Chapter 30

Rosabel La Rouge

Everything happened so fast.

The door exploded and they threw Taland, Seth, Bes and the other guard to the ground within a second. My instincts had already taken over and I was moving before I realized it. So many details were lost to me, but when the ground stopped shaking and I managed to keep my balance, I ran to Taland and fell to my knees, grabbed him and pulled him to the side until I saw his face. I could have sworn his left eye wasn’t so swollen anymore, and he was perfectly alert, pushing himself up when I pulled him until he was sitting on the floor, squeezing my hand tightly.

“Keep the bracelet,” he whispered under his breath, and he looked fucking terrified.

“Breathe,” I kept saying. “Just breathe—you’re okay, you’re okay…”

“Keep the bracelet—look at me.” His cold hand wrapped around my face.

Dust everywhere and Seth was already on his feet, and someone was laughing, too, but all I could focus on was Taland.

“Keep the bracelet. Use it.”

“Taland,” I said, because there was no time to say everything that was on my mind, and to show him how scared I was, how angry that he’d come here without me, that he’d left me, that he hadn’t told me, how happy I was that he was alive, that I’d gotten to him on time.

The look in his eyes shifted the next second and he squeezed my face between his fingers. “ Survive.” It was a damn order.

Then the dust settled halfway.

“Would you look at that,” said the voice of a man.

“If it isn’t Alejandro Amizz himself.” A woman.

I looked up to find both of them by the door they’d blown off its hinges, calm and smiling, with wands in their hands and glowing blue light hanging over their heads in circles—like fucking halos.

The laughter continued for another moment—the Devil.

Seth grabbed Taland by the arm and pulled him to his feet, and I followed, having no clue what the hell was going on still.

But then I found Hakim with his arms raised and Bes and the other guards had made it to their feet, too, shaking their heads to clear out the confusion.

We were all covered in dust, but we were all alive. Taland was right there beside me, and on his other side was Seth, and we were alive.

Then the Devil spoke.

“The little mischiefs,” he said, his hands in his pockets still. The woman who was still sitting on that recliner had dropped her book again and was watching. “Welcome, welcome, I suppose. Welcome, Zachary, Aurelia. You could have just knocked, though.”

“We figured we’d make an entrance. We know you love drama,” said the woman—Aurelia, and she didn’t sound worried in the least, even though there was a wand in her hand ready to fire.

“You got me!” said the Devil, and he raised his hands and laughed.

Then her eyes landed on me.

I stopped breathing. “You must be Rosabel.”

Yes, I am, I thought, and Taland’s hand around mine squeezed, but I had no clue what he meant by it, whether he wanted me to engage in the conversation or not.

I did, anyway. “Who are you?” I asked because I needed to know what the hell we were up against before I could make an escape plan. Before I could figure out the best way to get the hell out of here and let these grownups talk—I had no issue with that. Let them talk, and we’d be out of their hair in no time.

But it wasn’t meant to be.

“Apologies for barging in like this—the door refused to let us through,” the man by her side said.

“This is my brother Zach,” the woman said, nodding her head at him and trying to appear at ease, but she was fully alert of everyone’s movements, too. “And I’m Aurelia Mergenbach. Pleased to finally meet you. We’ve heard a great deal.”

The Mergenbach siblings.

It was them, the same people who ran Selem with Taland’s brothers.

“I feel left out.”

We all turned to the Devil, who was still by that veil on the other side, pouting. A grown ass man pouting, but it was only to try to hide the anger his eyes reflected.

“We’re just here to pick up Rosabel and Taland—and Seth,” Zachary said, raising a brow at Taland’s brother. “We won’t bother you much.”

“We’ll be out in no time, and of course, your door will be as good as new before we leave,” said Aurelia, waving at the pieces of that sliding door she now stepped on. Behind them where the corridor was supposed to be was only darkness—which struck me as odd.

“I’d appreciate that very much,” said the Devil, and he began to pace forward and back, while the three men still stood in front of that veil with their hands raised, Bes and the other guard with guns in their hands, too, ready to attack. Sweating just as much as me.

“However,” the Devil continued. “We were in the middle of something when you came, Rosabel and I. I’d tell you to wait in the lobby while we finish, but something tells me you’ll want to stay.”

“We want to leave, actually. Right now,” said Zachary, and his smile wasn’t as wide, and his blue eyes weren’t as cheerful as a moment ago. He had sandy blonde hair and a sharp jawline, a crooked nose and a lot of muscle underneath a baby-blue shirt, whereas his sister was petite. They shared the same hair, though hers was longer and braided, the same blue yes, and the same energy—you could tell they were related at a glance.

