56. Chapter 56
Milo
The last time I stood in Brindlewood, I had horns, claws, and Hell’s deadline hanging over my head. Now I have a human body that still aches from being hurled into the mortal realm, and no plan whatsoever for what I’m supposed to say.
Evie has her back to me, bent slightly as she gathers a blanket from the grass, and I do nothing except stand there and look at her. A week without her has wrecked my ability to behave normally, because my first thought isn’t anything useful or remotely appropriate for a reunion.
The dress she’s wearing hugs her waist and hips before falling loose around her legs, leaving her shoulders bare beneath the fairy lights, and every movement pulls my attention somewhere else I remember touching.
Heat rolls through me so quickly it almost makes me laugh, because of course this is what my newly human body chooses to contribute to an already impossible moment.
But underneath the want is what hurt most: I missed looking at her.
Not remembering her, not replaying pieces of her until I worried I’d worn them thin, but standing close enough to see the way the breeze lifts strands of hair from her neck and hear the tiny huffs while she wrestles with the blanket.
All I want is to cross the garden, wrap both arms around her, and find out whether holding her still feels as much like coming home as I remember. The only thing keeping me where I am is the very real possibility that she might slap me before I get the chance.
Every line I rehearsed on the walk here vanishes. “I’m sorry I missed the party.”
The second it leaves my mouth, I want it back. Of all the things I could’ve said after being dragged to Hell, stripped of everything I’d ever been, and making it back to her, I chose to apologize for missing a party. Brilliant.
I should say something else, but she still hasn’t turned around. I start to think she won’t.
When Evie finally turns, she says nothing, and every second makes me more certain I’ve made a mistake. Her eyes find mine, fairy lights catching in her hair. For one brief moment, she looks relieved.
Then her shoulders square.
“No.” Her arms fold tight across her middle, pulling every line of her body taut beneath the dress I was admiring a moment ago.
“Absolutely not. You don’t get to do that.
You don’t get to disappear through the floor of a building and then just .
. . what? Wander into my garden a week later like you only popped out for milk. ”
“I know.” The words feel inadequate.
“You were dragged back to Hell, Milo!” She spits my name. “Ripped away before I could even process what you’d done.”
I take one careful step closer. “Evie, I’m sorry you had to watch that. And I’m sorry I took the choice away from you.”
Her eyes flash. “But?”
“I don’t regret stopping you.”
She gives a short, disbelieving laugh. “Wow.”
“I know that was not the correct thing to say.”
“No, actually, keep going. You’re doing great.”
I rub my palm over the back of my neck, already feeling the sweat gathering there despite the cold.
“Your choices do matter. But this one would’ve been a mistake with horrible consequences that would follow you beyond your lifetime. So yes, I ran the clock out deliberately.”
Her jaw tightens. “How are you here at all? You delivered an entire speech about impossibility. You were abundantly clear that demons don’t simply stroll back into the mortal realm whenever convenient. That was the whole tragic point.”
“There isn’t a method for demons to stay.” I take another cautious step toward her. Only a few feet remain between us now. I can see the smudge of mascara beneath one eye and the way her fingers keep flexing against her arms. “But Hell stripped that particular obstacle away for me.”
For the first time since she turned around, the anger slips. “What?”
“I’m mortal now.”
She stares at me. “How?”
“There was a hearing for my punishment. My mother mentioned that stripping a demon of everything infernal is technically a sanction, and I may have become overly interested in that information.”
Her eyes narrow. “You asked them to do this?”
“There was some debate.”
“About what?”
“The Tribunal initially proposed converting me into a centipede.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Why?”
“Apparently it’s a traditional humiliation for demons who demonstrate excessive attachment to mortal affairs.
Something about the indignity of becoming a creature humans reflexively crush underfoot.
” I push my glasses higher on my nose. “Fortunately, a younger tribunal member was sitting in for training and had never witnessed a full severance. Watching a demon get stripped of everything apparently qualified as educational. The severance took six excruciating days.”
Evie’s mouth compresses into a flat line.
“Is that supposed to impress me?”
“No.”
“Because you wouldn’t let me jeopardize anything for you, but you were perfectly happy to walk into Hell and risk getting turned into a centipede?”
I stop myself from pacing, because fleeing in small circles is unlikely to improve matters. “You’re right. It sounds hypocritical.”
“It is hypocritical.”
“Yes.” I force myself to meet her eyes instead of searching the grass for a better answer.
“But the risks weren’t the same. If it went badly for me, the consequences stopped with me.
Furnace, insect, whatever else they decided.
If you signed with Krell, Hell owned your soul, and eventually that would have put you somewhere I couldn’t reach you or protect you. I couldn’t accept that.”
Her arms remain folded, but her posture loosens.
“And I didn’t do this entirely for you,” I add, because she deserves the whole truth.
“That’s part of it, obviously. A substantial one.
But even if you’d told me to leave Brindlewood and never return, I still would’ve requested mortality.
Hell was suffocating me, Evie. It’s been that way for decades.
Being dragged back there gave me the push I needed to ask for the exit I’d been too terrified to pursue on my own.
Losing my demonhood wasn’t the sacrifice everyone down there thought it was. ”
“What about your family?”
“Father more or less disowned me during the hearing. He seemed quite relieved once he got past the shouting. I suspect having his humiliating failure of a son officially removed from Hell improves his professional image.” I shrug, attempting to make it seem smaller than it feels.
“And I’ll miss my mother, but we were never particularly close.
