Lucille
Chapter
Fifty-One
Iwaited in my head, next to my swirling power, for… me. A few more minutes passed, then she appeared, wearing the same face as mine, but marked with scars I didn’t have yet.
“About time you showed up,” my future self mocked, her face tilted in a grin as if she’d known exactly what I’d been up to. Which she did.
“I was here before you,” I said dryly.
She shrugged. “Dream-walking to my past-self’s head at the right time and place takes more effort than you realize.”
I supposed it did.
“Well, you’re here now. Can you tell me what I want to know?”
She laughed at me. “When has our life ever been that simple? You think I can just give you the answers?”
I threw my hands in the air. “You said it yourself. We’re out of time, and you did with the other stuff!”
She stepped forward, all humor gone between us. “Yeah, and do you know how many tries it’s taken me to learn which words change our future for the worse or better?”
That shut me up.
“Didn’t think so.” She crossed her arms. “You have one final dream-walk to complete.”
“To who?” I asked.
“To Mom,” she answered. “To figure out the secret she was ashamed to tell us.”
I froze, my stomach sinking.
“You’ll use Praetervado.”
I frowned. “You’re going to trust me enough not to change the past?”
She nodded. “Yes. Because if you choose to save Mom, you already know what’ll happen.”
My head bowed, knowing I’d finally come to the point I’d been avoiding. The one where I let go of the idea of saving my mom. But it wasn’t actually saving her, was it?
She was dead.
A knife still twisted at the thought, but a sad acceptance eased part of the pain.
“What do I need to do?”
Her eyes stung with a similar acceptance. “Ask the question”—she materialized a knife and held it out to me—“then give an offering.”
“Blood.” That was how I used Praetervado the last times. I’d been wounded and bleeding. “Will it even work in here?”
“No. You’re going to have to slip out of his arms, block your pain, dream-walk, then meet me back here.”
“How do I know he won’t freak out like last time? Or Aspen, for that matter?”
“Don’t block the entire thing. You don’t need that much power. Only block your pain. Then focus on one or two emotions and bury the rest.”
“Fine.”
I opened my eyes and slipped from Ronen’s arms. Surprisingly, he didn’t wake, which meant the day’s events had taken their toll. The nightly ones too. But I didn’t regret a second of exhausting him with that. Unfortunately, Rune woke up and followed me into the sitting area.
Her head tilted as I pulled one of Ronen’s daggers from his weapons wall.
“Don’t wake him,” I warned Rune. “This will help the war.”
She dipped her head.
I settled into one of his leather chairs, wrapped my Infernus loosely around my mind, stabbed my hand, then thought of the question.
What secret was my mom so ashamed to tell me?
I knew exactly where I’d ended up the moment I noticed the jewel-toned sitting area. I didn’t think I’d ever forget the fancy wallpaper or the place where Oliver and Aspen’s mothers were murdered.
A door opened and closed on the other side of the wall. Two sets of boots strode toward me.
I scrambled into the unlit kitchen, crouching low beside the dark wooden cabinets and hiding within their shadows.
“You’ve seen how we’ll take the council down?” Her familiar voice snuck into my chest and squeezed.
“Yes,” Miriam replied, foreboding filling her tone. “But it won’t be easy for either of us.”
“I don’t care. Tell me,” my mom urged.
A desperate part of me itched to peek around the wall, to see her. I missed her so much. But I knew if I did, I wouldn’t only risk exposure but the future.
“It won’t be us. It’ll be our children.”
“Children?” my mom said in disbelief. “Miriam, are you okay?”
Miriam answered with silence. But it was what my mom needed. She needed time to remember who Miriam was despite the fact angelic females weren’t capable of having children. If she said children, she meant it.
“How is that possible?” my mom asked.
“The how doesn’t matter. What matters is what you’re willing to give. This won’t be clean, and it won’t leave us unchanged.”
“We need to bring the council down. We need to save our world, Miriam.”
“And him?” she pressed.
“And Lucifer.”
I dropped my head forward, her words like a cement block on my neck.
Miriam sighed. She probably already knew what would become of my father.
Hell, I had a bone-weary suspicion she had planned her death and, inadvertently, Oliver’s mother’s.
She had told Azazahl to tell Lilith something five years after Aspen’s birth.
I didn’t believe it was a coincidence that she then died during that time.
“Tell me what needs to be done,” my mom demanded.
“It’ll start when she’s born. The gates will lock. The celestial world will be unbalanced. You must play a part, put your own desires aside, and allow your daughter to be the key to my son’s Severance Rune and to Hell,” she whispered, a deep sadness gentling her tone.
It hit me then like a cold shock of electricity. All the signs came together—Miriam’s puppeteering, the doors, Cato’s words, the cause of Hell’s imprisonment. It was me. It had always been me.
But why would Hell open sometimes? And why when Michael…
Tsal-mawet.
The dagger could create and destroy depending on its whims. Michael had shoved it into my chest at four years old, just like Etan shoved it into my father during the Unmaking Ceremony.
Michael had never used a rune on me, but if Etan was telling the truth and the rune was supposed to direct intention, then without it, what would the dagger do?
Well, I guessed it’d make me the key to opening Hell.
“So be it.”
Her words slammed into my chest.
A coldness pooled in my stomach. My knees weakened. They cracked against the wooden floor. The sound was small, but loud enough to freeze Mom and Miriam mid-conversation.
I tore myself out of the dream-walk and into my head.
