Chapter Twenty-One - Evie
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Evie
I WAS COMPLETELY exhausted. My back ached the most, but so did everything else. I crossed to the bed, and the mattress dipped beneath me as I crawled in. The blanket was cool as I curled onto my side and stared at the smooth stone across the room.
Just the same dark corridor, I’d said. A stupid, flimsy lie that anyone could see through.
I was sure Mara knew I was lying. She considered me a friend. But in this place, what did that mean?
My hand drifted low across my stomach as I lay there in the same unending light, too tired to move, too restless to sleep with Cindralis running through my head with her weird riddles and snakes.
And under all of it, one truth kept turning over and over in my head.
She had known me, sometime before this… life.
I drifted off without meaning to. One minute I was lying there staring at the wall, still thinking about her half-finished truths, and the next I was surfacing out of sleep with that heavy, disoriented feeling like I’d been dragged up from somewhere deeper than dreams.
For a second, I didn’t move or even open my eyes, but something felt strange. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t figure out why.
I opened my eyes, and the room was the same as ever, steeped in that endless honey-colored light that never shifted, never dimmed, never gave me anything as useful as an actual hour.
The wall across from me was smooth and whole and innocent-looking, as if it hadn’t revealed its secrets to me or let me crawl inside its bones and find an ancient someone made of moonlight and snakes waiting there like a secret older than this prison itself.
Then, the veil at the mouth of my alcove stirred. I sat up too fast, and a wave of nausea hit. I prayed I wasn’t getting sick again. And that’s when I found myself face-to-face with two Votaries.
They stepped inside with that same fluid, polished grace that always made me feel like I was watching something monstrous try too hard to be beautiful.
The elegant curve of their horns gleamed gold as their hooves clicked softly against the marble.
One had folded towels draped over her arm.
The other carried a fresh robe, pale gold and velvety soft.
Every time I saw them, some mean little part of my brain thought Heaven’s gold-plated goat-girl burlesque troupe, and then had to work very hard not to say it out loud.
The one carrying the robe bowed her head. “It is time for the cleansing.”
My heart raced instantly as I looked at her. Then at the towels. Then back at her.
“Do I have a choice this time?”
A tiny pause. “No.”
“Fantastic,” I muttered, sliding off the bed.
Neither of them reacted. Apparently, sarcasm still wasn’t part of the curriculum in Heaven.
They led me back through the same shining corridors to the baths, all white stone and gold trim and rising steam, beautiful in the same sterile way an expensive mausoleum might be beautiful. Everything here was too perfect. Too arranged. Too determined to make itself look holy.
They undressed me with gentle, efficient hands that somehow made the whole thing worse.
There was reverence in it, or something shaped like reverence, and I hated that almost as much as I hated being handled at all.
The water was warm. The oils they worked into my skin smelled like something floral and faintly sweet.
The whole thing should’ve felt soothing.
But all I could think about was what I was being prepared for, or rather, for Whom.
When they finished, they dressed me in an identical fresh robe, pale and soft and tied at the waist with a narrow golden sash.
They led me back to my room, which had been refreshed in my absence, as if I hadn’t been curled in it half-dying a few days ago, sweating through linen and trying not to throw up for the billionth time while wondering if I was losing my mind.
There was fresh water on the table, fresh sheets on the bed.
One of them combed my hair until it fell loose and smooth down my back. The other rubbed lotion into my bare skin until I was totally and completely thoroughly moisturized.
When they were done, the Votaries bowed and withdrew, leaving me alone in the same stupid light.
I stood there for a second, then sat on the edge of the bed and bit at my thumbnail before I could stop myself.
It was gross and entirely beneath the dignity I was never going to have in this place anyway.
But I kept doing it. Because I knew He was coming. I didn’t know how I knew. But something told me He was near.
I pulled my thumb away from my mouth and stared at the veil, willing Him to come and get this shit over with. But my mind kept snagging on too many things at once.
Luc. My dreams. Cindralis. The way she’d looked at me. The way she’d said, “That curious little braid.” And “You don’t know yet.”
What? What did I not know yet? Did I need to know?
I pressed my palms flat against the bed on either side of me when the honeyed light arrived. Then the veil stirred, and He arrived.
