Page 90 of Realm of the Wicked

It was looking less and less likely that Damien was coming for me. Maybe he couldn’t; he’d been locked out. Maybe he just couldn’t stomach telling me my fate. I couldn’t be upset with him. He’d saved me so many times, I couldn’t ask him for one more.

My monster under my bed turned out to be my guardian angel. I found it funny that we’re taught to fear them. Those monsters lurking under our beds. To hug the edges of the light, and not stare too hard into the shadows that fill the corners of our bedrooms. I wasn’t sure when my monster became my protector. Maybe he always was. I knew two things for sure. One: the real world was far more terrifying than anything cowering under my bed. And two: sometimes, those beasts needed someone looking out for them.

So when Clarissa’s other lackey, Lars, jingled my gate open, I stood before he could reach for me. I wouldn’t fight them. Not now.

‘Time to go.’ Lars was quiet, less chatty than Silas, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it almost could’ve been sympathy in his eyes.

‘Okay.’ I met him at the doorway, tugging my lace dress down. ‘Let’s go then.’

‘Um.’ He waited, then produced a small mirror. ‘Did you want to see anyone before we go? We don’t have long, but, well…’

Lars was offering me another looking glass, like the one Damien had in his library. My instinct was to push it out of the way, but my greediness far outweighed my pettiness. I snatched the mirror from him, thinking about Grace.

The cloudiness faded, revealing Grace in a tidy red apron, a pot of coffee in her hand, and a wide smile on her face. She leaned over a table of people I couldn’t see, making a joke I couldn’t hear. My beautiful, ethereal sister, who had a chance.

I pressed my fingers to my mouth with a quiet sob. I had to believe she’d be okay, because anything else would wreck me.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered, passing back the mirror. Lars was risking a lot offering me the mirror, and I didn’t want to overstretch his generosity.

Lars shook his head, wrapping my hand back around the mirror. ‘Look again. We still have a minute.’

I met his dark gaze. He was offering me a chance to see Damien, but I didn’t know if seeing him would put me over the edge or not. Finally, I nodded, letting my thoughts drift to Damien.

The mirror unclouded once more. There was Damien, sitting at his desk, in the middle of his ruined office. Everything was destroyed, down to the desk that was barely standing on spindly legs. He sat in the middle of the tornado, preternaturally still, fingers pressed to his temples, slumped.

He looked so broken. So sad.

His mouth moved, and I squinted, trying to make out what he said. I realized it was my name, over and over again, like a prayer.

I love you, I thought. I’ve loved you since before I knew you, before I accepted it. I’ll love you when the only person who remembers who I was is you.

I realized then that giving up didn’t have to be inherently weak. It took a lot of strength to give in, to sacrifice, to accept the outcome provided to you. No one had ever saved Damien. So I’d be the first. I closed the tiny compact, handing it back to Lars.

There was no room for fear in my body, only the knowledge I’d done enough.

‘Ready?’ he murmured.

I nodded. I’d meet my fate with a smile on my face. Because that was the only way to win in this life: to accept the fate you were given like it was your decision all along.

34

DAMIEN

Have you ever watched someone fall in love? It’s a slow fall at first, so gentle, you don’t even realize it’s happening. One moment, you’re you; the next, your soul isn’t yours. But was it ever yours to begin with? It certainly doesn’t feel that way.

It’s quiet, the way it laces through every cell and bone in your body, until your marrow is nothing but need for them. That’s the point of no return. Because from then on out, it’s not slow or gentle. It’s a full throttle into madness, an obsession that only seems to be lighter when you sleep, when finally, finally, you can be with them again, if only in your dreams.

I know all this because as I watched Stella build herself up time and time again, I watched myself fall to pieces for her.

And the wildest thing of all was that it was all worth it. Every ounce of pain, every moment I’d spent desperately trying to keep her alive, even though I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to hold her, to touch her.

But now that I knew, now that I had held her in my arms, watched the way her eyes turned to glass when she said, ‘I love you,’ the way her whole body melted into mine when I touched her, now it was worth it tenfold. I’d done a lot of things I regretted in this life, but saving Stella would never be one of them. I owed her everything. I hadn’t been alive until she breathed life into me.

I rested my head in my hands. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what was even left for me to decide. My decision was made the moment I laid eyes on her, an antidote for a slow and painful death. It would always be my life for hers.

I stood, summoning the portal to Hell, where the Council would be meeting at any moment. I wondered if I should say goodbye to the house, but the only good memories I had in it were of Stella. Besides, Agatha would know. She always knew.

So without a glance back, I stepped forward to my future, to the destiny that had been laid out before I was born.