Chapter 16
sixteen
OPHELIA
I spent the next two weeks perfecting my map, and making an assload of enchanted plates. I managed not to let myself jump Dante when he came over with coffee and food so he could bite me every morning.
His visits were usually short, and he always had more meetings to run to.
He brought River and Jazz over together one evening to look at the map, and point out any flaws I'd missed. It was awkward, but neither of them found anything. That made me feel slightly better about the many snags in the original magic.
They all also contributed to the list of innocents who needed to be freed from the prison. I knew almost everyone on the list, and made an online quiz for myself to learn the faces of everyone I didn't know.
When I talked to all of them about it, I made sure it sounded like I wouldn't be ready to go get them out for a while. But honestly, it wouldn't take that much power to do it. Not now that I had so much more magic.
When Jazz and River left, Dante left with them.
I tried not to feel any way about it, but I didn't really succeed.
I found myself missing him when he was gone, even though I didn't want to admit it.
My bed was too big, and too empty.
My house was the same.
Even my studio was a little too quiet.
Maybe I was finally getting tired of being alone.
After sixteen nights of exhausting my magic, I was ready to make my trip into the penitentiary for the rest of the innocents.
And to see what shape the existing magic was in. That part was especially important, since I hadn't really been able to do it when I was in prison with Dante.
I waited until it was late enough at night that I was sure Dante would be asleep, just to buy myself time to get to the prison before he realized what I was doing.
We hadn't seen each other much, and we definitely hadn't talked much, but he was protective enough that I knew he wouldn't be cool with me going into the penitentiary alone.
I also needed to do it when the prisoners were locked in their cells, obviously. That was going to be my excuse when he lost his shit about the situation.
I drained my premade latte on the drive there. A pack of them was always delivered with my groceries, courtesy of a certain vampire, even though he was also bringing me fancy lattes.
So, I was wired with both sugar and caffeine when I struggled my way through the lobby with a massive wagon Dante had unknowingly purchased, loaded with a mountain of plates.
I tossed my keys to the people at the front desk on my way past them again. They waved, and I waved back.
Dante's sleep-heavy voice rolled through the bond as I neared the elevator, making me grimace. "Why am I getting alerts that you left the house in the middle of the night again?"
"Probably because I left the house in the middle of the night again."
"Where did you go this time?" He sounded tired, but not angry. Not yet, anyway. That would definitely come. "Did you remember your wallet?"
"I'm going back into the penitentiary tonight. It's just a little rescue mission. I'll be in and out in an hour or two."
An hour or two was a lie. It would be at least three or four.
"What?" His tone grew sharper. "Alone? Not a fucking chance."
"Not alone. I brought a hundred ceramic plates."
"No. Not happening," he snarled.
"Please get out of my head so I can focus." I hoped that asking politely would help my case, but doubted it.
"Wait for me to get there. I'm getting in my car right now."
"That's not necessary. It should be fast and easy." I hit the button to call the elevator.
"You can't risk your life on that hope, Ophelia."
"It's fine. Worst case scenario, I die, and you get to pick a new mate."
He snarled at me again.
That wasn't how the magic worked. We both knew it, but I wasn't about to say it.
The elevator arrived, and I dragged my wagon inside.
I should've splurged for the fancier one, because that thing was a fucking menace.
My heartbeat picked up as the elevator lowered.
My time in the prison could've been much, much worse, but that didn't make me want to go back in. Particularly not alone. I knew Dante was the only reason my experience hadn't been completely hellish.
There was a sensation like my ears needed to be popped, but nothing happened when I tried.
Logically, I knew why, but I hadn't been entirely prepared to feel it.
"What is that feeling?" Dante roared at me, sounding more distant, and more furious, than he ever had before.
"The mate bond. The penitentiary's magic isolates the prisoners from their loved ones. It can't erase the bond, but it makes it quieter. Now, get out of my head so I don't screw anything up more than I already have."
"We're going to have a long fucking conversation when you get back."
I'd be way too wrecked for that conversation to happen right after I got out of the prison, but he didn't need to know it yet.
The elevator stopped on the bottom floor, and I attempted yet again to push Dante out of my mind completely. Not just his voice, but the man himself.
