I gather the letters, stack them neatly, and tuck them into the drawer where I keep important documents, birth certificate, lease agreement, etc. I need information, and I need to understand what I’m walking into. There are people I can ask, other sin eaters, contacts in the supernatural community, but that will have to wait. First, I need to take care of something more important.
Luna.
I need to see her. Need to look her in the eye and lie convincingly about where I’m going and why. Need to memorize her face, her laugh, the way she gestures when she’s excited about something, because I don’t know when I’ll see her again after I report to the House of Gold.
Three days isn’t much time.
But it’s enough to say goodbye without saying goodbye.
I head for the shower. The water is scalding when I step under it, hot enough to hurt, and I let it. Let the heat turn my skin pink, let the steam fill my lungs, let the water wash away the residue of last night’s lust purge, Ash’s scent, the feeling of being trapped in my skin.
I need to be clean. Sharp. Ready.
The water pounds against my shoulders, and I close my eyes, letting myself feel the fear I’ve been holding at bay since I saw those seven letters on my kitchen table.
Seven years is a long time.
Long enough to forget who you are.
Long enough to become someone else entirely.
I think about Gramms’ last words to me on the phone three weeks before she died.
“Remember who you are, Raven. No matter what happens. No matter what they take from you. Remember.”
The water runs cold, so I shut it off. Step out into the steam-filled bathroom, wrap myself in a towel more hole than fabric. Look at myself in the mirror.
Black hair plastered to my skull. Dark eyes with shadows underneath. Lean body covered in scars, some from purges, some from the rare occasions when breaking a contract didn’t end well. Forty-four tattoos mark forty-four successful breaks.
This is who I am right now.
I need to remember this moment. This version of myself.
Because I don’t know who I’ll be when I come back.
If I come back.
I dry off, get dressed. Black jeans, a gray t-shirt, leather jacket. Boots. The armor of the every day. The costume of someone who’s got their shit together even when they absolutely don’t.
Three days.
The question Gramms asked me echoes in my head, relentless:What are you willing to sacrifice to stay free?
And my answer whispered into the back of my mind
Everything. I’m willing to sacrifice everything.
For Luna.
For the chance that she gets to stay in the light.
Even if it means I have to walk into the dark.
3
The campus is beautiful. Sprawling green quads, brick buildings that try too hard to look historic, students everywhere moving in clusters like schools of fish. It’s a weekday afternoon, which means the walkways are crowded with backpacks and coffee cups, and the low hum of a thousand conversations I’m not part of.
I feel ancient walking through it. Thirty-six years old and moving through a sea of teenagers who think they have forever.
