Chapter 33
STELLA
Clarissa dragged me through Wrath, her sharp nails digging into my skin.
The demons who’d whispered as Silas brought me through now openly stared, stopping everything they were doing.
I didn’t know if they were staring at me, or at Clarissa, who looked nothing like the blonde beauty who’d I’d first met in the Fringe.
Her skin smoked, tiny black scales covering most of her body.
Waist-length black hair spilled over her shoulders.
She was silent as we walked, fury dripping out of every pore. We turned, headed back toward my cell, but then she paused and started to pull me the other way.
Through the candlelit hallways we walked, the space growing colder and smaller until I had to brush up against Clarissa’s rough skin just to keep up with her.
She stopped in front of a large stone door, older than anything I’d ever seen before, and whispered harsh words I couldn’t decipher.
The stone scraped along the floor as it opened, and she shoved me inside the dark opening.
I expected another cell. A torture chamber filled with violent-looking instruments designed to make me cower in fear.
Instead, we stood on a wide balcony, overlooking a massive chamber.
Clarissa shoved me forward, until I clung to the edge of the rock balcony, staring into the pit below.
A dark river filled with glowing orbs cut through the bottom, disappearing into nothingness.
Tiny cutouts in the rock face surrounding us were filled with people: humans by the looks of it, carving out spaces with shovels, or staring off into space.
Some sat by themselves, completely still.
‘Why am I here?’ I asked, clenching my fists into my hands to keep from shaking. ‘Why not just bring me to my cell? Shit, why not just rip my soul from my body in Wrath while everyone watched? You all enjoy entertainment, it seems.’
I looked over my shoulder at Clarissa, who seemed a lot less angry, and a lot more resigned. She sighed, took a breath, and was back as her blonde self once again. ‘We aren’t so different, you and I, Stella.’
I could’ve laughed. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I know what you think of me. I know what Damien’s probably told you about me.’ She frowned, her bright-red eyes boring into mine. ‘But I’ve done what I had to do to survive. No different than you, I’m sure.’
‘I feel like I’ve destroyed a few less souls than you.’ I looked back down at the swirling river. The orbs were gathering beneath the balcony, glowing brighter. ‘What is this place?’
She pointed a long nail to the river beneath me, bored.
‘That’s where the human souls in stasis are held, if they survive.
The Greeks got a few things right.’ She gestured toward the mindless workers.
One of them froze and screamed, only to stop a moment later and turn back to shoveling.
‘Some of the souls here make deals. They offer a certain number of years in servitude, and at the end of it, we give them their soul back. Or they become like us. As long as the Balance approves of course. They provide us labor in various industries.’
I could understand how the souls powered the demons, seeing them glow and pulse like they were filled with magic. ‘Like Wrath.’
Clarissa nodded. ‘Yes.’
I crossed my arms, turning away from the souls. ‘I still don’t understand why I’m here.’
Something crossed over her face, close to vulnerability.
‘When I first realized the extent of my power here, I promised myself I would never go back to being powerless. No matter what it took.’ She met my gaze again.
‘Damien comprises the Balance. He has no respect for it. And I will not go back to being weak, ever again.’
I stared at her, another screaming calling out and cutting off behind us. I refused to give her anything.
She clicked her nails on the rock. ‘Give up Damien, tell the Council how he broke the rules for you, and I’ll make you a deal. One hundred years in Wrath, and then you’ll have your freedom.’
I choked. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Destroying your soul keeps Damien in line. Getting you to turn on Damien gets rid of him entirely. One is much more efficient than the other.’ Clarissa cocked her head. ‘He can’t save you, no matter what he says. The only person who can save you now is me.’
She wanted me to give up Damien. To trust her. And in exchange, I’d have a chance.
But that chance meant nothing without Damien, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet. ‘No.’
‘No?’ she snapped.
I stepped forward, staring right into her eyes. ‘No. You can say we’re alike all you want, but I would never sacrifice someone else to save myself.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Clarissa hissed. She snatched my arm, her nails digging into my skin hard enough to draw blood, and dragged me away from the souls, the screaming, down the hall to my cell.
This time, I wasn’t given the luxury of a bed. There were no white walls to stare aimlessly at for a minute, a decade, a lifetime. This time, there was nothing but gray cement, stacked high. For all I knew, it was the same room, all the illusions stripped away. I wouldn’t put it past them.
Clarissa slammed my cage door shut with a heavy rattle. ‘I gave you a chance. An opportunity to mean something more. And in exchange, in a few decades, you would’ve been free. But you spat in my face, looked down on my generosity.’
‘Either way, I ended up without a soul,’ I muttered. I pressed my fingertips into my arms, desperately trying to mimic the feeling of Damien’s hands on me. If I tried hard enough, closed my eyes, it was almost like he was there.
Her hand shot out, dragging me to the cage so my face pressed against the cool bars. Her face had never looked so grotesque. ‘I don’t know where you get off, thinking you’re better than me, but I promise you, underneath it all, we’re the same.’
