Chapter Seven - Evie
CHAPTER SEVEN
Evie
I DREAMED OF him again. But this time, it was here inside this prison.
The hall stretched long and pale, arches breathing softly, light drifting like it didn’t quite belong to the walls. I stood inside my alcove, fingers curled tight in the curtain as I tried to see that elevated dais, my heart hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Then I heard him. “Evie.”
He wasn’t close, but he also wasn’t far. His voice echoed.
My chest seized. I wrapped my arms around the curtains and pulled myself into the hallway, my bare feet slapping against the marble that gleamed like it wanted to send me back where I belonged.
“Luc,” I screamed. “I’m here. I’m right here.”
I ran. And the floor betrayed me. It tilted, subtle and wrong, like a gentle correction.
My feet slid backward even as I lunged forward, my body pitching toward him while I kept hold of the curtains, anchoring myself.
But the floor calmly refused as I slid back into the fucking alcove again and almost fell.
A sharp, instinctive fear cut through me, deeper than panic, and my hands flew to my body as I tried to protect myself. But I dropped them immediately, my breath hitching as I kept running and sliding.
“No,” I gasped, clawing at the air. “No, no—”
His voice came again, louder now. Closer. “Evie! Where are you?”
There was fury in it. Fear. The sound of someone who did not accept limits.
I tried again. I fought the slide, muscles burning, nails scraping uselessly against marble that had once again learned how to disobey me. Every step forward dragged me back twice as far.
“I’m here,” I sobbed. “Luc, I’m here. Please.”
I saw him then. At the far end of the hall, tall and terrible and real, wings flared wide as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t allowed here, or didn’t care. His eyes locked on me, wild and unafraid, like he would burn the entire place down if it meant reaching me.
He didn’t slow. He didn’t stop calling my name. He was coming anyway.
Our gazes collided. For one breathless heartbeat, the distance shrank, and for one moment, I began to wonder if this was all an optical illusion.
But then, he took a step toward me, and the light changed.
It thickened first, that warm honeyed way, curling through the hall like a living thing.
The arches leaned inward. The air grew heavy with reverence, with permission, with control.
“Fuck,” I whispered, already shaking my head. “No, no, don’t—”
The First Light appeared. He didn’t rush. He didn’t need to. He simply was, and the hall corrected itself around Him, straightening, softening, bowing. Gold light bloomed outward from His form, too close and blinding all at once.
Luc stopped suddenly. His wings shuddered as the light touched them, brilliance biting at their darkened edges. His body went rigid, every muscle locked in resistance that didn’t matter.
I held fast to the veil, wrapping my arms tighter, even as my feet slid back.
The First Light lifted a hand. It wasn’t fast or forceful, just sure.
And Luc’s feathers shook as he dropped to the floor.
One knee struck the marble with a sound that cracked down the hall, sharp and final.
His head bowed despite the strain screaming through his frame, wings folding in tight and unwilling, like the world itself had reached up and pressed him down.
“No,” I screamed. “Don’t— Let him up—”
Luc’s mouth moved. I knew the shape of it. I knew the way he said my name when it mattered. But no sound came out.
My heart stopped. Would He kill him this time? Would He force me to witness his death?
The First Light turned His head, not toward Luc, but toward me. His gaze found mine, warm and bright and… amused. He wasn’t angry or even surprised. It was like He had wanted me to see it, as if the whole point of this was my witnessing.
His smile barely changed, but His eyes said enough.
Do you see? Do you understand what I can make kneel?
Luc tried to rise. The light pulsed, and his shoulders jerked. His knee slid, scraping helplessly against the marble as if the floor itself demanded obedience. His hands clenched into fists, trembling with fury as humiliation rolled off him in waves I could feel all the way across the hall.
“Luc!” I screamed, fighting the slide as my body dragged backward toward the alcove I was no longer standing in. “Look at me. Please.”
His whole body shook as he lifted his head just enough to see me.
The First Light’s presence pressed down harder as the alcove yawned open behind me, the space correcting itself with brutal calm.
The invisible force shoved me backward, the silk veil snapping closed around me like a verdict.
But I could make out Luc lunging just before the light flared, and the hall went silent.
