“I’d have to check the logs,” he said quietly. “But if there is… it’ll be in the magic vault.”
The one door I couldn’t open.
“Open it,” I said, without turning.
He didn’t move.
I spun, ready to snarl, to rage?—
And found myself face to face with Victor. Luca vanished into the elevator, and the doors slid closed behind him.
“What the hell,” I bit out. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“And long past yours,” he replied, voice calm as stone. “Have you slept at all?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
“How will that help Jude?”
“He’s dead.”
Victor sighed, a slow, weary sound that scraped against my nerves.
Something in me, the part that was all claw and fang and shattered bond, snapped. I lunged. My hands fisted in the impossibly fine silk of his shirt, and I drove him back. His body hit the stone wall of the vault with a solid, jarring thud. A nearby shelf of crystal artifacts wobbled, then toppled. The sound of shattering glass rained sharp, glittering pieces across the floor.
“Don’t you dare,” I snarled, my face inches from his. “He’s gone. I can still feel him in here—” I slammed a fist against myown chest, the impact aching through my ribs. “—like a phantom limb that won’t stop bleeding. And every time I close my eyes, I see him unraveling. For us. For me. I see that monster tugging on him like he’s a gods-be-damned puppet, and me having to sever his life…” I was shaking with exhaustion, with fury, with a pain so vast it felt like it would tear me into ribbons. “It was me. I killed him.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted to live that way,” Victor said, voice soft.
“You didn’t know him at all!” My voice broke, the shout tearing through the vault’s heavy silence. The anger turned into something ragged and desperate in my throat, clawing its way out. “You left him there, Victor. The other half of me, after I was the one who…” The words dissolved. I couldn’t say it. After I was the one who cut his thread. After I killed him to save him.
Victor’s expression remained unreadable, but his eyes held a glint of understanding, and somehow that was worse.
“Angel.” A voice from behind me, soft but frayed with its own grief. Wade’s hand landed on my shoulder, heavy and warm. “Breathe.”
I shrugged him off violently. “Fuck you both!”
Victor absorbed the violence without a flinch, his body relaxed against the wall as if waiting for a storm to pass. But his gaze didn’t waver, and in its depths I saw a flicker of pain.
“We would have retrieved him,” he said, voice low, “if it had been possible.”
“The demon dragged what was left of him back through the tear,” Wade said, stepping closer. His voice was calm, but the strain showed in the tight line of his jaw. “We had no way to follow it. The tear sealed behind him like a wound stitching itself shut.” He paused, watching me. “But you said the Reaper took Jude’s soul, right? That should mean he’s… free. That he’s not with the demon anymore.”
Reaper… Nat.
The name turned like a cog in my chest, giving me a heartbeat of hope.
Was Jude free?
My grip on Victor’s shirt loosened. The silk slipped through my trembling fingers. I took a step back, the fight draining out of me, leaving a hollow, airless chill.
Victor straightened slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “It would be better,” he said, watching me, “to retrieve his remains. Regardless of where his soul resides, the physical anchor is a vulnerability. Until the body is completely destroyed, the demon could still… tug on the connection. Perhaps use his powers.”
Wade’s gaze sharpened. “Like some sort of doll?”
“Especially after death,” Victor replied quietly. “Without a soul, there’s no resistance to being used. It’s why the military had been directed to destroy the remains. If Erlik had left the body, the military would have it.”
The air in the vault seemed to grow colder. The glittering shards of crystal on the floor looked like fallen stars, useless, broken lights in the gathering dark. Like pieces of my heart shattered and crushed by reality.
