t gone far. I remember the first time I felt it, when she appeared here and I didn’t yet understand what I’d taken from her or that I was indebted at all.
I understand now.
There’s a thread between us, thin but real. What used to feel dangerous and heavy enough to get me killed has dwindled into something small. Returning her power would wipe the debt clean in an instant and I wouldn’t owe her a thing.
But I don’t do it.
Instead I focus on this feeling and send her a message.
Come here.
For a while nothing happens. I just sit with my eyes closed and the feeling growing stronger inside me.
And then I feel her standing in front of me.
I open my eyes.
“You came,” I whisper.
“I almost didn’t.” Her voice is steady but there’s ice underneath it. “I wasn’t sure you’d earned that.”
I get to my feet.
“I know you think I broke my promise.”
“You did break your promise.”
“I had a reason.”
“There’s no reason good enough to keep those two breathing.”
“There is,” I say. “And you already know it.”
Rhea’s eyes narrow.
I take a slow breath and keep my hands visible. I’m not here to fight her. I just need her to hear me out.
“The belief that you need their deaths to move on is manufactured,” I say. “The whole system was built to give Grim Reapers a purpose. Not to give the dead peace. You know how many souls you’ve reaped. Name one who got peace from watching their killer die.”
The silence stretches.
She doesn’t answer.
“You can’t,” I say quietly. “Because it doesn’t happen. They’re still dead. They still lost what they lost. Watching someone else die doesn’t undo a single second of it.”
Her jaw goes tight.
“You spent years hunting down the man who killed you,” she says. “Years. And now you’re going to stand here and tell me revenge doesn’t work.”
“I was wrong to do it.”
“You only say that because Death stopped you.” Her mouth twists. “Funny how the revelation showed up right after you lost the option.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“It is exactly what happened. I felt your bloodlust, Skye. For years. You wanted him erased from existence. You would have done it yourself if no one had stepped in.” She takes a step closer.
“And now you’ve got your second chance, your love, your warm bed, your new life, and you’ve decided the rest of us should just swallow it. ”
“I’m not telling you to swallow it. I’m telling you the thing you’re feeding on is poison.”
She scoffs. “Poetic.”
“It’s the truth. You’re not looking for justice. You’re looking for permission. You’re waiting for someone else’s death to give you the right to stop hurting. And it won’t. Even if I killed them both tonight, you’d wake up tomorrow still carrying everything you carry now. You know that.”
Her power surges. I feel it pressing against the wards like heat through glass.
“Don’t tell me what I know.”
“Then tell me I’m wrong.”
She doesn’t.
I press it.
“Your friends, Rhea. What about them.”
Her expression changes. It’s slight but I catch it.
“Don’t,” she says.
“They follow you. They trust you. And right now you are telling them that what was done to them is all they are. That the only thing left for them is to watch two people bleed.”
“I’m telling them the truth.”
“You’re telling them your version of it. And you’re not even asking whether they want something else.”
Her eyes flash.
“You don’t know what they lost.”
“No. I don’t. But neither do you. Not really. Because you decided what their healing looks like before any of them got to speak.”
That lands.
I see it hit her, and I see her push it away.
“They relive it every day,” she says. Lower now. “Every single day. They were stripped of everything.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.” Her voice cracks at the edge. “You got choices. You got time. You got to fall in love. They got nothing.”
“And killing two people gives them what, exactly? What do they get after that? Tell me what happens next.”
She goes still.
“What happened to me doesn’t cancel out what happened to them,” I say. “But it proves the worst moment of someone’s life doesn’t have to be the last word. They deserve the chance to find that out for themselves. You are taking that from them.”
Her expression locks down. A door slamming shut.
“Stop,” she says.
“I can’t.”
“You can. You just won’t. Because you think you’re saving us.” She laughs under her breath and there’s something in it that makes my chest hurt. “You’re not saving anyone, Skye. You’re standing here wrapped in power you stole from me, telling us we chose to suffer.”
“I’m telling you there’s something on the other side of this. And you are too angry to look.”
The air darkens around her. Black smoke coils from her shoulders.
“I looked,” she says. “There’s nothing there.”
“Rhea. Please.”
“I gave you a chance,” she says. “I gave you time. And you used it to protect the people who destroyed us.”
“I used it to make sure you didn’t become them.”
The smoke stops. For one second her face is completely exposed and I see it all. The grief. The exhaustion. The absolute terror of letting go of the only thing still holding her together.
Then her expression hardens.
“You think you’re better than us,” she says quietly. “Fine. Keep thinking that. I wonder if you’ll keep at it when I ruin your perfect little peace.”
My stomach drops.
“Rhea, please.” But before I can say anything else, the air swallows her. Black smoke coils tight and dissolves and she’s gone.
For a moment I just stand there, staring at the place she left.
Is that it?
I feel my throat tighten.
I failed.
And the worst part is I don’t know what I should have done differently. Every point I made was true. I know it was. But truth isn’t the same thing as timing, and I dragged her toward an understanding she wasn’t ready for. She rejected it.
