Chapter 34

Iyla

RINGING FILLED MY EARS. I groaned and rolled over in bed, fumbling on my nightstand for my phone.

Huh. Bed. How did I get here?

I didn’t remember going to bed or falling asleep. I didn’t even know what time it was. One look at my phone had me shooting upright, though. It was the next morning, and Noya’s name flashed on my phone. The pit in my stomach instantly opened up, and I placed a shaking hand over my mouth to keep the bile from rising up my throat. If she was calling me, that could only mean …

“Hello?” I answered. My heartbeat pounded furiously in my ears, and I worried I wouldn’t be able to hear her.

“Iyla!” Noya’s frantic whisper filled the other end of the phone. “I’m not supposed to be calling you. I could definitely get fired for this, but you need to get down here. Gemma—She’s—”

“What?” I croaked. I bunched the comforter so tightly in my hand that my knuckles turned white. “She’s what?”

“She’s … alive .”

My heart stopped, and my mind emptied. I was sure I’d misunderstood.

“Just get down here,” Noya repeated. “You’ll see what I mean.”

There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation. I sprang from my bed and fumbled to pull on my shoes. I was still in my leggings and sweatshirt from the day before, but I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t stop to brush my hair or do any basic morning care. I called for Zagan as I ran through the house, but when he didn’t immediately appear, I just kept going and ran for his car.

I couldn’t seem to catch my breath as I drove, and my hands shook against the steering wheel. I called Zagan as I drove, but when he didn’t answer, I left him a message, letting him know what Noya said. Though, I still didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Was she offering me hope in knowing that, for now, Gemma lived? Or was she stressing something else to me? I didn’t know, and that confusion had me pressing harder on the gas pedal.

I got to Bloomings in record time, and it was only from muscle memory that I had enough sense to put the car in park and turn it off before barreling for the doors. In the back of my mind, I remembered that Mom had dismissed me from the approved guest list, but I couldn’t be bothered with that right now. Not when something was happening with Gemma.

I ran through the halls, looking every which way for Noya, and I finally spotted her coming down the hall from the sunroom.

Her brown eyes brightened when she saw me, and her pace quickened to meet me. “You’re here! She’s in the sunroom. Your—”

I didn’t stop to listen. I couldn’t. I ran with my heart in my throat and dread in my veins. What could be happening?

Even when I saw Mom and Dr. Seward standing just outside the partly closed sunroom doors, I kept going. When they both swiveled their heads at my fast approach, I shot past them, only stopping at the cracked door. I worked to catch my breath, but the moment I peered beyond the door, I froze instead.

Gemma laughed as she spun in a wide circle in the center of the room, throwing her stuffed dragon into the air and leaping around to catch it. The gray of her complexion had all but vanished, giving way to skin that looked like it spent everyday being kissed by the sun. Her hair, which hung flat and lifeless just yesterday, looked like freshly melted chocolate and bounced with volume as she spun. Even her wiry frame had filled out overnight with definition in muscles and power that hadn’t been there in years.

My hands shook as they covered my trembling lips. Once again, I was sure I was dreaming.

“Iyla.”

I looked back at Dr. Seward and Mom at the sound of the doctor’s whisper. He passed a hesitant and nervous look at Mom, no doubt recalling her outburst from yesterday.

Mom stared at me with some cold, bitter expression. She looked past me through the cracked door where Gemma seemed none the wiser to our presence as she did a cartwheel—a fucking cartwheel . When Mom turned back to me, her face had gone blank. She nodded to Dr. Seward and grumbled, “It’s fine. Keep going. How did this happen?”

I took Mom’s indifference as a sign that I was okay to drift closer and hear the doctor’s response, which was exactly what I did. I stared at Dr. Seward and hung on his every word as he passed a bewildered look between Mom and I.

“As I was saying,” Dr. Seward explained, “she was on a fast decline this past week, with yesterday spelling out the worst. We were preparing for that when this morning, she woke up, and—” He stopped and looked through the doors behind us in awe. “I-I don’t like to use the ‘M’ word, because there’s always a medical explanation, but right now, all I can say is it’s … a miracle.”

Dr. Seward immediately launched into reassuring Mom that he was going to be doing plenty of tests and keeping Gemma under careful observation for the time being, but I’d tuned him out, my eyes trained on Gemma through the door again.

Miracle? No.

This wasn’t a miracle.

