Page 99 of Just One Little Bargain

“Then what are you? Who are you?”

Marmalade’s tail gives one slow flick. “That is considerably more information than I intend to give you.”

“I think I deserve considerably more information. So does Evie. You’ve been living in her house for years, and if there’s anything about you that could put her in danger, I need to know.”

“Zavian Mal’Kethros Vaelthur.”

Everything in me goes still. “How do you know my full name?”

“You will not reveal to Evie, by word or implication, that I can speak,” Marmalade says, ignoring my question.

The command catches on my true name and cinches tight, leaving no room to push against it.

“Don’t look so wounded,” Marmalade says. “It’s for your benefit as much as mine.”

“I’ve gone insane,” I announce, pacing. “That’s what this is. I’ve been up here too long. I’m hearing things. There’s probably a pamphlet for this kind of thing.”

“Insane? No. Oblivious, certainly.” Marmalade watches me pace without any concern. “You’ve spent two weeks blaming that pull on the summoning tether without once stopping to wonder why none of this feels remotely normal.”

“I have!”

“Your deadline is closing in. You’re a soul collector with a summoner who’s stupidly fond of you, and you’ve spent days doing everything except collect.” His tail folds neatly over his paws. “You cook for her. You clean her inn. You follow her around Brindlewood looking pleased whenever she gives you something useful to do. At some point, even you should have started asking why.”

“You’re a cat.” It’s a pathetic defense, but I’m being lectured by an animal, and I’ve surrendered every inch of high ground I might once have held. “You don’t get to sit there and audit my time here.”

“Someone has to. You’re doing a terrible job of it yourself.” He regards me, unbothered. “Apparently, I have to spell it out for you.” The amusement disappears. “She’s your soulmate.”

I stop pacing.

“She’s my what?”

“Soulmate. Do keep up.” He says it plainly. “Ask yourself why the tether’s been tearing you apart. A summoning bond’s a leash. It tugs, it aches, and a demon worth anything carries it without a fuss. Yours has been dragging you to your knees over a woman who’s gone out for the evening.” His tail flicks. “It’s a true bond sitting under the summoning tether. It intensifies what’s already there, which is how you’ve ended up in this pathetic state.”

“That can’t be right. I would’ve known.”

“Some part of you did. You knew taking her soul would be an atrocity long before you understood why. You simply lacked the constitution to look at it directly.”

A moth flutters low along the baseboard and his pupils go enormous, body flattening. He launches after it, skids across the hardwood, and vanishes into the dark of the lounge.

Soulmate.

I lower myself onto the bottom stair.

I’ve read every fragment on the subject that Hell keeps, which isn’t much because soulmate bonds are rare and poorly documented. Most demons live out their entire existence and never encounter one. Some insist they don’t happen to our kind at all. The records contradict each other on how or why they form, but they all agree that a true bond can’t be built, forced, or counterfeited.

More importantly, death doesn’t sever it.

Chapter 28

Milo

The ceiling of the cottage has a water stain that resembles a star.

Marmalade hasn’t come back. He said the single most consequential sentence anyone’s ever aimed at me, and vanished. Since then, I’ve been lying on this couch with my thoughts going a thousand miles an hour and nowhere to go.

Someone in this world is . . . mine.

I keep waiting for the word to register as a mistake. For it to curdle into an easy dismissal. Proof it was meant for someone else, because nothing that certain has ever belonged to me. But the longer I lie here, the more I realize I already knew Evie was different.