Page 39

I swallow the last remnants, the heat of the ink warming my throat. “For once? Absolutely nothing.”

“Fine,” she says. “If you insist on being impossible, I’ll turn your flesh into the form.”

Bright, searing pain pressurizes right over my ribs, rippling outwards in a white-hot burn. I hiss, glancing down to see thin lines of molten red, precise and elegant, weaving themselves into a palm-sized sigil on my skin in real-time.

“Administrative cruelty,” I mutter, dragging a still-damp hand over it, but the mark doesn’t budge. ”Classic. I might file a formal complaint for the lack of anaesthesia.”

“You can deduct the cost of that parchment from your hazard pay. And since you swallowed the transit slip, you are now officially registered in the system as your own luggage. Just bleed on the center of the sigil when you’re done throwing your tantrum. Seventy-two hours, Malachi,” she says, voice distancing as the mirror begins to clear, her presence thinning back into Hell. “You’ve been warned.”

Then she’s gone, her reflection vanishing completely until all that’s left is steam, condensation, and the faint drip of water from the faucet. I snort under my breath, already stepping out of the bathroom.

Saints below. Bureaucrats and their hollow threats.

“Eden,” I call out as I stride down the hallway. “Not to undermine the sterling reputation I’m building as a nuisance, but I require⁠—”

I find her in her bedroom, standing there with her back to me, shoulders hunched, breath shuddering out of her in uneven pulls.

“What’s happened this time?” I groan. “Did you harm yourself again? You really need to⁠—”

She turns, and the words die on my tongue. Her hair’s still damp from her shower, face greyed out, jaw clenched so hard the muscle’s quivering. My eyes flick down her body, right to where her hand is splayed against her side, and I’m across the room in half-a-heartbeat, my hand closing around her wrist.

“Don’t,” she gasps. “It burns⁠—”

I ignore her plea, prying her fingers back despite the way she flinches. My gaze falters for a split second. There’s a large, silvered-pink scar cutting right across her stomach, from hip-bone to navel, then up further, disappearing beneath her breasts.

But next to that… etched into her skin in the exact same place as mine—nestled along the lower curve of her ribs, just beneath the last bone, elegant and cruel in its symmetry—is a sigil.

My sigil.

Shit. The. Fucking. Bed.

My thumb drags slowly over the pulsing lines carved into her soft flesh, and a genuine roll of nausea curls low in my gut.

Her eyes dart to mine, then down to the matching sigil glowing on my own silver skin.

She looks like she might cry, or hit me—or do both in quick succession, just to cover her bases.

“I heard a voice,” she whispers. “In the bathroom. And then... then this happened. It felt like someone pressed a branding iron into my side.”

“That was my boss,” I say with a shrug.

“Your boss?” she chokes out, her eyes widening. “The... the Devil? The Devil did this?”

“Close.” I let out a dry, forced chuckle, my fingers raking gently over the angry red burn on her side. “Veraxia. She’s my boss. A bureaucratic little bitch if ever there was one. Think of her as the ultimate manager with a flair for the dramatic.”

“Why’s she put this on me?” she asks, panic bleeding into each syllable.

“She didn’t. Not intentionally. Hell has just… pinned my coordinates.” I lie. “But because of the proximity, and that messy coating from the Veil, it’s caught on to you too. Think of it as a shadow—a sympathetic resonance. It’s just an echo of paperwork on your skin, Eden. Nothing more.”

“Coordinates?” she says on a breath, her knees buckling as if her bones have turned to lead. I catch her before she hits the carpet, my hands locking around her waist to anchor her. “You mean they’re tracking you? Like GPS? Like... like they know you’re in my apartment?”

She grips my forearms tightly. “Malachi, if they have your coordinates, they have mine. They know where I live. They know where I sleep. Does that mean she—the Veraxia woman—is coming here? Is Hell coming? Is Hell going to come for me by association?”

Idiot. What a fuck-ass excuse. Now she’s equating it to a homing beacon.

“Shhh,” I murmur, tightening my grip on her, feeling the fragile structure of her bones through the soft curves. A wave of her panic flows into me, but for once, it doesn’t make my eyes roll back. It tastes like responsibility. And I fucking hate it.

“No one said anything about anyone coming for anyone. I wouldn’t worry about it,” I say, injecting a cavalier arrogance into my voice as I ease her back onto her feet. “It’s just bureaucracy, baby girl. You aren’t even a footnote to them. You’re a smudge on a margin they haven’t even turned to yet.”