42. The Celebration #2
“Fine. Go get some sleep,” she winks and starts dragging Az off toward the bar. “I think it’s time we raised another toast to the fallen. Night, Seraphina.”
“Night.” I turn before they can say anything else, slipping out of The Rec into the cooler corridor.
The noise fades with every step away from the celebration, replaced by the steady rhythm of my heartbeat.
I should feel drained, but instead, I've never felt more alive.
My thoughts drift to Silver, to the way he’d said ‘Stay with me tonight.’
My stomach swarms with butterflies and thankfully I reach the dorm quickly. I need to grab some essentials, but it’s not until I’m at the door that I realize I’ve never done this before and don’t know what the protocol is.
I’m pretty sure turning up with everything I own will have him running for the volcanoes.
I laugh like an idiot, giddy thinking about what’s waiting for me, powerless to wipe the grin off my face if I wanted to.
I push the dorm door open, already halfway through a list in my head. A change of clothes, something soft, my Ferrum issued nightwear, and my toothbrush.
I stop, frozen.
Lilliana is sitting cross-legged on her bed.
My journal is open in her lap.
My quill in hand, fresh ink at its tip.
For a second, I think I’m imagining it. That I had too much to drink in The Rec and this is a dream. Or nightmare would be more accurate.
She looks up and smiles, and the illusion of this not being real shatters.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice coming out both sharper and tighter than I expect.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, her gaze drifts past me to where my wings would be if I hadn’t already glamoured them away. There’s something ugly in her expression again.
“Well,” she says lightly, tapping the quill against her chin. “You really had everyone fooled.”
I take a step forward. “Lilliana—”
“I mean, I wouldn’t have pegged you for it,” she continues, like I haven’t spoken. “Not for a second.” Her eyes flick back to mine. “Not you of all people, halo-rat.”
A chill crawls up my spine. “Pegged me for what?”
“One of them of course.” I look at her blankly. “Oh, you don’t know? Then again… why would you?”
“Know what?”
She tilts her head, studying me like I’m something to take apart. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not like them anyway, are you?”
“Who?”
“The Sisters.”
I can’t breathe properly but somehow manage to step closer. “What are you talking about Lilliana?”
“High Seraphs prefer their daughters’ wings white,” she says, making my stomach drop. “Don’t they?”
No.
No, no, no.
She knows.
She knows!
My throat goes dry. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her smile widens. “Oh, don’t look so scared,” she says softly. “He misses you, you know.”
Everything in me goes still.
“He can’t wait to see you.”
My blood turns to ice.
“Don’t worry,” she adds, tapping the journal lightly. “I’ve been checking in with him.”
The words don’t make sense. They don’t… They can’t…
“Pretending to be you, of course. He really does not like demons.”
“No.”
It comes out as a whisper. Thin and broken.
“No…”
My stomach churns violently.
“What have you done?” I ask, my voice shaking now despite everything I do to steady it.
Lilliana blinks at me, all fake innocence. “What have I done?” she echoes. “Nothing.”
My fingers curl into fists. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” She glances down at the journal, casual, like this is nothing. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re the one who just told him where the Iron Isle is.”
The words hit like a physical blow and I stagger half a step. “No,” I breathe.
Her eyes flick back to the page. “Oh,” she says lightly. “Look at that.”
My heart stops.
“Here’s his reply now.”
The journal shifts in her hands before she hurls it.
It spins toward the stone floor and my body moves before I can think.
I catch it out of the air, fingers tightening around the worn leather cover like it might disappear if I don’t hold on hard enough.
My vision swims. I don’t want to look.
I can’t look.
But I do.
Ink bleeds across the page.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
My breath stutters as the shape of each letter slams into place. Every stroke, every sharp edge, every deliberate curve.
My father’s hand.
No mistake or doubt in my mind.
I blink once.
Twice.
It doesn’t change.
The Legion is on its way.
The words don’t just sit there. They sear, branding themselves into my skull, burning behind my eyes.
No.
No, no, no.
This isn’t happening.
This cannot be happening.
But the words don’t disappear.
They don’t change.
They sit there.
The Legion of Light is coming.
Here.
To the Iron Isle.
My siblings.
Their army.
An entire host of seraphim warriors descending like the guillotine of judgment itself.
And if I know my father, they’re already moving. Already in the air.
Already too close.
“Shit!” I feel sick. “Shit, shit, shit.”
No.
No, we still have time. We have to have time.
Lilliana laughs. “Poor little halo-rat,” she says, amusement curling through every cruel syllable. “You look like you’ve just been handed your own execution.”
Something in me snaps.
I slam the journal shut, the crack echoing through the dorm.
“You have no idea,” I say, my voice low, unrecognizable as it shakes with something far more dangerous than fear. “What you’ve just fucking done.”