“No can do, I’m afraid,” said the Devil. He wasn’t pouting nor smiling anymore.

I wondered, how much longer until these people stopped pretending that they didn’t know what the hell was happening here, and got to the fucking point? Why were they even wasting time with chitchat?

I looked at Taland, but he was focused on the Devil, and instinctively he began to pull me behind him, as if he couldn’t see the state he was in.

In fact, he did look a bit better, and I realized why when Seth, who’d chosen to stay behind him, raised his fingers toward Taland’s back and black flames came out of them, straight into Taland’s bloody and bruised skin.

He was healing him.

“You see, when you came through just now and broke my door, Rosabel was in the process of paying me for the life of the Tivoux boy—the bloody one.” He waved his finger toward us and I wanted to wave my middle ones at him, too. If I were less afraid, I would have. “He failed to deliver on his promise, and I made a new deal with Rosabel because I am a generous man. You can leave, mind you, and don’t even mind the door you ruined, but after I am paid what I am owed.”

The tension in the room was so thick I could feel it coating my throat like honey. They still kept those smiles up, the Devil and the Mergenbachs, but they could all see in one another’s eyes that they were on edge. Just as much as we were.

Taland made an attempt to pull me back again, but I refused—he did look better, and maybe Seth had done a couple of healing spells on him, but I doubted he even had an anchor on him. I doubted these people had allowed him to keep it—he’d been chained to the fucking wall.

So, no, I didn’t step back. I just squeezed his hand tightly and gave him a look, one he would understand perfectly. I was not going anywhere.

“From what I understand, you wanted the script of Perria that is currently being held in the Vault of the IDD Headquarters in Baltimore,” Aurelia said, and shivers ran down my back.

How in the fuck did she know that?

Cassie, I figured. Cassie had finally managed to talk to her cousins.

Aurelia and her brother stepped down from the rubble, wands still in hand—and damn, they didn’t look afraid in the least. They couldn’t have been much older than thirty, if that, but they didn’t bat an eye at the sight of the Devil or his men. And those blue halos were still burning over their heads for some reason, while I had no clue what they even were.

Or what Perria was.

“Maybe,” the Devil said.

“And you got Taland here to agree to get it for you in exchange for his freedom,” Zachary said.

The Devil raised his head. “Correct.”

“And you also failed to mention to Taland exactly what the script of Perria was when you made him vow to never tell a soul about it. Because you knew his brothers would know. You knew we would know,” said Aurelia, and she was sounding more and more pissed off with every word, though you couldn’t tell by just looking at her.

The Devil laughed—the sound of it rough, less… controlled than before. Like he was no longer trying as hard to pretend to be held together.

“How very clever of you two to put it all together. I bet you think you’re smart,” the Devil said. “But yes—that is exactly what happened. However, the boy didn’t deliver, and now his girlfriend is here with an offering. I will take that offering so you may leave.”

“An offering, huh,” Aurelia said. Her eyes slowly scrolled down my body and stopped on my other hand where the bracelet was still between my fingers.

Fuck.

Slowly, when she took her eyes off me, I put the bracelet back around my wrist as Taland watched, his eye no longer swollen at all. Only the bruises remained.

“The offering being another thing related to the Delaetus Army…am I right?”

Every inch of my body froze when Aurelia spoke again, her unblinking eyes on the Devil, who, for once wasn’t smiling, just looking at her.

And my brain malfunctioned— another thing related to the Delaetus Army?

What the actual fuck?

“Oh, younglings,” said the Devil, shaking his head. “You think you know it all, when in reality…”

“We know plenty,” said Zachary. “And most importantly, we know that you can’t have that bracelet.”

This made the Blackfire laugh again. A short laugh, and when he stopped, he finally pulled his hands from his pockets, as if to show us the two feathers between his fingers. “I can have pretty much anything I want, I’m afraid,” he said, and my stomach sank, and my instinct reacted all at once, nearly blinding me. “And right now, I want you all to stay right here .”

Taland pulled me back by the hand hard. “ Move!” he shouted, and he made to basically throw me toward the door, toward the Mergenbach siblings who were shouting, too, their wands raised, their mouths full of Iridian words, but…

It was too late.

