“You know,” he says finally, “when my contract first broke, I didn’t feel relieved either.”
I twist to look at him. “You didn’t?”
“I felt terrified.” His expression is thoughtful, distant. “For three hundred years, I knew exactly what my life was. What was expected of me. What I could and couldn’t do. And then suddenly... nothing. No rules. No boundaries. No predetermined path.”
“That sounds like freedom.”
“It felt like falling.” His eyes meet mine. “Until I remembered that I had someone to catch me.”
The last letters come down—”DANCE”—and suddenly the facade is bare. Just faded brick where the sign used to hang, the outline of each letter visible in the slightly lighter stone that had been protected from weather and sun. The ghost of something that used to exist.
“Excuse me, Miss Solis?” One of the workers approaches, clipboard in hand. “We’re ready to install the new sign whenever you want to take a look at the placement.”
I nod, stepping out of Mal’s embrace to follow him around to the truck.
The new sign is beautiful.
Bellamy Ballroomin elegant copper letters, designed by a local artist who spent two hours interviewing me about my vision for the studio. The font is modern but classic. Warm but professional. It looks like something that belongs in this century while still honoring the traditions I’ve spent my life learning.
“We were thinking right here.” The worker gestures to the same spot where the old sign hung. “Unless you want to center it differently?”
I stare at the empty brick facade. At the ghost-letters of my mother’s name.
“Actually,” I hear myself say, “could you move it up? About six inches?”
The worker makes a note. “Sure thing. Any reason?”
Because I want people to see both,I think.The shadow of what came before and the reality of what comes next.
But I don’t say that. I just smile and tell him it’s an aesthetic preference.
The installation takes another two hours. I spend most of it inside, teaching the afternoon children’s class.
“Mr. Mal!”
The shriek comes from Amelia, who abandons her partner mid-step to launch herself at Mal’s legs as he enters the studio.
“Careful.” He catches her easily, swinging her up in a way that makes her giggle. “You’re going to knock me over one of these days.”
“No I won’t. You’re really strong.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
I watch them interact—Amelia chattering about her new puppy while Mal nods seriously as if the color of the puppy’s collar is the most important information he’s ever received—and feel something warm unfurl in my chest.
After Azrael slunk away in defeat, Mal looked at his bare wrist and asked, voice cracking, what do I do now?
Whatever you want,I told him.
And what he wanted, it turned out, was to stay. Not because of magic. Not because of contracts or obligations or ancient infernal law. Just because he wanted to be where I was.
The first few weeks were an adjustment. The concept of choosing a place and committing to it was foreign to him in ways I couldn’t fully understand.
“It’s just...” He’d struggled to explain it one night, lying in my bed with moonlight painting silver stripes across his chest. “What if I get bored? What if you get tired of me? What if?—”
“Then we figure it out.” I’d propped myself up on one elbow to look at him. “That’s what people do, Mal. They don’t have escape clauses built into their relationships. They just... work at it.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
