CHAPTER TWELVE #2
“Then what do you want me to do?” I ask without turning around. I’m not sure I can look at him and not combust. “Sit here while she—”
The air hums.
It’s subtle at first, like the buzz before a storm. The torchlight along the walls flickers then dims, flames bending inward as if bowing to something unseen.
Hades’ gaze flicks toward the basin on the floor, and mine follows.
The still water ripples once more, then again, more violently. Colors shimmer beneath the surface, shifting from deep gold to molten red, then to something like the inside of a wound, jagged and unforgiving.
We both move closer without meaning to, drawn by whatever has its hooks in this cursed bowl.
Kennedy’s face appears for only a heartbeat. She’s in profile, hair messy, eyes wide and tense. There’s a torch behind her somewhere, dousing her in ambient light, shadows sliding over her features. Her mouth opens—
“Reaver” I hear the faint pain in her voice, but it’s overtaken by something else. Strength. My girl is strong. She’s a fighter, I know that. But she’s also human, and that makes her a liability. No matter how strong she is, if Pesta tortures her, she’ll die.
I run over to the basin just in time to see the image torn apart, shredded by a jag of blood-red light. Then I hear her, a voice whispering through the smoke rising off the basin. It’s female, honeyed, and poisonous.
“He will come for you.” Pestilence’s promise or taunt. It’s hard to tell with her.
A crack splinters down the middle of the obsidian, a sharp, ugly sound that echoes through the room. The basin groans, stone grinding against stone, and then sits there in two jagged halves.
“Fuck this,” I whisper. My voice shakes less from fear than from fury. Rage feels safer. It’s a straight line. Fear splits you, rage gives you something to aim for. “If Themis wants a war,” I say, lifting my head. “I’ll give her one.”
For a moment, there’s only the sound of the fires below and my own breathing, rough in my ears. Hades doesn’t move. Doesn’t roll his eyes. Doesn’t crack a joke about my hero complex.
When he does speak, his tone is almost pitying. “Then at least take this.”
He crosses to his desk and rummages through a drawer that’s more like a small cavern. Papers, scrolls, and an object wrapped in dark cloth tumble out. He ignores the rest, grabs the one he wants, and tosses it to me.
The weight of it hits my palm with a satisfying thud.
I unwrap it slowly. The blade inside is roughly the length of my forearm, forged of black celestial steel shot through with veins of molten gold. The metal seems to drink in the light instead of reflecting it, but the golden threads pulse faintly, like a heartbeat.
“The blade that cut Aradia’s curse,” Hades says quietly, watching my face. “Forged to pierce divine magic but not made for mortals.”
I run my thumb along the blade, careful to avoid the edge. The steel hums a low, eager vibration that crawls up my arm and into my bones. It knows me, or at very least, it knows what I am.
“It listens to intent,” he adds. “That means if you hesitate even a breath, it’ll gut you instead of your enemy.”
I let out a humorless huff. “So, like a really dramatic mood ring.”
Hades doesn’t smile, but some of the tension in his jaw loosens a fraction. “Yeah, something like that.”
I sheathe the blade against my forearm, securing the leather straps Hades wrapped around it. The metal sings faintly against my skin, settling like it’s meant to be there.
“I’ll find her,” I say. The words come out quietly, but they feel huge and heavy in my heart.
Like the kind of oath the universe itself hears and writes down.
“I’ll get Kennedy back,” I continue, lifting my gaze to his.
“And then,” I hesitate, just a heartbeat.
“And then I’ll find Themis and put an end to this torture she seems to think is sport for good. ”
Hades’ eyes flare silver again. “Careful what oaths you speak aloud in this place,” he warns. “Down here, someone is always listening.”
“Good.” I flex my hands, feeling the weight of the blade, the weight of my wings, the pull of the distant gate. “Saves me the trouble of sending a memo.”
He huffs out a breath that might almost be a laugh.
I turn toward the door. My steps feel both too slow and too fast, like my body can’t decide whether to sprint or drag this out forever. The iron latch is cool against my palm.
“No grand plan?” Hades asks behind me. “No backup? No army of pissed-off demons?”
“I’ve worked with armies,” I say. “Didn’t go great. Thought I’d try something new.”
“You mean thinking?” he deadpans.
I glance over my shoulder. “Ouch. That stung.”
For a second, we just look at each other. There’s history in that look. Shared battles. Dark jokes traded over spilled Ambrosia. Nights spent sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on this very floor, watching other poor bastards bleed in the pits and pretending we weren’t both slowly bleeding out ourselves.