I exhale shakily and rub a hand over my face.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Fine.”
All I can hope for is that she’ll see through it at some point. In the meantime I have no intention of killing her murderers. Maybe we should contact Cassian’s cousin or something. I’m sure Grayson could put them in prison if we gave him the evidence.
I turn back toward the hospital, ready to go inside and—
I stop.
A cold prickles down my spine.
The wards are still up. I can feel them. But there’s a pressure inside the perimeter that doesn’t belong, and the second I reach for it I know exactly what it is.
Rhea.
Inside.
I wonder if you’ll keep at it when I ruin your perfect little peace.
I don’t know how she got inside, but I’m already running before I manage to think it through.
I burst into Talon’s bedroom and rip the duvet off their bodies. “Up. Now. We’ve got a problem.”
Cassian wakes with violence. He’s upright in a blink, feet on the floor, hand closing around the scythe-made dagger on the nightstand before his face even finishes forming an expression.
“What the hell?” he snaps.
Talon jolts awake a beat later. “Jesus. What is it, Little Grim?”
Nathaniel comes awake last. Only his eyes open, and then he’s razor-focused, like someone flipped a switch. He sits up and looks at me without saying a word.
“Rhea’s inside the perimeter,” I say. “I called her. Earlier. Outside the wards. I didn’t realize the invitation carried through. The wards don’t stop someone I invite.”
All three of them go still.
“We need to sweep the grounds,” I say, scooping their clothes off the floor and throwing them at them. “I can feel her but every time I think I’ve got a lock she slips.”
Nathaniel catches his clothes mid-motion and starts dressing. Talon drags on his pants swearing under his breath, yanks a hoodie from his wardrobe and pulls it over his head without checking if it’s the right way around.
Cassian doesn’t move.
“So what that she’s inside?” he asks. “She can’t kill the couple herself. If she could, she would have done it before she recruited us.”
He’s right. That logic holds. But it doesn’t cover everything.
“She’s not here for them,” I say. “She’s here for us.”
He looks at me.
“I told her I won’t follow through. I told her revenge won’t give her what she wants. And she lost it, Cass. Completely. I can feel what she wants right now and it’s not justice. She just wants to hurt me now.”
That does it. Cassian gets up and he’s dressed before the other two are.
“Then I’m going to go kill them right now,” he says. “Give her what she came for. Problem solved.”
“No.”
“If it keeps you safe, I don’t care about the rest.”
“And then what?” I step toward him. “You hand her two bodies and she leaves? That’s not how this works. You know that. Whenever we do things that are against the rules it comes back to bite us in the ass.”
His jaw flexes.
“So your plan is to let her stay inside the wards and hope she calms down?”
“No. My plan is to deal with her directly.”
“Handle them how?” Cassian asks.
I stare at him.
“I don’t know yet.”
He gives a humorless laugh. “Great.”
“I’m figuring it out as we speak,” I say, which is a total lie. I’m not figuring out anything. I was not prepared for this and my capacity for improvising seems to have run dry.
I only know what I do not want. I don’t want to be a ruthless jerk and kill people anymore.
I’m sure there is some kind of a pacifist solution here. If there’s a way through this that doesn’t end in blood, I’m going to find it, even if I have to build it from nothing.
All three of my men stare at me.
Cassian’s face doesn’t change, but I can feel the battle behind his eyes. Instinct screaming to lock me away somewhere safe and burn everything around us. Part of me would welcome it. But I’m not just a part of myself anymore.
“I don’t like it,” he says finally.
“I know.” I keep my voice low. “But this is my choice.”
His nostrils flare. “Fine.”
Relief hits so hard my knees threaten to go soft. I don’t let it show. If I wobble, he’ll grab me and we’ll be right back at square one.
“Okay,” I say. “We need to find her before she does something that forces our hand.”
“You said you can feel her.”
“I can. But it’s slippery. Like she’s actively throwing me off.”
“Then we split up,” Cassian says. “Divide the floors. Each take a quarter.”
My stomach twists at the idea but I nod.
“If she tries to harm any of you, I’ll know,” I say. “I’ll feel it through the bond.”
“Cute,” Talon says. “Let’s do this.”
We scatter through the hospital. I ghost through the ceiling and ride the building up to the highest floor since I can get there the fastest.
The psych ward comes back clean. Not even a lingering trace.
I drift lower and Rhea’s presence flickers at the edge of my awareness. That pressure in my sinuses again, like she’s toying with me.
One of the rooms below is darker than the others. The shadows sit heavier there. I pause at the threshold and reach with my core instead of my senses.
Nothing.
I check the stairwell. The elevator shaft.
Nothing.
My pulse is steady but my instincts are not. Something is wrong, but I just can’t pinpoint what. The absence of her feels intentional. Like she’s not hiding from me so much as pulling my attention upward while she moves somewhere else entirely.
Then a scream rips up from downstairs.
My blood turns to ice.
Hailey.
Fuck.
I launch myself toward the floor.