Today it seemed even less busy than normal, but maybe this was the new ‘norm’ with the rumors of Astaroth floating around. The public may not have been privy to knowledge of his actions as much as we were, but there was a reason so many people feared the bastard.

  He wasn’t quiet or shy about what he had planned or was doing.

  “Yes, starlight?”

  “The apartment from before…”

  “We’re actually stopping there,” he said, his hand tightening in mine. “I want to grab something I keep there.”

  “Okay cool,” I whispered, trying to not sound too eager. The others had begun talking amongst themselves while I’d been lost in my thoughts, seeming a bit more relaxed than they’d been at the start of this trip. I just hoped that would stay the case when we reached the apartment.

  After about five more minutes, we turned down a darkened alleyway. Rats scuttled into the shadows, but they didn’t bother me. My attention was focused on the fifth floor. The fire exit, a metal contraption that looked so rusted I worried it was going to disintegrate right before my eyes, shifted in the wind that accelerated through the narrow corridor.

  “What are we doing?” Cage asked.

  “Stopping by the apartment I stayed at with Oz,” I explained as Oz tugged the fire escape’s ladder down.

  “Do you still own it?” Lazaro asked.

  “Does anyone own anything around here?” I murmured.

  “Exactly,” Oz agreed, before pulling himself up the first ladder. I followed, Oz finally elaborating after a moment. “Yes, it’s mine—I wasn’t going to let anyone touch it after Deva stayed in it.”

  My cheeks flushed, but thankfully no one saw since we were all climbing to the fifth floor window—the one I had snuck out of two years ago. The window creaked open, and Oz folded his frame to fit through. I climbed in behind him, my gaze immediately dancing around the space.

  The apartment was on the top floor and had arched gothic fifteen foot ceilings covered in stone. The windows mostly narrow stained glass designs, except for on the back wall where we entered. There was no warmth to the space really—there never had been— and on the far wall was a door covered in locks.

  I had a feeling this had been used as a storage space originally and that all of the ‘home’ amenities had been added by Oz—like the small kitchen. There was a bathroom through the small door to my right, the size of a closet. I swallowed, leaning into Oz as I stared at the space in wonder.

  Not because it was anything out of the ordinary, but because of the emotion that crashed over me, reminding me of how much everything had changed.

  “Come here,” Oz murmured, kissing the side of my head.

  I could feel a few emotions crowding our bond, most of them light and curious as the others explored the space, but Lazaro specifically was upset, and I didn’t have to ask why. Before I would’ve assumed he was upset about a million things having to do with my own self-worth, but I knew it wasn’t based on that. It was because he didn’t like the idea of me lacking in any way, and I truly did understand. They may have had more luxurious lives materialistically, but I still felt raw anger at the mention of Alek’s father or the way that Lazaro was overloaded by magic by his own family. It was impossible to not feel protective, especially when you loved someone as much as I loved them.

  As we moved towards a few pieces of worn furniture and a couch that looked newer, Oz crouched down and removed a piece from the elaborate stonework flooring. I titled my head as he removed three more, revealing a metal box in a shallow cubby.

  “Lots of places like this in the apartment?” I asked, looking at the surfaces of the room in a new light.

  “More than I can count, starlight.” He stood up and opened the metal box, and my throat caught as I stared at the objects inside.

  It went without saying that when I left Astaroth’s place, I had done so with almost nothing. But there’d been a few precious objects I managed to escape with, three of which I’d assumed lost until now. I should have known better. I also should have looked or asked for them, but at the age of sixteen, terrified and starving, I’d just wanted a place to stay, my thoughts focused on survival rather than material things.

  The first was a leatherbound journal small enough to fit in my jacket pocket. The pages were stained and worn, a leather strap holding them together, as the book warmed under my fingers. I knew that Oz hadn’t opened it. I didn’t know how, but I could sense that, and while I’d always written in code, not wanting Astaroth to know my thoughts in case he found it, I appreciated him not reading what amounted to a diary.

  I tucked the journal in my oversized jacket pocket, knowing it contained information that could be useful if we needed to go directly to Astaroth. I didn’t think I’d forgotten much since leaving—that shit was burned into my memory—but it wasn’t a bad idea to take a look. My hand reached out to grab the second item.

  “A doll?” Cage appeared by my side, examining the small stuffed item that probably appeared a bit strange considering I’d hand sewn it.

  “I wasn’t allowed to have toys,” I explained. “So I made my own when I was like…nine, maybe. When he found it, I thought that he would take it and destroy it, but it ended up giving him inspiration for my nickname. I’m sure it was in part to remind me of everything that he ‘allowed’ me. I just was fucking happy he’d let me keep something.”

  Even if it was a bit demented looking. The small figurine was made of silver material stitched with black thread. The arms were different lengths, the dark blue hair was patchy, and one of the button eyes was missing—but the blue dress she wore had held up well. I ran my fingers over the doll’s missing eye before putting her back in the metal container. Unlike the present Astaroth had left me at school, this doll created a warm sensation in the center of my chest, reminding me of when I had the courage to create something I knew damn well hadn’t been allowed.