“Reaver,” he says, and there’s something like respect in it. Or resignation. “If you tear a hole in the veil, there’s no stitching it back together. The worlds won’t survive a full convergence. There should only ever be one reality.”
“I know.” And I do. I might not have studied the cosmic schematics the way he has, but I’m not stupid.
“But Kennedy won’t survive Pestilence or Themis.
And she certainly won’t survive both playing tug-of-war over her.
” I swallow once, hard. “I’m not sacrificing her on the altar of cosmic balance,” I say. “Not again.”
The last two words slip out before I can catch them.
Hades’ eyes flicker. “You think not dying in Treachery was a sacrifice?”
“I think waking up there after my brother ran me through was one,” I snap. “I think letting Pestilence walk me into her fucking pits was another. I think walking away from Kennedy the first time I saw her happy without me sure as fuck counts.”
The confession tears something open inside me. There it is—the truth I’ve been dodging with jokes and alcohol and bar fights.
I have always chosen the bigger picture over myself. Over my wants. Over what my heart—my stupid, persistent, traitorous heart—has begged for.
Not this time.
I spread my wings.
Heat flares gold along the feathers, fire catching on every edge. The sudden rush of power blasts the door off its hinges. It flies outward, slamming into the stone wall opposite with a deafening crack before clattering to the floor.
Torches along the corridor outside flare in answer, their flames surging higher.
“I hope she’s listening,” I say, meaning Themis, Pestilence, or whatever bored cosmic asshole who’s watching this whole mess like it’s a drama series. “It’ll save me the trouble of hunting her later.”
Hades watches me go, arms crossed, bident leaning against his desk within easy reach. For all his threats and warnings, he doesn’t try to stop me.
“Bring her home,” he says quietly. “And try not to kill the universe on the way.”
“No promises,” I toss back.
The corridor outside is sweltering, even by Hellish standards. Heat rolls off the stones in waves. The path to the gate is a long, curving ramp lined with jagged obsidian and flickering witch lights. Beneath the glass wall, the Phlegethon burns—a river of liquid flame cut through the dark rock.
I stalk down the ramp, every step ringing in my bones. The air burns hotter the closer I get to the gate, as if Hell itself is unsettled. As if the realm can tell something is… off.
It is.
The usual dull red of The Inferno’s heart is shot through with streaks of bright gold—thin at first, then thicker, threading through the cracks in the stone. The very air shimmers where they meet, reality warping at the edges like heat mirage.
Divine light. The barrier between this reality and the other isn’t supposed to look like this.
It’s breaking, I realize, my throat going dry. The whole damn thing is on the verge of crumbling.
And I know exactly who’s being used to do it.
Kennedy.
Of course they’d use her. A human who’s seen too much, touched too much of our world.
A mind sharp enough to understand the consequences and a heart stubborn enough to try anyway.
She’s the perfect fulcrum—just fragile enough to crack, just strong enough to take most of the universe with her when she does.
“She didn’t ask for any of this,” I mutter. Neither did I. Neither did Hades. Neither did Aradia nor Ash nor Kennedy, Salem, nor anyone else. We were all just trying to do our jobs. Live our strange, fucked-up lives.
And Themis decided we’d look better as chess pieces.
At the base of the ramp, the Dimmu gate waits.
It’s fashioned from twisted bone and black iron, forming an arch that hums with latent power. Tonight, it’s… different. The bones glow faintly along their seams, veins of gold pulsing in time with my heart.
The space between the arch is filled with roiling fire—red and gold and something too bright to look at directly. The air around it crackles, raising the hair along my arms. It smells like brimstone and rain and the ozone tang of an angel’s first fall.
I stand there for a second, staring at the maelstrom, blade humming quietly against my forearm, wings halfway spread.
This is stupid.
I should wait. Plan. Drink. At least grab a snack.
“Yeah,” I tell the gate. “That doesn’t sound like me at all.”
I think of Kennedy on that rooftop in Vegas, standing with her back to the edge, trusting me not to let her fall. The way her face went soft when I finally kissed her. The way she looked at my scars and didn’t flinch.
I think of her in Boston, watching from that stupid bay window while I lurked in the shadows because I told myself she was better off without me.
I think of her in that basin, mouth shaping my name.
If there’s a trap on the other side of this, I’m going to spring it. If there’s a war brewing, I’m going to walk into it. If Themis wants me to be the blade that tears the veil down, then she’s going to find out what happens when the blade cuts both ways.
I take a breath. The air sears my lungs. So I do the only thing I’ve ever really known how to do. I walk headlong into a fight that’s not of my own making.