She’s better at navigating social architecture than providing emotional support. ”
Evie’s quiet, then another thought occurs to her. “What happened to Krell?”
Despite everything, my mouth twitches. “I left him in a supernatural processing queue.”
She almost smiles, then thinks better of it. “I want that story later.”
“Later?” I hate how hopeful I sound. I take the last careful step between us. I could reach for her now, but don’t. My hands remain at my sides even though every instinct I have is begging me to touch her. “Does that mean I can stay? I’d like the chance to start again without contracts or clocks.”
“I did miss you,” she says, so quietly I almost think I imagined it. “A lot, actually, which is inconvenient because I’m still really pissed at you.”
Relief hits hard enough that I have to remind myself not to pull her into my arms. “Both can be true.”
“I know.” She glances toward the inn, where light spills from the kitchen windows. “That doesn’t mean I’m suddenly fine with you deciding for me. We have a lot to sort out.”
“That’s more than okay with me.”
“And I want to see if this works without all the supernatural drama attached to it.”
“I can do normal. I’m excellent at normal now. Aggressively, inconveniently normal.”
Her lips twitch, and she doesn’t quite manage to hide it. “I mean actual dates, Milo. Figuring out whether this works when neither of us is under time pressure.”
“I would like that very much.”
“Good. Because I want it too.”
“There is one small practical issue.”
Her eyes narrow. “How small?”
“Depending on your definition, potentially several. I have no money, identification, bank account, legal address, and professional qualifications.”
Evie stares at me.
“I also need a job.”
She laughs, warm and incredulous, and for the first time since I left Hell, I stop bracing for her to send me away.
“You’re unbelievable.”
I’m more nervous about this question than I was when I asked the Tribunal to remove my immortality. “If you still need help at Foxglove, I’d like to work here. Properly this time. For money. I understand that’s generally how employment functions.”
“Good start.”
“I’m also going to need somewhere to stay until I can afford something of my own.”
One eyebrow rises. “Anything else?”
“Probably quite a lot. I’ve spent less than a month functioning as anything close to a normal adult human, and most of that time you were stopping me from putting metal in the microwave and explaining why I couldn’t reorganize guest records by emotional impression.”
“Because that was insane.”
“I still think it had merit.”
“It didn’t.”
“Regardless, I’m going to need someone to explain taxes, health insurance, identification, banking, employment forms, and apparently several kinds of laundry detergent.” I grin. “You’re, unfortunately for you, the most competent person I know.”
Evie chuckles. “So your grand plan after leaving Hell is to make me your life administrator?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a trusted mortal consultant.”
“That sounds worse.”
“Human orientation specialist?”
“Stop.”
“How about a girlfriend?”
Evie’s mouth parts, and for once she has nothing to say. I’m already preparing to take it back, revise the wording, possibly relocate to another state, when a reluctant smile starts pulling at one corner of her lips.
“You’re skipping several steps.”
“I’m aware.”
“Actual dates first.”
“Right. Yes. Obviously.” I nod far too quickly. “Chronologically sensible.”
“But maybe eventually.” Her smile grows.
“Eventually is good.”
The first drop of rain lands against my cheek. Evie looks up just as another splashes onto her shoulder. The storm that has been threatening all evening breaks, rain falling in scattered heavy drops that darken the grass before gathering into something steadier. Neither of us moves toward the inn.
“You’re going to get soaked,” she says.
“I’ve had a tough week. This is relatively minor.”
“I do need someone to help around here.” Her gaze lingers on me, softer now. “And I heard my couch is pretty comfortable.”
My pulse jumps.
“But you’re absolutely getting your own bank account, and I’m not letting you give me every piece of paperwork you don’t understand.”
“What percentage may I give you?”
“Zero.”
“That feels unnecessarily strict.”
“You wanted to be human.”
“I didn’t realize there’d be administration.”
She snorts, brushing rain from beneath one eye. “You came from corporate Hell.”
“Exactly. I thought I’d suffered enough.”
The scattered drops turn into steady rain, soaking through my shirt and darkening Evie’s dress.
“Can I?” I lift my hand.
Her eyes drop to my mouth before returning to mine. “You’re asking now?”
“I thought it was appropriate.”
She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me toward her.
The kiss is hard from the start, all pent-up anger and relief.
Her mouth opens under mine, and the second our tongues meet, the last week catches fire inside me.
My hands clamp around her waist and pull her tight against me, her rain-slick dress warm under my palms. She makes a tiny sound into my mouth when my fingers spread over her lower back, and it goes straight through me.
I kiss her deeper, chasing the taste of cider from her tongue while her hands slide up into my wet hair and grip.
We break apart long enough to breathe, her fingers still buried in my curls while I keep one hand firm at her hip. Neither of us puts any real distance between us. Rain tracks over her flushed cheeks and catches on her swollen mouth, and I have to stop myself from kissing her all over again.
“I should warn you, I have done extensive research on dating and courting.”
She chuckles. “I’m counting on it.”
I kiss her again before she says anything else. Behind us, Foxglove glows warm through the rain. Tomorrow, there’ll be paperwork, explanations, employment forms, and at least one humiliating conversation about how a thirty-year-old human man can exist without a birth certificate.
But tonight, it’s just us. A demon who chose mortality and a woman willing to let him stay, standing in the rain, in a garden that will bloom again come spring.
For the first time in my entire existence, I’m exactly where I want to be. In the life I was never meant to have, with the person I would choose anyway.