He always moved like the room made space for Him before He crossed the threshold, as everything around Him understood instinctively that it should always yield to Him. That same syrup-thick warmth that came with Him, gilded and soft and wrong in a way that made my skin want to crawl.
But tonight, something in me didn’t recoil quite as fast, and I hated that.
His gaze found me immediately, sitting on the edge of the bed in a clean robe with my mouth set tight and my shoulders tense. His expression shifted the second He saw me, something softening there, something almost relieved.
“Evie.”
I looked at Him but didn’t answer.
He seemed to notice everything at once—the way I was sitting straighter than I had been, the color back in my face, the fact that I wasn’t glaring at Him like I wanted to set the room on fire. That, more than anything, seemed to please Him.
He came farther in, slow and unhurried, like He had all the time in the world and knew I did too.
“Are you feeling better?” He asked.
The question should’ve made me bristle. Usually, it would have. Usually, I would’ve sharpened myself on it and thrown something back just to feel like I still had edges.
But I was tired and confused. And still too aware of the memory of Him steadying me while I drank that water, of how real that relief had felt, how much I hated myself for accepting it, and how my body had taken it anyway.
So when I answered, my voice came out quieter than I wanted. “Yes.”
His eyes searched my face. “Truly?”
I looked down at my hands before answering, “I’m much better.” And then I met his gaze. “Thank you for helping me.”
That seemed to satisfy something in Him. He crossed to the bed and sat beside me. Not touching me or crowding me, but close enough that I could feel the shift in the mattress and the slow, awful warmth of Him along one side of my body.
My pulse stumbled hard as warmth heated my face.
He noticed that, too, because, of course, He did, but said nothing. Instead, He reached up and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture was so simple and careful that it caught me off guard and made my throat tighten.
His fingers lingered for half a second near the side of my face, not quite touching, then withdrew.
“I was… concerned,” He said softly.
I could feel a laugh bubbling up, but I contained it, barely. Instead, I stared at the floor and said, “That seems dramatic.”
A faint smile touched His mouth. “You were very ill.”
“I was well aware.”
“I imagine you were.”
This all should have irritated me more than it did. The calm of Him. The quiet certainty. The way He never sounded rushed or uncertain. The way He never sounded like there was a possibility the world wouldn’t keep arranging itself around His wanting or desires.
And yet—
He had come when I was sick. He had taken the time and touched the water, changing it into something my body could bear. He had left bread that Mara said was really manna, food made by Him for the angels, and that had stayed down when nothing else would.
And now He was sitting beside me like there wasn’t a war between us, like there wasn’t Luc, like He wasn’t some creepy guy who kept us all prisoners in here, like there wasn’t everything else.
I should have hated Him more in that moment. Instead, I just felt exhausted from all of it.
He looked at me for a long moment, and I could feel the weight of His attention shifting, gentler now, almost cautious.
“Have you eaten today?” He asked.
My stomach gave the faintest little roll at the question, then settled. “Some.”
His gaze flicked to the tray. “You tried the bread?”
I nodded once.
Something in His expression changed again, not surprise exactly, more like quiet approval. “I am glad.”
That sat oddly with me.
I looked up at Him then, finally, trying to understand how the same being could make my skin crawl and my body unclench in the same breath.
“I don’t understand You,” I said before I could stop myself.
The words hung there between us, but He didn’t look offended. If anything, He looked sad.
“No,” He said. “I suspect you do not.”
And somehow that felt worse than if He’d smiled.
Silence stretched between us for a few breaths, full of too many things I didn’t know how to name.
I looked away first because if I kept staring at Him like that, with His impossible sadness and His careful hands and all that monstrous gentleness folded so neatly over whatever He really was, I was going to start unraveling in ways I didn’t have the energy to survive.
The bed shifted slightly beside me. When He spoke again, His voice was quieter than before.
“May I lie with you?”
I went very still. My head turned toward Him slowly. “What?”
“Nothing more than that,” He said. “Just… to hold you.”
I stared at Him. Of all the things I might’ve expected from Him, this was not one of them.
I gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “You can’t possibly think that sounds… normal.”
“No,” He said. “I imagine it does not.”