CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #4
Her eyes were bright with grief. She nodded. “I have the walkie-talkie. The Tongue agreed to use it after I started seeing Matthew again.”
I said something back to her, but I was barely aware of the words coming out of my mouth.
As Savannah left the room, I reached for my phone to call Collith—the fact he hadn’t come when I’d shouted his name made it clear he wasn’t at the loft.
A glance at the lock screen told me that only an hour had passed since we’d left.
Relief spread through my chest, and the line began to ring in my ear.
Time worked differently in Hell, so part of me had started to worry we’d been gone too long.
“Hi,” he said.
I held the phone tighter, swallowing down a rush of pain. I was still kneeling beside the bed, staring at the pale, empty shell that used to be my friend. “Hi.”
Things got even murkier after that. I felt like I was underwater, the entire loft filled with it, shimmering in front of my eyes. I didn’t remember talking to Collith or leaving Nym’s side.
When I came back to my body again, I was standing in the kitchen.
I held a pitcher of water in one hand and two glasses in the other.
Savannah sat on one of the barstools. Her expression was troubled, but her gaze was fixed on the counter in front of her, and there was a stillness around us that felt as if it had been undisturbed for a while.
Like the glassy surface of Finn’s lake at dusk.
Recovering, I moved over to the counter and set the glasses down.
I tilted the pitcher to pour, and the sound of trickling water floated through the dim loft.
I filled each glass and gave one to Savannah, who took it with a wordless nod of thanks.
I took a long drink, then set the glass down with a jarring, hollow sound.
“Why did we go to Hell?” I asked dully. My gaze shifted past Savannah to the hall behind her, peering in the direction of Nym’s room. His door was out of sight, tightly closed, but I could still perfectly picture the quiet, pale body we’d left in the bed. Waiting for his family to come get him.
His other family, I thought distantly, my fingers tightening around the empty glass.
We’d loved him, too. He’d been part of my Court, and I knew all of us felt the torn threads reaching into empty space, the gaping hole that Nym had left behind when his death broke the bonds.
My Court would be back soon, along with everyone else.
I could feel them drawing nearer. I still wasn’t sure why they’d left.
Collith had probably told me, but all I could think about was Nym. About the question I’d asked.
Why did we go to Hell?
“I needed the Dark Prince’s blood to do a spell. One that would attach his life to someone else’s,” Savannah answered finally, the sound of her voice bringing me back to the present. I pulled my eyes away from that shadowed hallway and refocused on the necromancer sitting across from me.
Once I had registered what she’d revealed, my jaw tightened.
“And you didn’t tell me because you knew it was a death sentence.
Not just that—it’s fucking murder, Savannah.
I mean, we could pick someone obvious. Someone already on death row, or one of the faeries in the Unseelie dungeons that actually deserves to be there.
But I’ve played God before and it always bites me in the ass.
Always. If you had bothered to talk to me about it, I would’ve told you it was a bad idea. ”
Savannah licked her lips and raised her glass abruptly, taking such deep gulps that she half-emptied the glass. As she set it back down and raised her face to me, I sensed the faintest hint of fear in the air. “We already bonded his life to someone, Fortuna,” she said.
My eyebrows drew together, and I replayed her words, certain I’d misunderstood. But the second I actually processed this revelation, a thousand questions roared through my head and spilled out of my mouth. “What? What do you mean, you already did it? How? And who?”
“It was not my decision. There was another meeting of the Order,” Savannah said.
My frown deepened. “The Order is gone.”
“It has been remade. They had a meeting, during which they summoned me and Nym. One of the members knew about the bonding spell, and they commanded Nym to bring me back so I could perform it between the Dark Prince and one individual.”
One of the members. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who that might be.
Dracula and his tricks, I thought with a grim, tight-lipped smile. I’d been so focused on Lucifer that I had forgotten to worry about the Order. Nan said there were contingencies in place for certain events. But why would they get involved with this?
That one wasn’t hard, either. The Order only had a single purpose—to keep the secret.
To ensure our kind remained hidden and unknown.
It was all Dracula cared about. Despite the Dark Prince’s defeat, there was still one loose end.
One threat to the great secret they had guarded so fiercely for as long as we’d been in this world.
I raised my gaze to Savannah again, and I saw my resignation reflected in her eyes.
“Who did they pick?” I forced myself to ask. Whose death warrant had they signed by connecting their life to Lucifer’s?
But I already knew. It made perfect sense, no matter how much I wanted to be wrong. The inexplicable bond between them. The way Lucifer had been able to control him. All of it led back to this moment.
Savannah remained silent, which was as good as a confirmation.
Another crack burst up inside me, fissuring my heart into more pieces. We’d been such fools. We thought he had escaped his fate, when in truth, it just hadn’t happened in the moment we’d expected it. The imbalance had righted itself—that’s what Michael would’ve said.
As the pain whispered through my chest, I remembered that dark promise for the thousandth time. What happens to one happens to both.
His name traveled alongside those words like the tail of a falling star.
Oliver.