Chapter 65

65

Farryn

Three months later …

Hunched over the desk in Aunt Nelle’s old office, I flipped through pages upon pages of my father’s journals. For weeks, I’d studied them, searching for his notes on how to bring a soul back from Ex Nihilo. After all, according to Drystan, my father had been the one to return him from the nothingness. I’d gone through every journal at least a dozen times, though, and all I’d gleaned was that the symbol branded on my arm was a sigil which had been stolen from an ancient Pri’scucian language. In my father’s notes, he mentioned that the Pentacrux had swiped it centuries ago, but its meaning still remained a mystery to me.

I needed to return.? The threat of Barchiel finding me, of hunting me there, still lingered in the back of my mind, and I’d be a fool to put my unborn baby at risk. But there wasn’t enough information at my fingertips to bring Jericho back. My father had taken a lifetime to study and understand it, and I didn’t have that kind of time.?Jericho wouldn’t have given up on me, he’d have never accepted such finality, and therefore, I refused to give up on him.

My father could’ve undoubtedly helped me, but if he’d forgotten all his memories, as I suspected he would have, it would pose a very real barrier. Even if he recognized me, it didn’t guarantee that he’d remember a lifetime of work. At the very least, though, I knew he was in Nightshade.

Setting the journal aside, I exited the office and hurried to get dressed.

I needed to see Xhiphias again.

* * *

Standing in the misty alleyway, I raised my hand to knock on the heavy, iron door, when it swung back on its own.

Xhiphias stood in its frame, brow quirked. “Well, well. Look who returned.”

“Should I thank you for that?”

“I’m curious how you accomplished it.”

“I’m sure you are. So, I’ll tell you my secrets, if you’ll tell me yours.”

“I’m not that curious.” He pushed the door to close it, but I pushed back.

“Please, Xhiphias. I didn’t come here to chastise. I need your help.”

“And I don’t care.” He slammed the door with a hard thunk that echoed down the alleyway and through the hollow parts of my heart.

I banged on the door again. Waited. Banged again. And waited again.

I waited a few minutes more. Paced in front of the door, the anxiety spinning like a vortex in the pit of my gut. I felt like a lunatic, standing there, in an empty alley, begging him to let me in. I knocked again. No answer.

The opportunity flitted from my grasp. I was lost and sinking deeper and deeper.

I fell to my knees.

And I finally broke.

Hands lodged into my hair, I fought the urge to sob on his doorstep. I knew I was crazy, even if I’d spent the last few months trying to convince myself that I wasn’t.

I didn’t know what else to do, though. Where to go. Jericho’s return, however impossible it might’ve been, depended on me.

I had reached the blackest of the abyss, and the only flicker of light had been snuffed with the slamming of that door.

Resting my forehead against the cold metal, I closed my eyes. “Please, Xhiphias,” I whispered, certain he couldn’t hear me. “If he doesn’t return to me, I don’t know what I’ll do. The baby that grows inside of me is his.”

Seconds ticked.

A loud clicking signaled the lock on the door.

I stepped back just as it swung open again, to find Xhiphias standing there as before, eyes narrowed.

“Whose?”

“Van Croix’s.”

“You are pregnant with Van Croix’s child, too?” Disbelief colored his tone in a way that had me convinced that Xhiphias didn’t expect me to return, at all, let alone pregnant.

“Yes.”

A flicker of confusion crossed his face. “And he knows of this child?”

“Yes.”

With a sigh, he crossed his arms, stroking his chin as if studying me. “You look like Death yourself.” Lips flat, he stared back at me for a moment, then stepped aside. “Come.”

I followed him in, and he guided me toward the pillows around the bonfire. The warmth felt good, but failed to fully penetrate the cold exterior that had clung to me for months. Taking a seat on one of the pillows, I watched him prepare a pipe, which he eventually lit, before sitting across the bonfire from me.

“I need to go back.”

A quick dip of his gaze toward my stomach, and he took a puff of his pipe. “I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Even if the baby is half Sentinel?”

Brow quirked, he paused his smoking. “You carry a Sentinel inside of you?”

Much as I was hesitant to say, not knowing the dynamic between demons and Sentinels, I answered for the sake of keeping his interest. “Yes.”

“Interesting.” He resumed his smoking and leaned back on one of the pillows behind him. “I wouldn’t know, then. I’ve never known someone to carry a Sentinel.”

“But there’s a chance it could hurt the baby?”

“Ordinarily, nothing survives the crossing. You seem to be the exception.”

Yanking up my sleeve, I showed him the branding on my arm, as I had before. “My father studied this symbol relentlessly, and I want to know what it means.”

“I told you once, I want nothing to do—”

“Please. Just tell me what you can.”

Rolling his eyes, he huffed. “Fine. It is an ancient Pri’scucian sigil.”