This was Zagan. I knew it was. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but it didn’t matter.

My demon had saved my sister’s life.

I broke away from Mom and the doctor to drift into the sunroom. Gemma saw me, and my shattered heart began to reassemble when I saw the brightness in her eyes and smile. She ran toward me, and I fell to my knees with my arms open wide, letting her crash into me. I clenched my jaw in an effort to keep from crying, and for the first time in so, so long, I hugged her. I squeezed and pulled her into me as hard as I could, clutching onto her with every bit of fear, hope, grief, relief, and love that I had in me.

“I can’t believe you’re okay,” I sniffled against her hair. I squeezed again.

She pulled back to look at me, and her smile never faltered as she wiped my tears away. “Isn’t it amazing? It’s like magic, Iyla! I’ve never felt so strong and good before!”

I bit my lip, trying not to let my growing glee slip out as thankful sobs. “It is like magic, huh?”

She took my hands. “I hope now that I’m all better, you can be happier, too. I know you’ve had a hard time because of my being sick. So be happy now, okay? With piano and with Zagan.”

At the mention of his name, something hot and intense filled my chest. It bubbled inside me like carbonation rising up in a soda bottle. It was light, fierce, and all-consuming, and the urge to release the building emotion became impossible to ignore.

I took one long hard look at Gemma, memorizing her lively features. I thought she was lost. I thought yesterday would be it. But she’d been saved, and those features I thought were gone were ones I could see everyday now. She wasn’t going anywhere.

With a smile, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I need to go find Zagan, but I’ll be back, okay?”

She nodded. “Bring him with you when you come back! I want him to see all I can do now!”

With a promise to return with him in tow, I quickly got to my feet and raced back out the door. My mind spun with thoughts of him, and my smile grew wider with each one. I couldn’t deny what I was feeling anymore. His saving Gemma made it all too clear, and it was time I told him.

The door to Bloomings shut behind me, and as I stepped off the sidewalk, it opened behind me again. “Iyla!”

I stopped midstep. The cloud I floated on nearly blew away, but not even the sound of Mom’s voice could destroy what had built inside me. I slowly turned and looked at her.

She searched me with a sort of caution and fidgeted where she stood by the door. “I wanted to speak to you.”

She’d said plenty the last time we spoke. I didn’t know what she could possibly add to hurt me at this point. Still, I didn’t say anything. I just stared at her and waited for whatever nonsense she had to say.

Clearing her throat, she looked down at her feet. I’d never seen my mom this out-of-sorts, this conflicted. She hugged her arms around herself and flicked nervous glances my way. I gathered pretty quickly that she was debating offering me a sort of olive branch. Yet … she said nothing. The words may have been on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t say them.

So I spoke.

“I’m going to play piano,” I declared as my smile found its way back onto my lips. I didn’t shy away from her gaze, duck my head, and my voice didn’t waver.

Her slender brows rose. “What?”

“I’m going to play piano,” I repeated, even stronger this time. “I’m not going into law anymore.”

“Iy—”

“And I’m dating Zagan,” I said. It was technically a lie, but it might as well have been the truth. Maybe it would be the truth once I got home.

Her eyes, which had been almost regretful, regained some of their usual sharpness. She opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off before she could.

“I’m going to be happy, Mom. I’m going to do the things and reach for the things that make me happy. I’m no longer letting you take them away. I’m free.” I paused to take a deep breath. I smiled at her, and for once, no hurt hid behind it. “I hope you can find your real happiness, too.”

I turned on my heel and continued to Zagan’s car. Facing Mom like that, confident and sure of myself, added to the high I was already feeling. It was only after I’d left with those parting words that I realized I was okay. I was truly free of her and the pain she’d caused me. She couldn’t hold me down anymore.

When I got back to Zagan’s, I practically skipped across the threshold of the front door. “Zagan!” I called as I shut the door behind me.

The plinking of the piano filled the house, so with my grin still firmly set, I walked into the ballroom. Zagan’s eyes were focused on the piano when I found him seated there. He didn’t even seem to hear or notice me as he played some random set of keys.

When I drew closer, I repeated, “Zagan.”

His fingers stopped their mindless plucking, and he looked up at me. A softness filled his eyes. “Hey. Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. You went to see Gemma? How was she?”

I had to fight hard to contain my exuberance. I stepped closer and beamed, “She’s better. Completely better. It was you, wasn’t it? You … You healed her.”