There I was in the midst of the chaos, with screams in my ears and magic in my nostrils, in my lungs, and I had no fucking clue what was going on here—none. But I knew beyond a doubt that it was too late for everything. We were already screwed, all of us, whether it be from the Devil or the siblings—it didn’t matter.

We were fucking screwed.

Blackfire magic slammed against Bluefire right before my eyes. Taland had tried to push me, but neither he nor I nor Seth had a chance. The explosion picked us up like we weighed nothing and threw us against the floor. I wanted to remain conscious, wanted to understand what the hell was going on, why the Mergenbachs had been so panicked, why the Devil had laughed that way—I really wanted to see that Taland was near me, that he was okay. But the darkness claimed me before the pain of that fall registered, and I didn’t see or hear anything at all.

White nose in my head, but sometimes it felt like a voice was coming from far, far away.

Sometimes it was coming in slowly, and sometimes incredibly fast. Sometimes I felt like I was wide awake, and sometimes like I’d been unconscious for years.

All of it must have happened within a minute or two, though. All those thoughts and those feelings because, when those voices became more persistent and my eyes opened, I saw movement in front of me—the Mergenbach siblings making it to their feet, and Taland pushing himself to sit up, reaching a hand for me.

Taland.

As soon as the memory of him bleeding and bruised and chained came back to me, I was wide awake and I realized, all those voices weren’t coming from far away—it was my ears that hadn’t been clear until now. The room we were in had changed since the last time I was conscious, and that laughter, those words in Spanish that I couldn’t understand, had a hold over me even when Taland pulled me up. Seth was there, too, to help me keep my balance.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell,” he was saying, and I had no clue how to answer because I was asking that same thing myself in my head.

But Taland’s hand was on my face and he was looking down at my body to see if I was okay, as if I was the one half naked and covered in dirt and dry blood and bruises.

“I’m fine,” I thought I said and tried to blink fast, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus.

“What the hell did you promise him?” Seth was hissing. “Did you know? Did you fucking know?! Don’t lie to me, Taland!”

“I didn’t,” Taland said, barely glancing at him. “I didn’t know. He said it was for a spell—I didn’t know it had anything to do with Perria.”

“What the fuck is Perria?!” I said because my head was going to explode any second and I didn’t understand anything and I needed to be able to think clearly.

“The valley where the Delaetus Army was supposedly buried under a mountain,” Taland said. “I didn’t know that script he had me steal had something to do with it.”

I shook my head, even more confused. “But what does the Devil have to do with the Delaetus Army?” Because he was a criminal, a very powerful mage who ran the prisoners at Tomb Penitentiary, who could help people escape and who could somehow rule an entire neighborhood from his prison cell—but that’s it . That’s all the Devil was…wasn’t he?

The way the brothers looked at one another, then at me, I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer.

“No fucking clue,” said Seth.

“I don’t know, but he has us in the Blackrealm, and we need to find a way out,” Taland said.

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute.” How had I not passed out again yet? “ Where does he have us? And you better have an explanation for that word, Taland.” He couldn’t just say Blackrealm and expect me to understand what the hell that meant. Didn’t he realize how very new all of this was to me?

“How do you not know what the Blackrealm is?” Seth hissed at me. “I thought you were an IDD agent.”

And I had been, only it was starting to look like someone had deliberately gone to great lengths to keep me ignorant on most things—what other explanation made sense?

“It’s a sort of limbo, a dark space between dimensions that Blackfire can access. A very small number of them,” Taland said before I could answer. “We are basically stuck in a timeless place and we can’t leave unless he lets us go.”

I shook my head again and again, but what could I even say? What words could I choose that would make any of this better?

“He’s not as powerful as he used to be,” Seth whispered. “He can’t keep us here for long. Radock said he stays away from it now whenever he can—he’s not as powerful as he used to be.” He was talking to himself more than us, but I prayed he was right with my whole being.

“Regardless,” Taland said. “We need to figure out weak spots—if we do, we can break out while they’re still dealing with one another.” Then he grabbed Seth by the jacket and brought him closer. “You let her come here, you fool, and you will be paying for that, but right now you have to understand that she comes first. She gets out of here first—safely.”

“Taland,” I said because there simply was no time to smack him in the head right now, but Seth didn’t even let me speak.

“In case you didn’t notice, she’s very stubborn.” Seth pushed Taland’s hand off. “And I’m afraid I’m in no position to stop her when she’s more powerful than all of us. My own damn fault that I came with, though.”

