All the breath leaves my lungs as soon as I look inside.
My brothers, Abaddon and Remus/Romulus, are bound, hissing and spitting as they fight the chains they are tied with. Hannah, as well, is bound tightly to a chair. I do not see the baby, but now that I’m close, I can hear her crying from a nearby room.
And there, in the center of all of them, is something I can believe even less.
It is Layden, towering over them.
The brother we thought long dead.
THIRTY-TWO
KHARON
“Let us go, brother!”Abaddon shouts as I watch in shadow through the window. “We did not know you lived!”
But Layden, the one I remember to be the kindest and tenderest of us, only turns on him with his face set in a mask of fury. “You did not check very hard.”
“We waited a week before burying you!”
“And yet, as our Father tortured me, tearing the wings from my back, what did you do? What did you do as I sat there,beggingyou all for help? Nothing!” Layden shouts right in Abaddon’s face. “When he poured scorching, searing,burningliquid hell-metal straight from the forge over my back to ensure my wings would never grow again,what did you do?”
“Nothing!” Abaddon shouts back. “We did nothing because he beat us into dogs who obeyed even as he did the worst things to us. You were the only one courageous enough to fight back. I’m sorry, brother, you’ll never know how sorry?—”
My hand slams to the window sill as my brother spills the apology I wish was coming from my lips.
But Layden is having none of it.
“So sorry that you then leaped to my rescue? No. Still, you stood by as he lifted the sword and stopped my beating heart.”
“I slayed him moments later in vengeance.”
“And you think that matters?” Layden shouts. “I had already becomethis.” He gestures wildly at his wingless back. “And then you buried me in the cold ground.”
“I tried to revive you. I spent hours at your side pouring my healing into you. We thought you were dead. That the hell metal sword had?—”
“It did not. But you were so quick to dispose of me that I spent the next year in the earth, and when my spark finally restarted my heart, I found I’d been buried alive.”
“I’m so sorry, brother?—”
“Do not call me that!” Layden cries. “We were never brothers. We were monstrous mistakes, borne of a madman and a thief. And tonight, I will rectify it all. I will fix what has always been broken. Our entire existence.”
Remus cackles from where he’s chained to the chair beside Abaddon as Layden bends down to draw something on the stone floor in chalk.
“What do you mean. Bro—” Abaddon stops himself. “Layden. What does thatmean?”
Layden lifts his head from where he’s bent in front of them, pausing his drawing for a moment to answer. “It means that we were never meant to be in this realm. I learned much after I finally clawed my way out of the ground. Our ancestors were only one of many parasites that found this plane of existence. Most of them eventually found the grace and conscience to realize their mistake in coming here and return to where they came from. Except for, of course, the one who created us and called himself our father. But I can fix it. I can send us all back there. Back to the Great Hall.”
Remus cackles louder as Abaddon demands, “What of my wife? My daughter?”
“Your wife can remain; she has nothing to do with this. But your daughter must be taken through the circle to the Great Hall too since she bears angel spark.”
“Abaddon,” Hannah cries, looking at him beseechingly.
And I know I must act. I have to stop Layden. He cannot separate Abaddon from his family and his wife from her child. He is as mad as I was and knows not what he does.
But right as I prepare to launch myself through the window, a voice from right behind my ear stops me. “Do not be a fool, son. You’ll just get yourself chained down like your brothers.”
I spin around in shock at the voice that has haunted my nightmares, only to discover that my brother Layden is not the only ghost of the night.
