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The sign flickered erratically, casting jumpy, distorted shadows across the damp walls, as I approached. Vines of wrought iron snaked around the arch’s frame, their thorns so realistic that they seemed ready to pierce the air. The artistry was intricate yet brutal, a twisted and unsettling blend of beauty and inherent pain. It was a temple to rebellion, a monument to hunger.
I snap back into the present, into the archive’s dim hush, and scowl. “Wait. Why did they change the name to Holy Rollers? It sounds so corny. Like a parody of itself.”
The keeper chuckles, a brittle rasp that could be laughter or dust collapsing in an old book. “Because memory dulls, child. Names bleed into new shapes. Holy Dagger cut too deep, carried too much truth. Later ages softened it, wrapped the blade in carnival silk, and called it Holy Rollers. Easier to swallow. Easier to forget what it had been.”
“That’s absurd,” I mutter. “They traded a dagger for dice.”
“And yet, the echo survives,” it says, its voice thick with amusement. “Holy Rollers is but a diluted reflection of what Holy Dagger had once stood for, a place where rot and reverence entwined. You walked into its ancestor. They inherited its shadow.”
The silence stretches.
The keeper tips its skeletal head. “But that tale belongs to another night. Tonight, the tale is about your descent into sin.”
As I crossed the threshold, the air hit me first. A wave of heat and pheromones, as thick as velvet smoke, and the cloying sweetness of burning incense mingled with the rich aroma of wine so potent it threatened to drown the senses before a single drop touched the tongue.
The music—a low, guttural thrum of bass and breath—curled through the corridor like a hunting beast. My heels struck the stones in time with the heartbeat of the ancient place, vibrating with a sin so profound it was almost holy. I passed bodies half draped in silk and lace, limbs entwined in shadowed alcoves, and mouths painted with what looked like blood.
A celestial male—an anomaly in this carefully curated chaos—was perched on a plush velvet chaise as if it was his personal altar. He was shirtless and barefoot, all sculpted muscle, and had a mane of white-blond hair that seemed to radiate a dangerous, untamed energy. He looked utterly out of place, like a fallen seraph in a den of thieves. Or worse, as if he owned the damn place.
One arm lazily stretched across the back of the chaise, the fingers of the other hand tangled in the dark hair of a woman kneeling at his feet with casual possession, her spine arched in perfect worship. Others lingered nearby, a clique of beautiful, broken things. Some were kneeling, and some were hovering, but all were drawn to him like moths to a flame.
He smiled at something one murmured, a fleeting, almost boyish expression. Not cruel. Not authoritative. Just…amused.
Then his aura struck me, a sudden bright flare in the dim, smoky light. A beacon of purity in a cathedral of corruption. Impossibly untainted. An angel. Here. In this place.
He didn’t seem ashamed, didn’t flinch from the depravity surrounding him. He caught my gaze across the crowded floor and smiled with a slow, knowing curve of his lips as if he knew me.
At the time, I thought him a stranger. Now, I know he was Jareth.
And he was not alone. Behind the chaise, half veiled in shadows, stood another silent and watchful figure. Eryon. Still whole then, not yet fallen. His wings were magnificent, arcing high above his shoulders. His plumage shimmered with an iridescence that shifted with every movement—pearl white one moment, opal blue the next. They seemed less like feathers and more like prisms.
The rest of that place unfolded before me like a fever dream.
Above, stained-glass chandeliers spun lazily, scattering fractured halos of bloodred and bruised violet across the cavernous amphitheater. The warped light barely reached the floor. Gilded cages hung from the beams like tarnished moons, each holding dancers writhing in raw, desperate ecstasy. Their movements were primal.
On stages carved from living stones, performances of domination and submission bloomed like poisonous flowers. Leather whispered against silk, chains clinked in slow rhythms, and flesh gleamed in simmering light. A bound woman crawled across obsidian glass strewn with rubies, cutting herself for the privilege of her master’s hand. Nearby, a masked figure was spun like a marionette, her dominant with black antlers striking her trembling thighs with a bone-carved crop.
Around them, demons, witches, and vampires lingered in the shadows, drinking blood wine from ornate goblets. They watched, they chose, and they hungered.
And so did I. But this hunger felt…misplaced. It didn’t rise from my stomach; it bled into me from the metal pressing against my skin. It tasted of copper and violets—Lysanthe’s scent. Why was I hungry for her pain? Why did the sight of blood make my mouth water?
I lingered near the edge of the main floor, half hidden by the shadow of a shattered pillar, and for a breath, I almost saw him. Remiel. Not in celestial armor but here, commanding this place. Not the angel on broken battlements but a sovereign of flesh and shadows who might have ruled if he had ever dared to choose it.
I pictured him on a stone stage—his back straight, his hands gloved in black leather, and his mouth set in merciless restraint. A single crook of his finger across the chaos would have set my blood alight, a summons I could never refuse. In that vision, every eye belonged to him, mine most of all.
I bit the inside of my cheek. Because this world of unveiled hunger and honest darkness was closer to my truth than I wanted to admit. And so, in a way, was he.
The music deepened into a primal pulse that licked at the skin. Dancers twisted in time, their agony and ecstasy indistinguishable. I stayed too long in the shadow of that pillar—long enough to almost forget why I came, long enough to want to step forward and join them.
I forced myself upright, spine straight and lips curled into a smirk I didn’t feel. Disdain. Detachment. Arrogance. Armor sharper than any dagger. Hunger would not devour me. Still…as I turned toward the velvet curtain that led deeper into the revel, a sensation followed, sliding along my skin like smoke. It did not feel like a threat but a promise.
The velvet curtain was no simple partition; it was a threshold. I knew it the moment my fingertips brushed the heavy fabric—soft, almost alive, and so dense it seemed to drink sound from the air. For a heartbeat, I hesitated, sensing the weight of what waited beyond. Then the masked attendant, a faceless and silent creature, swept the curtain aside.
Light struck me. Not the lurid neon of Holy Dagger but something impossibly clean, golden, and almost holy. It poured over a marble floor, turning the polished stone into a mirror that reflected a thousand fractured dreams. The air shifted too. The scent of sweat and blood was gone. Instead, the fragrance was amber resin, spiced wine, and lilies blooming in a midnight garden. It filled my lungs. I blinked against the shock, stepping forward.
The ballroom stretched wide, a cathedral of elegance carved by something that remembered divinity. Towering pillars rose to vaulted ceilings stitched with starfire, constellations were drifting, living frescoes. The guests moved in slow currents: fae with jewel-toned skin, vampires in brocade and moonlight, and witches traced with golden runes. Laughter, low and smoky, echoed. Masks of silver, bones, and silk could not conceal them. Horns caught the light, scaled tails brushed gowns, and wings shifted with restless grace. Each was a masterpiece of predatory beauty, and each watched in turn.
If Holy Dagger had been raw hunger, this was a cage of civility, perfumed and gilded, but no less lethal. My senses scrambled. The light was too rich, the air was too dense, and the voices were too sharp. I stood at the threshold, a crimson mark against white and gold, letting them take me in. The shadows clung to me. They knew the actual danger was not the revels behind me but the court before me.
