9. WEN

Igape up at Godric, my heart bruising my ribs like a hammer.

This is the first time he truly reminds me of his father.

My steps falter under the brunt of his unknown and terrifying indifference. His widen, and in seconds he’s left me far behind, and overtaken the others.

Forcing myself to move, his words echo in my spinning head.

If you know what’s best for you, you’ll forget it.

Forget it. Forget it.

Yeah, sure. To borrow his sentiment, as if that’s even a possibility with him around.

But I have to, for now. One fate-changing dilemma at a time.

After that Angel Amulet fitting thingie is over, if it doesn’t end in catastrophe, I can dwell on this new messed-up reality, where that Death-incarnate Jr. kissed me, is regretting it, and basically threatened me never to bring it up again. As if there’s any chance in Hell I’m not bringing it up again. Constantly.

As I catch up with the others, Sarah extends an urgent hand and pulls me between her and Jinny, anxious gaze reading my condition. “Everything okay?—?”

“What did he tell you?” Cara’s voice drowns Sarah out, her sullen interjection accompanied by a visual skewer.

Jinny snickers. “He must have started molting as we passed by, and he was ordering her to bathe once in a while.”

I twist my lips at her. “He was actually demanding that I make you floss. The rotten remains of your victims have been stuck in your teeth for months.”

Her grin widens as she rubs her taut midriff and runs her tongue over sharpening pearly whites. “Yeah, it’s been a while since I ate someone.”

And I’m not even sure she’s only rising to my bait.

“What couldn’t he wait to tell you after the Ceremony?” Cara persists, as if she didn’t hear our macabre exchange, her fixation with anything Godric-related unwavering.

Aela stops, turning to glare back at us. “May I remind you we’re heading to the most significant event in our collective lives? Focus on that.”

“How do you suggest we do that, Poultry Princess?” Jinny taunts. “We’re just going to ascend to some fucking stage, and you’re going to don that fucking Amulet so it can fucking read you or whatever it’s supposed to fucking do. There’s fuck all you can do to influence the outcome of said fucking ‘significant event,’ one fucking way or the other.”

Aela purses her lips at Jinny’s barrage of f-bombs, impatience and frustration swirling a golden warning in her violet eyes. “This is a magical test, so only the Archangels know, or probably not even them, what might influence its outcome. Your constant bickering might mess up our dynamic, and the results.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what we need.”

“What did you say?” Aela turns the spotlight of her displeasure on me, her signature exasperation taking on a lethal edge.

Yep. I said that out loud. But if anything can interfere with the Amulet’s ability to get a read on me and Sarah, I’m all for it.

Finding no lie that would make her hate my guts less, I shrug.

Aela’s scowl intensifies before she casts it over the others. “I said it before, but it bears repeating. I’m not jeopardizing the results of the Ceremony because I had the misfortune of being lumped with you belligerent lot, so no more squabbling. In fact, I don’t want to hear another word from any of you until this is over. Understood?”

None of us says a word, as per her order.

With a nod of satisfaction, she turns to stride after Godric and Lorcan, leaving us to waddle in her wake like a queue of misbehaving ducklings.

Minutes later, when we’re halfway to the Assembly Hall, I almost jump out of my skin.

A voice that isn’t a voice has flared inside my skull.

Jinny!

As I barely keep from staggering with the shock of her invasion, her question rings between my ears again, impatient now.

Out with it, White. What did that semi-Celestial bastard tell you?

I yell at her on our creepy private channel, at the top of my disembodied voice. What the Hell, Jinny! You said this damned mental connection we sprouted would go away.

I said no such thing, since I don’t know if it ever will.

Ugh. Now I remember what she did say. That the effects of our blood mingling when Azazel was about to murder us both are probably permanent.

But you did say you never wanted to be in my mess of a mind again.

I don’t. But that fucking archangelspawn upset you.

And you’re what? Worried about my feelings?

Hell, no, but—I don’t know. It made me feel like ripping out his jugular.

You feel that way toward anyone, especially him, by default.

Yeah, but never that fiercely. Also my default is malice, not rage.

Well, cool your Hellfire, Demoncakes. I didn’t snatch you from a black hole only to have you commit suicide. If talking back to Azazel almost got you killed, attacking Godric will surely finish the job.

You think I can’t hold my own against him? Maybe I should demonstrate the next time he looks down his nose at me. I’ll do what you should have done ages ago, and drive my fist through his perfect face.

That makes me do a double take, inside and out.

You think Godric is perfect?

That’s what you got from all I said? But don’t get your ovaries in a twist. There’s no enemies-to-lovers passion in the making here. I’d like nothing more than to tear him open and bathe in his blood.

How delightful, and sanitary. But you still think he’s perfect.

That demi-Celestial dickhead was made that way. As the perfect manifestation of abhorrent Heaven, and the perfect face of utter destruction.

Whoa. That was almost poetic. Didn’t know you had it in you.

You know nothing about me.

Yeah. But I’m getting to the bottom of your deal, Lilithspawn. If we survive this next Heavenly boobytrap, that is.

Good luck with that, Holesucker.

Gah. I should lay off the name calling. It’s a losing game with that demon. I just hope she doesn’t adopt that last one as her new favorite for me.

Hoping she hasn’t heard those thoughts, I transmit more her way. Good luck with surviving, or finding out more about you?

The latter, of course. There’s no way you’re not surviving. You didn’t take on a black hole only for a trinket, angelic or otherwise, to take you out.

Ugh—way to jinx me, Brimstone!

Anything for you, Nothing.

With that, we both wrench away from our mental spat, and I swear I hear something like a door being slammed.

That’s actually the first piece of good news I’ve had today. That our two-way channel can be shut off. And that it’s not a fully-open thing, either. She did have to ask me what happened, and in the Imperium Realm she said she had access to only some of my surface memories.

Still, from past and current examples, she can trespass on my live thoughts whenever she wants. So if there’s a barrier between our psyches, I’d better figure out how to keep it locked from now on.

But preventing that arch-imp from blabbing in my head at her non-existent discretion is a chore that belongs on my post-Ceremony to-do-list. If I ever get to it.

While she seems confident I’ll survive, and I, for once, am not worried about dying, it doesn’t reassure me in the least. Not when Lorcan’s first-day warning has been no exaggeration. That now I’ve breached this world of immortals, death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to me. And I started my morning by proving him right, if in one of the virtual realms I frequent.

Time to find out if that Ceremony won’t end in another worse-than-death fate, for real this time.