CHAPTER TWENTY
The plan was simple.
Well, the first part, at least. Tomorrow was Olorel.
Once we’d all eaten and gotten ready, those who were fighting would use the Door, and we would go to the Flint Hills.
All of our allies knew to be there by sundown.
According to Savannah, Lucifer was only safe behind his magical barrier until then, when he would be forced to lower it for the spell.
After that, we’d implement the second part of the plan, which was a little more complicated.
There were a lot of variables, and magic was the biggest one.
Wild, unpredictable magic. Our army would come at Lucifer from every direction, stopping the flow of soldiers and demons while I got to the Gate.
I had no idea how close I needed to be, so I’d have to figure that part out as I went.
Just like I’d have to figure out how Persephone and Olorel had used their power to manipulate the Door.
But what if I failed, just like I’d failed to kill Oliver?
“You seem distracted today,” a gentle voice said.
I refocused on the human sitting across from me and registered her words.
I thought about my response before I said it, as I always did during these sessions.
I liked Consuelo, trusted her, even … but she was still human.
She could never know the whole truth about my life, or it might put us both in danger.
“I guess I’m thinking,” was all I said.
Consuelo tilted her dark head. “What are you thinking about?”
Once again, I paused to weigh my answer. I imagined myself as a house, and when I was with her, I allowed myself to open a window. I couldn’t let her inside, or allow her to see all the dark corners. Only glimpses were safe.
But the fresh air was so, so good.
I spoke slowly. “People say that good always wins, in the end. That in the battle of good versus evil, the heroes will ultimately prevail. But what if … what if there are no heroes? What if there are only monsters fighting monsters?”
Consuelo considered this. It used to make me uncomfortable, the silence that sometimes fell between us.
I would rush to fill it, even when I didn’t want to, even when I had nothing else to say.
It was the same reason I ran for miles in the woods or filled the loft with constant music—I was afraid of silence.
In those still, quiet moments, there was only me left, and all the pain I’d been avoiding.
The pain I had been afraid of my entire life.
“Even monsters have a reason for what they do. Hunger. Power,” Consuelo said in a musing tone. Then she leaned forward in her chair, and her expression became more intent. “But let me ask you this, Fortuna … would a person who’s truly evil care if they were?”
Her gaze was steady. For once, I didn’t look away. The human’s question tucked itself away inside me, and I felt my mouth purse in silent speculation.
My thoughts were cut short when Consuelo raised her delicate wrist and glanced at her watch. The hour was over. They passed so quickly now.
“Same time next week?” Consuelo asked as she unfolded her legs and stood.
I hesitated. It shouldn’t have been a complicated question. But if I was being realistic, I’d have to admit that I probably wouldn’t survive the battle. I was Fallen, and we were cursed with knowledge. But … I was also human. Humans tended to be reckless, and idiotic, and desperately delusional.
As Consuelo waited for an answer, something glinted at the corner of my eye.
I found myself looking at that small unicorn on her desk.
It glittered in a sunbeam coming through the window, kicking at the air with its front legs.
I studied the play of light within the glass and how it shone brightest at the edges of those deadly hooves.
They reminded me of the kelpie’s, I realized suddenly. But no therapist would have a sculpture of a kelpie in their office. Only a twisted person would admire such a vicious beast, and only someone desperately delusional would think about riding one.
And yet … I liked to think it was the delusional ones who changed the world most.
I tore my gaze from the sculpture and met Consuelo’s gaze again. I nodded and said, “See you next week.”
A few seconds later, I pushed the outer door open, and my focus quickly turned away from the conversation with Consuelo.
The plan was simple, I thought again. Too simple if we really wanted to win.
We were going into this fight blindfolded.
We knew that killing either Lucifer or Oliver would end both of them, sure, but we still didn’t know how.
Every creature had a vulnerability. A balance.
“But what’s yours?” I muttered, glaring at the sidewalk. I tried to remember every moment of my conversations with them, convinced there had to be something I’d missed.
“Are you talking to yourself?”
I lifted my head, somehow not surprised by the sound of Laurie’s voice or the sight of him standing there, a shining figure at the end of the path.
He waited in front of the trellis arch, hands in his pockets, head slightly tilted.