“One fucking second,” I whispered on my hands and knees. “She hesitated for one fucking second.”
All her secrets. All her lies! She didn’t want to be a mother but to change her world! I was a game piece to be used and manipulated on Miriam’s game board.
“Why do you think she never told us?” my future self said. “She always knew Miriam’s prophecy would come true.”
“No.” I pushed to my feet, breath coming too fast. “No! He just—we just—” I held my hand to my mouth. My chest burned.
My future self only stared at me.
“You wanted to know how to release him. You wanted to know how to save Mom’s soul. You have your answer.”
“There has to be another way.”
“You know there’s not. You even know how to use the Siphoning Rite now, don’t you?”
I did. And I wished I didn’t.
“Make sure Aspen’s with you when you trap her. He’s the one who has to exact the price.”
“It shouldn’t be him.” It shouldn’t be us. “It can’t. What if we don’t go through with it?”
She shook her head, our star-flecked gray eyes glassy. “This is the best way.”
“How?” I screamed. “How is this the best way? That’s why you didn’t want me to accept the bond last night.”
Silence.
“Why this way?”
“You need to trust me.”
Tears ached in my throat, but they wouldn’t reach my eyes. I was entering a territory where loss was inevitable and crying was useless.
“You need to set the trap tonight. And if you decide to confide in anyone, it can only be Ichi.”
“Why would I confide in any…” I trailed off. I knew that look. The one that said she wanted to say more but couldn’t without risking changing everything. “Fine. Will this be the last time we talk?”
“No. There are some letters I need to help you write.”
We sat there afterward in silence, processing. Or at least I was. She’d probably had a lot more time to process everything. Still, she stayed. She knew I needed someone, even if that someone was me from a distant time.
“There’s one last thing we need to do before I leave.”
“What?”
She gave me a small, unhappy smile. “We need to start the journey that’s yet to start.”
That entire sentence made no sense.
She stood, holding out her hand. For a second, I gazed at it dully, then lifted my weighted arm and latched on.
We used Intraverso and dream-walked to a time I would never forget.
But it wasn’t just Intraverso, not when I still stood beside my future self in my head while also staring out into the darkness of the cement cell they’d kept me in.
Nausea swirled in my stomach, and I knew this was somehow a combination of Intraverso and Praetervado.
That was how she did this. She combined them somehow.
“Please!” past Lucy cried. “Help me!”
Her screams vibrated in my skull, making my nausea worse. Flames danced around her hands, giving light to the dark cement closet. Seeing it through my past self’s eyes made me question how I hadn’t noticed it to begin with, but I guess I’d been out of my mind.
She scrambled for the door, frantically twisting the locked doorknob. After numerous failed attempts, she finally noticed the flames.
I turned to my future self, assuming what came next.
“You know what to do,” she murmured.
After all the dream-walks, all the reveals, I thought I did.
“You always end up in cages, don’t you, Lucille? Except this one’s your own doing.”
I heard an echo to my words, the past, present, and future merging as one. I couldn’t help the bitterness in my tone as I spoke to myself. Not after everything. Not knowing we’d go through so much after this moment only to lose everything anyway.
Part of me wanted to change the script and tell her to rot in there.
“Stop freaking out and use the power on your hands to get out.”
“Why are my hands flaming?”
Why did I have to sound so stupid?
“Because you have powers.”
“How?”
I wasn’t going to answer that. Oh look. I was already acting like my future self.
“Hello? How is this possible? Why won’t you answer me?”
“I can’t.”
“Then why are you in my head? I need help!”
Why indeed? Why did we have to go through all this? It wasn’t fair. None of this was fucking fair!
“If you want answers, grow up and get out. I’m not allowed to explain.”
“Answers? Like about my mom?” she asked.
Stupid. Stupid tears I’d thought I was finally immune to came at the worst possible moment.
“Among others.” I couldn’t manage much more without choking on my words.
“Do you know where she is?”
Yes. In Hell. Lost. Suffering. Dead.
“Please, if you won’t tell me anything else, at least tell me that.”
I turned to my future self, my stomach plummeting. Tear streaks glistened on her cheeks. Still, she shook her head, knowing we both wished we could tell our na?ve past what the future held.
But we couldn’t.
“Elora.”
“Where’s Elora? Where am I?”
“Not Elora.”
“Helpful.”
Heavenly Hell.
“I don’t want to help you. But I don’t have much choice. You’ll find your answers once you get out of your cage. Escape and remember the names Oliver and Magda. Ask Oliver about Elora, then—”
Find Michael. Kill him. Rip his fucking heart out.
“Magda for everything else,” I finished.
“And I’ll find my mom that way?”
A numbness entered our toes. Combining Intraverso and Praetervado drained our powers faster than I’d anticipated. Or it was the block I still held on my mind.
My future self grabbed my hand.
It was time to go.
“You’ll find your answers. But Magda’s answers come at a price.”
“Wait, but who’s Oliver? And how am I supposed to escape? The room is locked!” she yelled.
I clutched my head, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around my stomach like future Lucy was. I wasn’t sure if all three of us were meant to be in one time. Cato would probably keel over and die if he knew. After he swatted me with his book, of course.
“Use your powe—”
Numbness spread up our legs, and my future self ripped us out of the past and back into my present mind.
“I understand why we had to do that. But not why you think that was the start of our journey.” If that’s what we wanted to call it. “The start was when Ronen saved us from Nerium poison.”
Future Lucy only smiled. No explanation. No words.
Then she left me.