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Jareth stiffens mid-step.

Vyxia’s pace does not change, but her fingers curl more firmly around the hilt of her sword. “Is this really the time for a backstory, Remiel?” she asks, her voice dry.

“It beats listening to the sound of our impending doom,” I reply. “Humor me. The last fifty years are a blur in my head. Fill in the blanks.”

Jareth exhales and kicks a skull-sized stone out of our path. It skitters into the mist and disappears without a sound. “Venice. Seventeen hundred and…something. There was a masquerade. Or a riot. I can’t remember which started first.”

She releases a quick breath that might almost pass for a laugh. “It was a riot, Jareth. And you started it.”

“I was creating a distraction,” he says, glancing sideways at her. Old pain flashes across his face. “You two needed a way out.”

“Eryon didn’t need a way out,” she says, her voice quieter now. “He had it handled. And you just had to intervene.”

His step falters. Just for a fraction of a second. “That was because of you!” he snaps, his anger flaring as he turns on her. “You were surrounded by demons while the city burned! I was the one dragging him out of the fire.”

“You were trying to sell me out.” She stops and rounds on him. Her violet eyes are blazing in the gray light. “You were trying to save his wings. I was trying to save my life.”

“And look how well that worked out,” he shoots back, bitterness sharpening every word. “He fell anyway. And who was there to catch him? Not you. You were gone the minute it got too hard. All this time, you did not even know he was under your feet in the dungeons. You have never even tried to look for him.”

Vyxia’s shoulders sag, the fire draining out of her as quickly as it came. “I had a kingdom to save,” she says, almost to herself. “And I knew…that if I stayed that day, none of us would survive.”

They start walking again, the argument left hanging like smoke.

I watch them, the pieces aligning. It was never just a meeting. It was a collision. Two brothers and a woman caught between them. Jareth looks at her as if she is the one woman he despises and the one he can never charm into submission. She looks at him as if he is the embodiment of the choice she still refuses to mourn.

“You both love him,” I breathe. “And you both love her.”

Vyxia stares straight ahead.

But Jareth looks away. “It was messy,” he mutters. “Eryon feels too deeply. Always had. And she…” His gaze flicks to her. “She makes you feel things you shouldn’t. Things Heaven never taught us how to handle.”

“And you?” she asks, not looking at him. “What did you feel?”

“Like I was watching a train wreck. And I was the one driving the train.”

Silence folds back around us as we continue toward the tower.

A heavy feeling settled between them again, dense with the weight of words left unsaid. It feels like standing inside a wound that can never close. The absence of Eryon hangs between us like a fourth body, louder than any argument.

“So, Venice,” I murmur, letting the word drift into the space like a blade carefully sliding back into its sheath.

As we walk, my attention shifts to Vyxia. The gray light of Limbo has stripped away the crimson echo of her father’s realm and left her looking altered, almost fragile. Her bone structure is too sharp, too elegant for a demon—cut with a precision that speaks of something older than Hell’s indulgent cruelty. And her eyes, those shifting violet depths, carry the unstable hue of twilight.

“You do not look like him,” I say, the observation rising unbidden. “You have his defiance, but you do not look Hell born.”

Her expression tightens, though I sense a flicker of relief beneath it. “That is because I take after my mother,” she replies.

“I have seen demons, Vyxia. Killed them,” I say quietly, studying the lines of her face. “You are not one. At least not fully. Cassia said you are part fae, but looking at you now…you are seelie.”

Jareth falls silent beside us, his gaze fixed on her profile.

She continues walking, her eyes locked on the tower ahead. “Yes, I am from the Seelie Court,” she says at last, the words heavy with distaste. “The court of light. The timeless halls.” She spits into the gray dust without breaking stride. “A tomb with stained-glass windows.”

“All I know is the seelie locked themselves away,” I say. “Barricaded their realm from the rest of us centuries ago. If you are seelie, you should be sealed in with them. So…how are you here?”

“I was born before the doors closed,” she answers distantly. “I was born when the realms still sat together at the tribunal. Before fear took hold.”

“Fear of what?”