Your grandmother, Meredith Vesper, promised us seven years of service. She gave us two before her untimely death. The entire balance, seven years pass to you, as is the law of inherited debts.
Report to the House of Gold within three days, or we will collect what we are owed by other means.
You know what that means.
Croesus
First of Avarice
Lord of the House of Gold
I read it twice.Three times. The words don’t change. They stay there, black and gold and absolute as a death sentence.
Seven years. Seven fucking years.
My brain is trying to process it, trying to find a loophole, an out, something. But there’s nothing. Inherited debts are ironclad. It’s one of the oldest laws in the supernatural world: the sins of the grandmother pass to the granddaughter. Blood calls to blood. Debt demands payment.
And if you don’t pay willingly, they take what they’re owed by force.
They won’t kill me, though. Can’t afford to. Sin eaters are too rare, too useful, we’re the only ones who can break angel contracts, and sometimes angels need contracts broken. Rival deals. Backfired bargains. Messes that need cleaning up. We’re tools, and you don’t throw away good tools. You just use them until they break.
But I think about Luna anyway. Nineteen, sophomore year at State, majoring in environmental science because she wants to save the fucking world. She doesn’t know about any of this. Doesn’t know how deep our family are with angels or sins or the fact that her sister eats people’s mistakes for a living. I’ve kept her clean, kept her safe, kept her wrapped in the kind of ignorant normalcy that I’ll never have.
If I run, they’ll go after her. That’s what “other means” refers to. They’ll drag her into this world and use her to get to me, and she won’t survive it. She’s too soft, too good, too normal.
I won’t let that happen.
“Raven?” Ash’s voice, rough with sleep, comes from the edge of the futon. “What’s wrong?”
I look up at him, still holding the letter. “I’m fucked.”
He crosses to me and reads over my shoulder. I watch his expression shift from confusion to understanding to pity. I hate pity.
“The Seven Houses,” he says quietly.
“Yeah.”
“Can you run?”
I laugh. It sounds bitter. “They know where I live, Ash. They’ve always known. And if I run, they’ll go after Luna instead.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
I look down at the letter again. Three days. That’s all I have.
Three days to figure out how to survive seven years in hell.
“I guess,” I say slowly, “I’m going to go meet an angel.”
Ash is quiet for a long moment. “For what it’s worth? I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I fold the letter, set it back on the table with the others. Six more letters. Six more angels. Six more years after this one. “Me too.”
He doesn’t leave. Just stands, sloughing off the sheets, and watches me with those dark eyes. Those demon eyes. “Do you want me to stay?”
I should say no. Should send him away before this gets more complicated than it already is. But I’m tired, and scared, and I’ve just been sentenced to seven years of servitude to creatures that eat souls for breakfast.
“Yeah,” I whisper, “stay.”