Damien told me I was perfect. He told me I was everything.
I struggled against her hand, pushing against the cold metal. ‘We’re not. And we never will be.’
She barked out a laugh. ‘You really think Damien is going to be able to save you?’
‘Yes. I do.’
‘Damien’s been pushing the boundaries of our rules for decades.
He’ll find out tomorrow the hard way. The rules are the rules for a reason, and they apply to everyone.
Without the Balance, we have nothing. No powers.
’ She showed her teeth, a mockery of a smile.
‘This could’ve gone completely different.
But I’m owed a soul. I’ll get it one way or another. ’
She shoved me to the ground, disappearing and leaving me alone in my gray cell.
I curled up against the wall, pulling my knees to my chest. Tomorrow.
Clarissa said she was taking me in tomorrow.
I guessed this was what it came down to, in the end.
A single solitary night to confess my sins, the dingy gray walls my only witness.
I should’ve been crying. Maybe what I told Damien was the truth, and this was how it was always meant to be. No more guardian angel. No one to save my ass one last time. Just me, wondering if I’d done enough.
I’d have to believe it’d been enough. All of it. I saw Grace going on her first date, our taco dinners, the way she laughed even when the movie wasn’t funny, her smile when I brought Archie home.
I thought about the future she’d have now. She’d walk down the aisle at her wedding. She’d graduate. She’d have her a job. A chance.
Oh, Archie. Hopefully, Damien would take good care of him when I wasn’t around any longer. It was a lot to put on him. Both of them, really. They’d have to learn to get along, or at least pretend like they did. I was leaving them all alone: Archie, Grace, Damien.
At some point, my eyes must have closed, offering me a brief reprieve from my doomed pity party. The light in the room offered no indication of time passing, but I was cold, and my hand I’d rested my head on had fallen asleep. I sat up with a grimace, squeezing my hand.
It was looking less and less likely that Damien was coming for me. Maybe he couldn’t; he’d been locked out. Maybe he just couldn’t stomach telling me my fate. I couldn’t be upset with him. He’d saved me so many times, I couldn’t ask him for one more.
My monster under my bed turned out to be my guardian angel.
I found it funny that we’re taught to fear them.
Those monsters lurking under our beds. To hug the edges of the light, and not stare too hard into the shadows that fill the corners of our bedrooms. I wasn’t sure when my monster became my protector.
Maybe he always was. I knew two things for sure.
One: the real world was far more terrifying than anything cowering under my bed.
And two: sometimes, those beasts needed someone looking out for them.
So when Clarissa’s other lackey, Lars, jingled my gate open, I stood before he could reach for me. I wouldn’t fight them. Not now.
‘Time to go.’ Lars was quiet, less chatty than Silas, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it almost could’ve been sympathy in his eyes.
‘Okay.’ I met him at the doorway, tugging my lace dress down. ‘Let’s go then.’
‘Um.’ He waited, then produced a small mirror. ‘Did you want to see anyone before we go? We don’t have long, but, well…’
Lars was offering me another looking glass, like the one Damien had in his library. My instinct was to push it out of the way, but my greediness far outweighed my pettiness. I snatched the mirror from him, thinking about Grace.
The cloudiness faded, revealing Grace in a tidy red apron, a pot of coffee in her hand, and a wide smile on her face. She leaned over a table of people I couldn’t see, making a joke I couldn’t hear. My beautiful, ethereal sister, who had a chance.
I pressed my fingers to my mouth with a quiet sob. I had to believe she’d be okay, because anything else would wreck me.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, passing back the mirror. Lars was risking a lot offering me the mirror, and I didn’t want to overstretch his generosity.
Lars shook his head, wrapping my hand back around the mirror. ‘Look again. We still have a minute.’
I met his dark gaze. He was offering me a chance to see Damien, but I didn’t know if seeing him would put me over the edge or not. Finally, I nodded, letting my thoughts drift to Damien.
The mirror unclouded once more. There was Damien, sitting at his desk, in the middle of his ruined office. Everything was destroyed, down to the desk that was barely standing on spindly legs. He sat in the middle of the tornado, preternaturally still, fingers pressed to his temples, slumped.
He looked so broken. So sad.
His mouth moved, and I squinted, trying to make out what he said. I realized it was my name, over and over again, like a prayer.
I love you, I thought. I’ve loved you since before I knew you, before I accepted it. I’ll love you when the only person who remembers who I was is you.
I realized then that giving up didn’t have to be inherently weak. It took a lot of strength to give in, to sacrifice, to accept the outcome provided to you. No one had ever saved Damien. So I’d be the first. I closed the tiny compact, handing it back to Lars.
There was no room for fear in my body, only the knowledge I’d done enough.
‘Ready?’ he murmured.
I nodded. I’d meet my fate with a smile on my face. Because that was the only way to win in this life: to accept the fate you were given like it was your decision all along.