He bit the corner of his lip near his piercing and looked away for a second. Swallowing hard, his blue human eyes found mine, and he nodded toward the piano. “You know, I finished writing that song yesterday. Can I play it for you now?”

The euphoria filling me fractured just a hair. Something in his tone gave me pause. He sounded almost wistful and melancholic, which wasn’t the response I’d expected. Not to mention, he hadn’t actually answered me. Still holding onto that happiness from earlier with a vice-like grip, I slowly nodded.

“I … I actually wrote this one for you.”

The confession drew me closer until I reached him. I sat down on the piano bench just as he began to play. The melody filling the room was soft and romantic. Even without the lyrics, emotion as potent as freshly opened champagne swelled inside my chest. It was like Zagan had filtered love right into the song, weaving it among the notes. Then he began to sing, and I found myself no longer looking at the piano but at him.

There was heart like I’d never heard behind his voice and in his words. Confessions of searching and coming up empty, of belonging to the darkness and not realizing he could have the light. The song piqued with a beautiful chorus as he sang about finding himself through what he never knew existed—love.

It was full of longing, full of want, and full of love, and he sang it with a certain desperation, like he was putting every bit of feeling into the song out of fear that he’d never get the chance to say them otherwise.

The urgency in his voice set off some primal instinct inside me, so when the song finished, all I could do was stare at him with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t focus on how beautiful the lyrics were or how the piece touched me where he’d made his home inside me. I couldn’t do anything, because I just knew.

Something was wrong.

When his eyes slowly lifted to mine, my stomach dropped with dread. Resignation. It pulled the edges of his lips down even as he tried to smile.

“What’s going on?” My own voice came out as barely a whisper.

He took my hands in his and squeezed. “Everything here is yours. The house. The car. This piano. I’ve made sure everything, even my money, goes to you. You won’t ever have to want for anything. And now your sister is safe. Everything is going to be okay now.”

I could barely hear past my pounding heart. I pulled my hands back and stood on shaking legs. I stared down at him and demanded, “What’s going on, Zagan? Why—Why are you talking like you’re leaving?”

His jaw worked, but he didn’t look away from me this time. His throat bobbed on a hard swallow before he answered, “I couldn’t let you lose your sister.”

I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell that had to do with anything when a sultry voice chuckled, “Yes. You’re welcome for that, by the way.”

I whipped around to find Babette, the red-headed Bargainer demon who owned Hell’s Gate. She was dressed in nothing but a bra-styled top and leather pants, and she stood in the center of the ballroom. The mischievous grin she wore made ice fill my insides, and her hip popped out as she surveyed me with unimpressed violet eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I questioned.

Zagan growled and rose from the piano. He came to stand beside me and glared at the newly arrived demon. “Babette, can you give us a few minutes?”

My frantic gaze darted between the two of them, and I demanded, “What’s going on?”

“It’s so sweet, really,” Babette cooed like she was talking down to a child. “Zagan knew he couldn’t heal your sister, so he came to me.”

“Babette!” Zagan roared.

She ignored him. “We struck a little bargain. I healed your sister from her current illness, any future one, and made her stronger than ever before. Again, you’re welcome.”

I stopped breathing. My eyes watered as alarm settled in my stomach like a cinder block in the ocean. I slowly turned to look at Zagan and whispered, “What did you offer in exchange?”

Zagan’s eyes tightened, and he started to reach for me. “Iyla, I—”

Before he could touch me, the space where he’d been emptied. He vanished right before my eyes, and I turned toward Babette right as Zagan reappeared beside her. She flashed me a wicked grin and draped her manicured hand over his shoulder. “He offered himself.”

A plume of shadows burst in the air around him, and when it cleared, heavy black chains linked his wrists together with a leash that ended in Babette’s hands. The blood drained from my face, and Babette laughed at my horror before waving her fingers at me in farewell. “Bye, human.”

“No!” I screamed, running toward them as fast as my legs could carry me.

Zagan’s blue eyes stayed locked on mine. They were pinched with something—longing, pain, grief—I didn’t know. My own feelings were too lost to panic as I reached for my demon. He gave me the smallest smile and opened his mouth like he was about to say something just as I reached for his bound hands.

I fell through suddenly open air and crashed to my hands and knees against the marble. I whipped my head around, but there was nothing there. No Babette. No Zagan.

He was gone.