Short. Direct. It doesn’t need elaboration because the threat itself is enough.
I can feel my pulse in my throat. Quick and hard, rabbit-fast. My hands are steady, though. Years of practice.
Steady hands. Racing heart. That’s the sin eater’s paradox.
I open the third letter. Then the fourth. The fifth. Each one is a variation on the same theme: You owe us. We’re collecting. Don’t run.
House of Regret. House of Fury. House of Conceit. House of Hunger.
By the time I reach the seventh letter, my coffee is cold and my jaw aches from clenching it.
The seventh seal is a closed eye. House of Apathy.
The wax breaks with a soft crack, and I unfold the letter. The handwriting is so faint, I have to squint to read it, like whoever wrote it could barely muster the energy to press pen to paper.
Your grandmother made promises she couldn’t keep. Now you’ll keep them for her. Report to the House of Apathy when the others are done with you.
If you’re still alive.
Caspian
First of Despair
Lord of the House of Apathy
If I’m still alive.
That’s reassuring.
I sit back in the chair, which creaks when I shift my weight, and stare at the letters spread across my kitchen table.
Seven Houses. Seven angels. Seven years.
The math is brutal, simple: one year per House. Twelve months serving Greed. Twelve months serving Pride. Envy. Wrath. Lust. Gluttony. Sloth.
A full year with each sin, being shaped by it, absorbing it, purging it, over and over until I don’t recognize myself anymore.
No one who serves the houses comes back unchanged.
I’ve heard that whispered in the sin-eater community more times than I can count. Warnings passed in diners and parking lots and the rare gatherings where we allow ourselves to be in the same room together. We’re too rare, too hunted, too valuable to risk large gatherings. But sometimes, when the loneliness gets too heavy, we find each other. Share stories. Trade warnings.
And the warning about the houses is always the same: Don’t serve them unless you have no other choice. And if you do, don’t expect to come back as yourself.
I’ve never met anyone who’s served a house and lived to tell about it.
Maybe there’s a reason for that.
My phone buzzes on the table, making the letters shift slightly. I grab it, grateful for the distraction.
Text from Luna:
Hey! Coffee later? I want to tell you about this guy in my bio lab
The emoji hits me like a punch to the chest.
She’s texting me about boys. About normal, mundane, beautiful things like cute guys in biology labs and coffee dates and all the small moments that make up a regular life.
She doesn’t know that her sister just got conscripted into seven years of supernatural servitude. Doesn’t know that I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to survive.