“Yes, I know that much. The Pentacrux stole the symbol, right?”

“I believe that’s how the story goes.”

“What does it mean? Does it translate to anything?”

Tipping his head, he narrowed his eyes on me. “You are asking very dangerous questions, Miss Ravenshaw.”

“I need answers.”

“I’m afraid you’ve exhausted all of my answers. I want nothing to do with that symbol, or what it means.”

I pulled the coin that’d fallen out of the book on the ferry. As much as it hurt to hand it over to him, I’d have given him whatever he asked for, if it meant he could help me. I had no idea what it was worth, but when Xhiphias’s eyes lit up and he straightened on the pillow, a sliver of hope blossomed inside of me. “I. Need. Answers.”

“Do you even know what that is worth?”

“Not particularly.”

“I’d have to slave for centuries for souls, just to make that kind of coin.”

“Give me what I want, and it’s yours.”

He shook his head, pointing skyward. “If they find out that I told you anything about what you’re asking, I’d be the next to be shipped off to Ex Nihilo.”

“Who is they?” I asked.

“The powers that be. The Heavenly Ones.”

“Sentinels.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve fallen out of touch with them. Tell me what the symbol means.”

Rubbing a hand across his forehead, he groaned. “Creation from nothing. It is the very symbol for Ex Nihilo. It comes from the Sigiliuz de’tei, a Pri’scucian grimoire, but is one of the lesser known, as it is very dangerous magic.”

“It’s true, then! It does bring someone back from Ex Nihilo.”

“Yes. It can raise ancient spirits and bring back those in Ex Nihilo. In the wrong hands, it is, perhaps, the deadliest weapon to mankind.”

“How?” I scrambled forward onto my knees, the excitement hammering through my blood. For months, I’d lived alone with my misery, having had absolutely no one, beside Camael, to talk to about it. No one who wouldn’t look at me like I needed to commit myself, anyway. “How do I bring someone back?”

“That, I do not know. Its translation is forbidden for my kind.”

“I won’t tell anyone you helped me. Please.”

“I am not withholding, Miss Ravenshaw. I truly do not know its translation. Only an angel can read and understand its true meaning.”

“But my father did. He brought someone back.”

“And some humans have translated all of the Enochian language, as well. They are not held to the same laws. But demons are forbidden. To read those words aloud would seal my fate. You must find an angel to translate for you.”

The disappointment of his words weighed heavy on my shoulders. “Find an angel? Where?”

“You will soon bear a Sentinel. One day he, or she, could translate it for you. The language is innate for them. Of course, it may take a while. Most natural-born do not come into their power until later in life. Some, well into adulthood.”

“I don’t have that kind of time! And it took my father his entire lifetime to figure out the translation.” I sank my fingers into my hair and took long, easy breaths, desperate to keep it together.

“Did your father brand you with that sigil?”

“No.” I didn’t bother to look at him, but stared off. “Apparently, I’m reincarnated from a girl who lived centuries ago. Cursed. Was, anyway. Guess my pregnancy broke the curse.”

“And the girl before you?”

“She perished. A prophecy about the blood moon. I don’t really understand it, to be honest.”

He puffed on his pipe, the expression on his face contemplative. “If the girl was cursed, then it is entirely possible that an angel broke the curse of her mother before her.”

“As I understand, one did. So, then, that would make Lustina half angel?”

“She would have had to be.”

“Jericho never mentioned that. He only told me that Lustina’s mother carried the curse.”

“Perhaps, as I said before, the girl had not yet come into her power.”

“But my mother wasn’t cursed, as far as I know. She didn’t die on a blood moon.”

“Not every generation is. As you are the reborn, the curse would reawaken in you. Lustina is her name? Her grandmother may not have been cursed, either. It’s only a guess, of course. But it’s entirely possible that Lustina’s father was an angel.”

The first pangs of a headache needled my skull with the puzzle I wasn’t entirely grasping. “??So, what does all this mean?”

“It means you have a small, albeit distant, connection to her father. He might be able to help you. Certainly a better option than risking your life and the baby’s by traversing back to Nightshade. Who knows what would happen now that the curse is broken? Your physical body might not survive the next time.”

“How? Do I summon him?”

“I wouldn’t. Angels become upset that way. They don’t like being ripped from their existence to chat with ignorant mortals. But if you learn his name, I can find him for you.”

“How?”

“I happen to possess a scrying mirror.”

“You’re asking me to track down the name of Lustina’s deadbeat angel dad? I’m not sure it gets any more impossible than that.”

With a shrug, he puffed his pipe and blew the smoke off. “I’d start with the name of Lustina’s mother.”

“The woman existed centuries ago. It’s not like I can Google it. How the hell am I supposed to figure that out?”

“You are Lustina, are you not?”