If I had any artistic skill, it was a moment I would’ve liked to capture on canvas or film.
“I was until you interrupted.” I sighed. “How did you know I was here? Do I need to search my car for a tracker?”
Laurie tapped a rectangular outline in his pocket. “Magic of the modern smartphone. You shared your location with me.”
I gave him a suspicious look. “I don’t remember doing that.”
Laurie shot me an exasperated look back. “It’s not my job to make sure you remember everything, Fortuna. I’m a king, or did you forget that, too?”
He wasn’t serious, of course, but the question made a shadow pass over my mood. “Believe me, that fact is never far from my mind,” I muttered.
Laurie cocked his head and studied me with his bright eyes. Eyes that saw far too much. “What’s wrong, Firecracker?”
I started walking, and Laurie fell into step beside me.
My brow furrowed in thought again. “I’ve read every book I could get my hands on about battle strategies and war.
No matter which way I look at it, there isn’t going to be some clever, surprising plan or tactic that will save us.
The C-4 will slow them down, if the horde gets past our forces, but that won’t mean anything if we don’t close the Gate.
Which, even if we actually manage to get to, we have no idea how to do. ”
They were all thoughts I’d had before, a hundred times, over and over. It wasn’t even the first time Laurie and I had had this conversation. At this point, I was like a broken record.
But he wasn’t. Instead of repeating what he’d said before, Laurie fixed his gaze on something in the distance. “What do you plan to do with our last night?”
The fact that he’d asked, the fact that he was here, told me everything I didn’t want to know.
Laurie didn’t think we’d survive tomorrow night, either.
I pursed my lips as we reached Emma’s car, which she’d loaned to me for the morning. “It never ends, does it?”
“What?” Laurie asked, facing me.
“Being afraid. Feeling like something awful is waiting around every corner, or like the next fight for my life is always just seconds away. The constant, never-ending, relentless struggle.” My voice broke at the end, and my grip tightened on my purse strap.
“After everything we’ve survived, and how hard we’ve fought, it ends like this?
I know that life isn’t fair, especially for our kind, but …
I really wish I’d done some things differently. A lot of things.”
For once, there was no trace of mirth in Laurie’s expression. His silver eyes looked gray beneath the shadow of the tree, and a breeze stirred the ends of his hair. The breeze brought hints of Laurie’s scent over to me, and I tried to breathe it in without being obvious.
“No. It doesn’t end,” he said.
I made a humorless sound. “Wait, isn’t this the part where you’re supposed to give me some speech about why we keep fighting?”
“If you wanted that speech, you would’ve gone to Collith.”
I quirked an eyebrow at him. “You found me, remember?”
“Did I? Are you sure?”
Normally I would have had a response ready, a retort that would make him smirk or volley back. But today, I couldn’t do it. The part of my mind where I kept all my wit and sarcasm felt dim and hollowed out. But I mustered a smile for him.
“Okay, I’ll play. Why did I come to you, then?” I asked.
“Because I’m an excellent distraction,” Laurie said matter-of-factly. He paused. “I’m always the distraction.”
Something in his voice had shifted. We kept ending up back here, I thought, looking away.
Rays of sun broke through the leaves above me, and I squinted out at the street.
I watched a car drive by without truly seeing it, my mind on this pattern we were trapped in.
All three of us. We just went around and around, but I was so afraid to get off the carousel. I was so afraid of what came after.
The Seelie King hadn’t interrupted my reverie. I forced my gaze back to him, knowing that he deserved an answer. That he needed some kind of closure if we were going to break this endless cycle. “Laurie, I—”
I do love you, I’d been about to say. But the words stayed inside, just like they always did. I tried to think of something else I could give him that was safe and which I hadn’t already said before.
“‘Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once,’” Laurie said softly. “There’s your rousing speech.”
The word coward made me flinch. Laurie’s tone was neutral, yet somehow, his remark felt barbed. I didn’t snap back. I just gave him another weary smile and remarked, “What did I tell you about quoting things at me?”
Laurie’s throat shifted, and fear fluttered in my own. Then he said, his tone light again, “Actually, you’ve never said anything besides observing that I’ve done it.”