Page 70 of In Between Death and the Devil

“Yes.” The simplicity of her statement confused me.

“It’s my fault.”

“Did you mean to kill them?” I was starting to hate her questions.

“No, but⁠—”

“You wouldn’t have met Colt at all if someone hadn’t hired him to get close to you.”

“I know, but⁠—”

“But nothing, Maeve.” Bea stood, crossed the floor, and settled next to me, taking my hand. “It was an accident. A terrible accident. One you don’t bear all the blame for.” She reached for my face, gently wiping away tears that had started to roll down my cheeks.

Fen had said the same thing.

“What does your instinct say?” she asked. “Do you feel you can trust the Devil? Do you want to?”

The word got stuck in my throat, so I nodded.

“Well then.” She brushed my hair back from my face with a small smile.

“But the stakes are so high here. If I screw this up, the realms will suffer. Countless souls will.” My breath hitched on a sob.

“That’s a lot of pressure. But you’re acting like it all rests on this one decision of whether or not to trust the Devil. It’s not a one and done. There are a lot of steps between here and where things end.”

“But if I trust him and deepen our connection, or even agree to try to replace Death, I give him more power. What if he doesn’t deserve it?” I was openly crying now.

“What about your power?”

“What?” I wiped my nose.

“If you move forward with the Devil, don’t you gain power through your connection? If you replace Death and he’s doing something underhanded, you’ll be able to stop him.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I was so afraid of getting it wrong that I hadn’t considered that, even if I did, I had options. “I don’t know how to do this.” My confession was a whisper.

“You don’t have to go all in right away, just take one step forward. See how that feels. Then take another step.”

One step.

I thought about the Devil… about Fen as I’d left him last, angry and bitter at my need for proof. Convinced there was nothing he could do to make me trust him. He’d tried to give me what I asked for, a demonstration of good faith, and I told him it wasn’t enough. I’d dismissed his emotions, despite the fact that I’d felt them as he did thanks to our connection. Maybe that was why part of me did trust him, the part that had taken over in that dark alcove when I’d nearly kissed him.

If I was going to move forward with him, I needed to clear the air between us first. To apologize and own the fact that my reluctance to trust was because I was afraid. I also needed to stop insisting on thinking of him as the Devil and start using his name. We were bonded. I owed him that much.

Bea sat quietly at my side as I sorted things out in my head. Her presence was calming. With her here, everything felt clearer. I knew what I wanted to do.

“Okay. One step,” I said finally.

She smiled, like I’d solved the most complicated riddle, and opened her arms.

I let her envelop me in a hug, resting my head on her shoulder. For the first time in a long time, it felt nice not to be alone.

CHAPTER 20

The next day, I looked for Fen as I delivered messages in his castle for Death. Our connection had gone quiet. I’d delivered all but one of my missives and convinced myself he didn’t want to talk to me by the time I found him in the Dungeon.

Regardless of how many times I’d been here, it still awed me whenever I set foot inside. Instead of damp stone walls, they were almost entirely made of shadows that seemed to pulse as if they were alive. Wooden doors and silver brackets holding balls of light lined the labyrinthine hallways. Dark wood floors with plush red carpet ran underfoot. The entrance led into a large, circular room off of which staircases and corridors led deeper into where the cells were. In between them were more doors leading to rooms used for training, some of them simulation cells, and at the center was a circular dais with an altar from which souls reincarnated.

I heard his voice before I saw him. The deep rumble of it set something fluttering in my chest. Through the open door of one of the training rooms, I saw him standing with Daphne.