“For fuck’s sake, are you two serious?” I spit, and maybe the IDD had taught us that talking before the mission was over was a fatal, unacceptable mistake, but they had to know, too, how true that was. They had to know how much time we were wasting. “Stop talking and start searching for weak spots!” Because if I said all that was on my mind right now, we’d be here a while.

Taland opened his mouth to speak, but I said, “Don’t. Just show me how to search for weak spots. Move. ” If he thought his life was something to gamble with the way he’d done when he came here by himself, he was in for the surprise of his life.

Finally, a ghost of a smile stretched the corner of his lips just for a little bit. “When we get out…” he whispered.

“Yes— when we get out , you can do whatever you want to me. Right now, just move!”

He did. Finally, Taland made it to his feet, and by then Seth was standing, too, and he held my hand and pulled me up.

Whatever the hell this Blackrealm was, the room had changed because the walls that had been solid and unmoving on both sides of the veil of magic were spinning.

They were spinning, and sometimes they disappeared, or became transparent, and behind them was nothing but darkness, and the lights in the room had dimmed a bit as well, if my eyes could be trusted.

But the Devil was standing, and Hakim and the other guard were still struggling to keep their balance, while Bes had yet to make it to his feet. He was on all fours, throwing up, and if I wasn’t so afraid, I’d have probably been nauseous, too, because it sometimes felt like the floor was spinning just as fast as the walls.

“You shouldn’t have, old man,” said Zachary after a moment, breathing heavily, and the halo over his head was gone. Aurelia, who was pushing her braid behind her shoulder, no longer had hers, either, but their wands were still in their hands, and the siblings looked pissed.

“Now, we’ll forever know how to find you,” said Aurelia, and she was smiling, but it was full of malice.

Goddess, she looked pure evil right now.

“Oh, no worries,” said the Devil, playing with the feathers between his fingers. “I’m not planning to let you leave here at all.”

Meanwhile Taland was stepping back, closer to the walls, and they spun so fast I thought they might cut off his hand if he kept reaching it out like that.

I went closer, grabbed his wrist and pulled him back, but…

“It’s fine,” he mouthed, his eyes on the Devil. “I’m only searching.”

“How?” I asked because Seth was a bit farther away, and he was reaching out his hand for the spinning wall, too, and I had to bite my tongue not to call for him to step back.

“Feel the magic,” Taland said. “Feel where it’s weakest.”

“And then?”

“Then, we attack the weak spot,” Taland whispered, a second before Zachary spoke again.

“You can’t keep this up forever, and I’m sorry to tell you that you can’t really kill us, old man.”

The sharp laugh that came from the Devil made me flinch, but I stepped back, too, closer to the wall, and I reached my hand back as far as I could, but the magic was everywhere. So much of it spread in the air that it had become heavy, almost unbreathable.

“ Old man, he says,” the Devil muttered, shaking his head. “You younglings don’t know, do you. And I am tired—so tired of watching you and seeing what is right in front of your eyes that you refuse to acknowledge and using it to best you at your own games, your own rules.” He stopped and looked Zachary straight in the eye. “You have no idea what goes on in the world you live in, in your own organization—and you call me old ?”

The way both Zachary and Aurelia stopped at the same second, completely frozen in place. For a moment, it seemed everybody in the room held their breaths, and when I turned to look at Taland, I found him with his brows narrowed as he stared at the Devil, too.

He then looked back at the siblings, and they had their eyes on him, too. Him and Seth.

Wait a minute…

My heart all but stopped. My lips parted, my spell ready, the most powerful spell I knew with the least number of words, because the Mergenbachs were looking at Taland and Seth like they were… suspicious . And if they attacked us now, if everybody attacked everybody in this fucking place, what the hell was going to happen to all of us?!

Except before anybody had a chance to call for their magic, the Devil laughed and said, “Oh, no, don’t look at those boys. They’re perfectly innocent—and powerless. No, I do not mean them, younglings. I mean someone else. Someone far more powerful.”

Again, everyone in the room just stopped. Froze. Held their breaths.

“The thing is that, as much as it sometimes pains me to admit, I am old. I’m old, and that does not mean that I cannot keep running the show any longer—I can.” The conviction with which he spoke left no room for doubt. “What it does mean, though, is that I am willing to retire— if the circumstances are right, of course. And I had a plan for that, a very good plan, a plan I’ve been seeing through since you two were still teenagers.” The Devil had stopped now, on his side of the veil, which seemed to not make a difference at all when it came to him reaching us with his magic. I was dying to know exactly how he was able to do that, but right now I just held my breath and continued to try to feel the magic that spun those walls all around us.