I woke with a start with my hands clenched in the sheets. My heart was racing as the white light stared back at me like it always did. My breath was ragged, and my chest still burned, like my body had been fighting. And somewhere deep inside, something cold and furious continued to take shape.
I lay there a long time afterward, staring up at the pale ceiling. The bed cradled me in a way that felt almost gentle, like it was trying to convince me nothing had happened at all. Like the dream hadn’t just torn something open and left it bleeding inside my chest.
But my body knew better. My pulse refused to settle. It beat too hard, too fast, as if I were still running down that endless hall, still fighting the pull, still watching him fall to his knee.
My hands ached where they’d clenched the sheets. My fingers curled like I’d been holding on to something I wasn’t allowed to keep. I turned onto my side and drew my knees in, and the bed dipped with me. But the light, it stayed the same. Perfect. Indifferent. Almost like it was watching me.
And then, without warning, I was somewhere else. A garden rose up around me—Eden. Not the way it had been in memories, fractured and distant, like a half-remembered story someone else had lived. This time it came whole. Immediate. Alive.
The grass was warm beneath my bare feet.
As I walked, the living earth was springy and forgiving.
The air had weight and scent, green and sweet and endlessly deep, like that fresh earthy scent after rain.
Light spilled across everything without pressing down, without demanding reverence. It simply was.
I remembered my hands then. Always open. Fingers spread as I shaped and gathered and coaxed things into being, not because I was commanded to, but because it delighted me to do so. Creation was joy, conversation, and play.
I remembered laughter. My own, bright and unguarded, ringing out across fields. I remembered how the world had answered me back, how things leaned toward my voice the way flowers lean toward the sun, not because they were forced, but because they wanted to.
I remembered him there, too. Not forced into submission, his body bent in prostration.
Luc had stood beside me in Eden like he belonged there, his pristine wings catching the light as if it were eager to touch him.
It wrapped around him. He’d watch me work with the same familiar expression, awe softened by something I hadn’t known how to name.
And then he’d smile at me like I was inevitable, like I was his.
When I came back to myself, I was still in bed, still in that fucking alcove, and that memory hurt worse than the dream.
I swallowed and pressed my forehead into the pillow, breathing slowly, carefully, afraid that if I let myself feel too much of it at once, something inside me would split wide open.
Why had He taken so much from me? My name, who I was, who I loved. I hated Him for it.
But, as I stared up at the ceiling, I realized He hadn’t erased everything, not completely.
I could feel it now, steady and quiet beneath the terror and the fear and the exhaustion.
A sense of rightness that didn’t belong to this place, that refused to be trained or softened or curated.
Something that remembered what it was to make, rather than endure.
That had to be why He was hellbent on controlling us. He was afraid. Not because Luc would burn His halls down, though he might try, and I would gladly help him. But because He was afraid we would remember. But what could we do that would scare Him so?
Maybe that was who had come out of me the first night I was here. The thing that rose up my spine that took away my fear so instantly. She was powerful. Somehow, I was sure that she could stop Him, that she was a force that could make Him hesitate.
And then I suddenly remembered something. No. I knew. My name had been… Ediphiel up in Heaven. I had this memory of Luc whispering it in a growl against my ear, and a lick of heat settled into my belly.
I whispered it to myself, trying it out. “Ediphiel.”
It settled differently in my ears more than Evie ever had. It felt heavier, older, like something remembered by muscle and bone instead of thought. A name I had once worn so carefree and easily.
I said it again, quieter this time, tasting each syllable as my hands drifted into the air above me. “Ediphiel.”
My fingers turned slowly, tracing shapes I didn’t understand and somehow remembered anyway. The motions felt familiar, instinctive in a way that made my chest tighten. They were graceful and deliberate as if my body knew a language my mind had forgotten.
A gold aura began to glow around my hands. I watched as my hands moved through the air, and for a moment, I had a dizzy, impossible thought that this might have been how I once made things.
Maybe she wasn’t gone. Maybe she still lived deep within me, folded tight and patient, waiting for the moment I stopped surviving long enough to listen. Waiting for a crack wide enough to push through. Waiting for me to remember how to reach.