It didn't work, and I didn't have time to think about it anymore.
The elevator stayed open as I stepped out. I fought with the wagon just enough to get it outside the metal box before I dropped the handle. The doors shut behind me.
The issue with the innocent prisoners being thrown in was a snag in the elevator's magic. I'd fix that from the surface. After I made it out with the innocent people.
First, I needed to check on the existing magic. I hadn't been able to look at the details of it while I was acting like a prisoner myself. Doing so would've alerted anyone powerful that something was going on. They would've felt it respond to me.
Dark threads of power burst from my fingertips, lighting up the magic woven through the walls and ceiling. My wings forced their way out as my power swelled and responded to me.
My eyes widened in horror when I saw the framework I'd built.
Or what was left of it.
Angelic magic had some amount of life to it. It grew, changed, and adapted slightly after it had been set up.
That wasn't what had happened.
My complex weave had been gnarled. Torn. Shredded in some spots. The magic had adapted by thickening in other spots, the power migrating to wherever it could. It had adapted to keep up with what I'd intended it to do, but it was barely hanging on.
Someone had been attacking it. Trying to destroy it. Potentially, for a long fucking time.
My heart sank as I walked down the hallway, looking closer at the damage that had been done.
The map I'd made was pointless.
There was no way to fix the magic. Not even maybe. Not with how much it had been altered. I didn't have the mass amount of power it would take to restore the original magic, let alone make the intricate changes I'd planned on top of it.
I was going to have to unravel the whole penitentiary's magic. It was going to take a long fucking time, it was going to hurt like hell, and I was going to have to find somewhere else to put the prisoners while I did it, too.
Afterward, I was going to have constant access to a nightmare-worthy level of dark magic unless I rebuilt the prison's spells from the ground up. Both options sounded like hell.
"Why do you feel like that?" Dante demanded, his voice still distant.
"The magic I built down here isn't repairable."
"You're okay?"
"I'm fine. All the prisoners are stuck in their cells right now."
But I needed to know who was responsible for the damage to my woven magic. Logically, there weren't many options. Not many kinds of immortals could change angelic power.
The easiest way to figure it out would be to follow the trail of it to the source.
Letting out a soft, reluctant breath, I started following the magic down a hallway.
Then up some stairs.
People were talking. They sounded agitated. A handful of them would know that someone was messing with the prison's magic.
I was hoping all of the innocents were still living in River's gang's area, to make getting them out a little easier. But I knew it was likely that there had been some sort of political shift when he left.
Reaching the entrance to a familiar hallway, I stared down the length of it. My eyes followed the wreckage that was my magic, directly to the center.
My chest tightened.
It was Reaper's hallway.
That guy scared the fuck out of me.
Because I didn't know which cell he lived in, I couldn't know if he was the source without going straight to him.
There was no point in putting it off.
I forced myself down the hallway, walking fast and taking in the prisoners around us. Reaper never had innocents in his gang before, but that could've changed.
Everyone who saw me raised their voices.
Shouted.
Reached toward me.
I tried to ignore the panic bursting through my veins, but failed.
"What the fuck just happened?" Dante demanded.
The other voices were louder, and made my stress spike higher as they flooded the hallway.
"Is that Inferno's pixie?"
"Holy fuck, it is."
"Are those angel wings?"
"Fallen angel wings."
"She must be the bitch who built this place. Guess we know how they got out of here."
"So Reaper didn't kill them?"
"Get us out!"
"Let us go!"
The words echoed through the prison, growing louder as more and more of the prisoners picked them up.
"Ophelia," Dante snarled into my mind.
I didn't answer him.
There were too many things pulling at me, demanding attention. I didn't have the capacity to deal with all of them.
And the biggest threat was still in front of me.
My heart beat louder and more frantically as I forced myself to follow the trail to the center of the hallway.
A cold tendril of power wrapped around my ankle before I reached it. My gaze jerked downward.
That shouldn't have been possible.
No one should've been able to use magic outside their cell at night.
Slowly, I lifted my head.
My eyes landed on the murky, dark aura that surrounded Reaper. His gaze burned me, and I fought the urge to shrink away.
He was still in his cell, but the magic around him was fractured. Broken enough that he managed to slip his magic through.