The problem was the magic was equally powerful everywhere. It was so much, so thick, like a brick wall that went on and on for days. Impenetrable.

“What are you talking about?” Zachary finally whispered, and Aurelia grabbed him by the hand because he was walking closer to the Devil, ignoring Hakim and the other men completely like they weren’t even there.

“Zach,” Aurelia called, and her eyes moved to us for a moment, and I could have sworn she was afraid now. She was terrified.

“No—I need to know what he’s talking about. What plan?”

I turned to Seth, then Taland, and he looked at me, too. Shook his head once, the question clear in his eyes as I imagined it was clear in mine— what the hell are they talking about?!

“You see, I didn’t plan to talk to anybody about this until the time was right, but that’s the beauty of Life. The only thing we should expect is uncertainty. Change. She has a way of fucking up one’s plans and doing what she wants, Life. I adore her for it, even if it’s a pain in the ass.” He drew in a deep breath. “You see, when I first started creating my retirement plan, I was still in my thirties. I knew I’d get here eventually, and I wanted to be prepared. That’s why I waited and watched and gathered. That’s why I know now what you have in your house better than you do.”

“For fucks’ sake— speak .” This from Aurelia, and she was just as pissed as Zachary.

Taland grabbed my arm and pulled me back because I must have gone closer without even realizing it.

“Patience, youngling. That is why nobody gets anywhere anymore— patience. They lack it. Deny it when it is such a big part of life. But I had it, embraced it, and that is how I discovered the plans of a mastermind much like myself. I knew what he was trying to do all along, and I’ve been following, waiting, putting the pieces together so that when he strikes, I help him. So that when he wins, I win, too.”

The Devil stopped. My head was pretty much mashed potatoes by now, so I didn’t even try to figure anything out. I just waited. We all did.

“At first, I wanted the veler that he needed, but he was faster than me. Better equipped at getting it in his own hands.” His eyes moved to Taland.

“What did you just say?” I asked because a part of me, a small part of me actually understood what he was saying, and I didn’t want to accept it. Didn’t want to believe it. I just didn’t want to.

He grinned, the asshole, because he knew. “The veler that was in your school. He was never going to let the boy actually steal it. He just wanted a reason to bring it close to him, close to where he could access it any time he pleased. He just wanted a reason to distract the Council, that’s all.”

Silence in my mind.

I saw the scene, saw the whole thing—how I’d gone to that school, how we’d danced in the Feast of Hope, how I’d hit Taland on the head with that candleholder…

I remembered all the times I’d looked at that file, all the times I’d wondered why Taland had wanted the veler, why they hadn’t just taken it to the Vault in the first place—why keep it in a damn school?!

“So, that part of the plan failed. Then I had to get creative. I had to figure out what more he needed, and unfortunately, the only thing I could do was take something he already has, and use that to negotiate my terms.”

Oh, how he smiled…

“Who—” Aurelia exploded, but I couldn’t help myself when the Devil locked eyes with me. When he saw right into my mind and knew that I knew.

“Hill,” I said, and the word sort of fell from my lips like I hadn’t meant to say it. Like it slipped accidentally.

The Mergenbach siblings turned to me. Taland was suddenly there, too.

“Hill,” I repeated, this time clearly. “He means David Hill.”

Of course, he meant David Hill—Taland and I had already figured that he was up to something. That he wasn’t who he said he was—and of course he wasn’t! Since the first time I laid eyes on that man, I knew. The way he used his smile to hide everything he felt—I knew. The way my grandmother, the biggest monster I knew at the time, was almost afraid of him—I knew.

But I’d chosen to ignore it because it had made no sense.

“That’s…” Zachary started.

“Impossible,” Aurelia finished. “Why would he—no, no, impossible .”

“Hmm—is it?” said the Devil. “Well, good thing I invited him over so he can tell you all about it himself!”

What the…

The Devil laughed. The spinning stopped abruptly. Every person who’d been standing ended up on the floor, myself included. The vase with those flowers was on the floor, broken, the table, the chairs against the wall on the other side, the piano in pieces.

Then the magic shifted, and before any of us had the chance to make it to our feet, something fell right in the middle of the long room.

David Hill was on one knee, breathing heavily, looking completely disoriented, and he wasn’t smiling when he locked eyes with the Devil.

“Hello, old friend,” the Devil said. “You’re just in time for tea.”