Lucy
I am an angel.
But I was meant to be a demon.
No. I’m neither of those things.
It takes me a moment to come back to reality. More and more, I am daydreaming or losing moments of time as I flit from one memory to another.
No, that’s not right.
They’re not mine. They’re Architecti’s or sometimes they’re Interitus’s.
I’m getting flickers of things that happened but in pieces and shreds. Nothing is coherent, and it’s making me fight with reality because every scene feels more real than the last.
I am six and Interitus ruins my playhouse made of light.
I am a teen and my moth is taken. I am an adult stood in front of a mirror.
I am confused, staring at my destiny. Stood atop Finis Tower, my hands twining with fate and the stars.
Then I’m standing in a different position and the mirror is blank.
It’s too much.
I made a bad choice. Too much responsibility. I chose wrong. I ruined myself.
Trapped. Trapped. Trapped.
The tower suffocates me.
I am Architecti and I witness my fate to bear the weight of responsibility for stopping my sister.
As Interitus steps in front of the mirror, my heart, no, Architecti’s heart sinks. Her vision is of death and ruin. It’s always the same. I hoped for more.
The mirror is blank. Why is the mirror blank?
This dream is so real. Too real. It feels more like a memory.
I—no, Interitus—shoves her fist into the mirror in frustration. It shatters.
Midnight grips my arms. “Lucy, Ora to Lucy…”
I shake the images away.
“What did you see this time?” she asks.
“The Celestial Realm. Fragments of ceremonies. I’m not really sure. It’s all jumbled and I can’t hold on to the images for long enough to make sense of it. It’s like I need more control or power or I’m not sure.”
Midnight makes her way to the kitchen to put the kettle on. It’s still dark and I’ve lost all sense of time.
Lex is in the kitchen, her head bent over several books. Mortem is passed out cold on the sofa.
“Tea?” Midnight asks.
Lex nods. “Please. Can you pop some bread in the toaster too?”
Midnight faffs and potters making bits, but when we’re all sat around their apartment kitchen table, we fall into silence.
“Wow, what’s with the elephant in the room?” Lex says.
Midnight puts her head in her hands. “I am dying,” she says. Lex drops her knife and snorts. We’re all so on edge that the clatter makes us jump.
“We’re all dying, what sort of a statement is that?” Lex demands.
Midnight shakes her head. “I mean soon.”
“No,” Lex snaps. “Ignatius is in prison. He can’t reap you, you’re fine.”
“The original deal,” I start. “He didn’t overwrite it when he forced her to agree to selling me to him.”
Lex slumps back in her chair. “You’re going to need to say more.”
Bile claws at my throat as I have to face the reality of losing Midnight once more.
“There’s nothing we can do to stop it,” Midnight says.
Lex glances between us, swallowing hard.
“The short of it is that the original deal is still in play, and because it’s in play, it’s eating Midnight’s soul.”
“We just have to make the most of what time I do have,” Midnight says, but her tone is so forlorn, as if she’s already given up that it makes me want to scream.
“I said fucking stop it,” I bark so loudly that Lex jumps in her seat and Midnight’s gaze snaps to mine.
“You will not give up, do you hear me? We have time.”
“How much?” Lex asks.
“A week. A little more if we’re lucky.”
Midnight sighs. “The real question is how long can I hold on?”
We’re all silent for a moment. My jaw flexes; I refuse to quit.
“It’s long enough. We will find a way around this.
Some magic we can use to extract enough of the contract from your soul.
Hell, maybe we can use the demon magic you have now to make a deal with yourself.
Or we could use the power I have. I’m getting better at controlling it every day… I… We could…”
My cheeks are wet, everything is blurry, and Midnight’s hands are around my waist.
“Don’t… don’t you do that to me. You stop hugging me this instant. You’re hugging me like we’ve already lost.”
“It’s okay, baby,” she whispers in my ear. But none of this is okay.
None of it.
“Finis won’t recommence for weeks. Not while we’re in danger of having our realm destroyed. I will spend all my free time researching. MORTEM…” Lex barks.
Mortem doesn’t even raise his head but mumbles from under his paws, “Mortem is sleeping. Please leave a message after the beep and he will get back to you when he can find a fuck to give.”
Lex scowls at the fluff ball, shoves her chair back, marches to the sofa and scruffs the cat. He’s so shocked he doesn’t have time to shift incorporeal. So she carries him kicking and hissing to the kitchen table and dumps him unceremoniously onto it.
“We need your help,” she says.
“You always need my help,” he meows.
“Mortem,” I say, a warning in my tone.
“Fine,” he says and then yawns, lies down, lifts his thigh and licks his butt. Lex scrunches her nose and pushes what was left of her toast away.
“What is it you need this time?” He yawns.
“Tomes from the underworld library,” Lex says, and then adds, “If you please.”
“Sounds exhausting,” he says and slow blinks.
“You know what isn’t exhausting?” Midnight says.
He glances up at her.
“When I rode into town the other day to do some reapings, I saw a new butcher, and you know what they had in that butcher’s?”
He tilts his head at her.
“An entire charcuterie. Row upon row of delicious and rather sumptuous fish. Sushi and salamis, meats that would make your mouth water. I wonder how exhausting you’d find it eating a fillet of salmon, an entire tuna steak or even premium prawns.”
He turns to Lex. “What do you need?”
She grins and together they pad into her room.
“We should talk about the fact you’re willing to play bait,” Midnight says, threading her fingers through mine.
My mouth pinches; I knew we were going to have to face this. Not least because I think I need her help. I don’t know that I can be bait without her.
“We don’t have a lot of choice,” I say.
Midnight’s nostrils flare as she lets out an enormous sigh. “What are you thinking?”
“We bring in the Societas, or what’s left of them.
They’re camped outside campus anyway so we may as well take advantage.
Then if they’re on campus when Architecti and Interitus arrive, I suspect they’ll be a perfect distraction.
They’ll swarm their messiah angel, meaning Interitus will struggle to escape. ”
Midnight’s lips quirk.
“What?”
“Did you forget she can fly?” She’s trying and failing to suppress a laugh.
“No,” I say a little too quickly. I clearly did.
I sigh and slouch in my chair.
“What if Alistair and I create a mesh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, first of all, I disapprove of the plan entirely. But if we have no other option then think about how we stitch the Veil. All we’re doing is knitting fabric together.
We could use the same method with ribbons of campus magic and create a mesh that stretches across campus, preventing Interitus from leaving. ”
I nod, a little more enthused. “Has Architecti seemed off to you?”
She scans my face.
“It’s probably nothing.”
“No, no, explain.”
“I don’t know. She was so supportive coming to the cell and teaching me how to access my power. But in the courtyard… she just took my magic from me. She didn’t give me instructions… she just…”
“Used you?” Midnight frowns.
We fall silent, both lost in thought. I don’t have an answer. Architecti has been nothing but helpful, I’m probably overthinking it.
I switch to the task at hand. Playing bait and getting Interitus here is one thing. Trapping her will be another. But stopping her? That’s entirely different. “I’ve been having visions and dreams of them. Or at least I think I have,” I offer.
“Say more,” she says and steals the remaining piece of Lex’s toast.
“Since the courtyard, a piece of Interitus lodged inside me, and I guess I’m seeing fragments of their lives.”
“Anything useful?”
I shrug. “There’s one memory that keeps coming in pieces.
They were staring into a mirror that shows one’s fate.
Architecti saw hers, then a version of Interitus’s, but I flitted into Interitus’s memory and what she saw was different.
I feel like we’re missing something. I just can’t work out what. ”
“Do you have access to all their memories?”
“Maybe? It’s possible now I have a piece of each of them.”
Midnight sits up. “What if we supercharged it? Got you access to all their memories. Maybe you could hunt through them.”
“How exactly do you supercharge access to a piece of an angel’s soul?”
Midnight grins at me. “You’re basically a supercharged celestial rune, baby. How’s about you come play with Daddy and I power up your body for you?”
My cheeks flush.
“And then when you’re glowing like a firework, you let your mind channel into the pieces of them.”
“You’re offering me free orgasms?”
“Something like that.” She beams at me, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. Instead, we share a glance that weighs more than the burden of any contract.
Our eyes speak what our mouths won’t. A realisation we’re both avoiding.
The thought makes my body grow cold and shivery. She yanks my hand and pulls me out of the chair, twirling me towards her.
It’s just a distraction. All this is a distraction from the truth.
I have unimaginable power, but Midnight is still going to die because I don’t know how to save her.