  “She’ll be safer here for now,” I murmured. By now the others had gathered, and the final object was in a way much easier to explain…but also tainted with probably the heaviest of memories.

  “We were allowed one object for self-defense outside of our magic,” I picked up the black onyx athame, the blade glinting dangerously—not an ounce of rust on it. “This was mine. It was what I had to use to carve runes into the unblessed I killed.”

  My voice lacked the emotion that usually accompanied such an intense statement, but I had to keep myself detached. I wanted to stare at the weapon with disdain, but it had also protected me many times over. From men like Ozul, for example.

  “The unblessed you were ordered to kill,” Grim reminded me. I offered him a small thankful smile for the attempt to make me feel better. It worked, to a tiny extent.

  I slipped the athame into my other jacket pocket, looking up at Oz. “Thank you for saving those.”

  “You can come back and get the box when we’re done,” he promised, pressing a kiss to the top of my head before putting away the doll. Oz may have not considered himself romantic, and maybe in a traditional sense he wasn’t…but if he hadn’t already told me he loved me—which he for sure had, and showed me a million times over—this would have done it. This preservation of the few items I’d taken from my childhood ‘home’ meant the world to me now that I was no longer a fearful little girl.

  “Anything else?” Lazaro asked. His eyes were dark, but his overall disposition was a bit more relaxed as he watched me.

  “No, unless there was anything else you wanted to grab?” I said, directing the question to Oz.

  “Just wanted to remind you how far you’ve come, starlight,” he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. I sighed, trying to not seem obsessively infatuated with the man.

  “Good. Let’s go find this bastard,” Cage sang happily.

  “Hopefully we’ll find Ozul as well,” Grim agreed, causing Lazaro to nod sharply in agreement.

  As we made our way back to the window, my hands slid into my pockets that now held my journal and dagger. Oz didn’t realize it, but he’d given me far more than just some of my possessions back.

  He’d given me a piece of myself. Now I knew exactly how I would kill Astaroth after draining the magic from him. I would use the same dagger he’d ordered me to make hundreds of kills with to carve runes into his body until he bled out enough that it made up for every ounce of unblessed witch blood he’d made me spill.

  17

  OSBORN

  It wasn’t until we were outside of the city that I was able to properly breathe again, the memories of that damn apartment rolling over me in wave after wave. They weren’t bad memories, at least not most of them, but there was an element to them that caused me to panic. Mainly because the last time I’d seen Deva in the space it had been right before she left me. Right before she completely disappeared while I was sleeping.

  It made me want to never sleep again, especially now that she was back by my side, right within reach.

  I rarely had my guard down, but somehow that night I hadn’t woken to her movements or even the soft kiss she’d pressed to my lips, the ghost of it somehow implanting itself in my memories for when I woke up, like it had been a dream. I had a suspicion she’d used her magic on me to keep me asleep, but it was possible she’d done it without even realizing it in her state of panic that I could be in danger from Astaroth.

  For far too long had the bastard held control over her life, even in the smallest of ways. I planned on eliminating him as soon as possible…although Ozul was first. My jaw tightened at the idea of the bastard trying to force himself on a young teenage girl, especially when he was probably almost double her age. Absolute bastard.

  I had no doubt he had caused fear in many, including Deva—but he didn’t know what it was like to truly experience fear himself. I planned on teaching him. Extensively.

  “At least the rain has slowed a bit,” Deva said as our journey outside of Carmina took us down a long, stone-paved main road surrounded by trees on all sides. I knew as we got further north it would probably grow colder, but right now the wind and the rain weren’t bothering us, especially since the overcast skies kept most people inside. Which meant when we began to pass through small towns, we would go mostly undetected.

  Although, according to the intel Grimshaw had managed to gather, Astaroth’s people were quite literally outside of Carmina, only a few towns over. It meant a fairly short trip compared to going all the way to his headquarters, but I had no doubt that was on the horizon—Astaroth would want to see her himself.

  In retrospect, I was surprised he’d left his confines and been there the night he killed my parents, but knowing how important they were to the Society, it made a bit more sense.

  “Who are we meeting again?” Alek asked, his gaze on the landscape up ahead where the forest seemed to darken. There were creatures in these forests, ones that had been here a hell of a lot longer than any of us, but I didn’t get the sense they planned on interacting with us—as long as we stayed on the path, of course. If we didn’t, well, I could hardly blame them for confusing us for a meal.

  “One of my contacts—a second cousin or something to that extent. He isn’t exactly in the Society, but he helps whenever he’s needed,” Grim explained. “Renwick was supposed to be one of the people to help with the transition of power when my parents decide to retire—but then he met Lilah.”

  “She isn’t okay with the Society?” Deva asked.

  “I don’t think she said that,” Grim said, “but once they had their first kid, he let my parents know he wasn’t interested anymore. They moved out here, and when I was looking at the approximate location of the killings yesterday, I figured they would be our easiest point of contact.”

  “Do you think they know we’re coming?” Lazaro asked. Grim shrugged, clearly not knowing the answer. We broke through a grouping of trees, the landscape opening up as the elevation dipped into a valley overlooking the entirety of Carmina. My gaze took in every single village between here and the mountains in the North, each one a perfectly laid target in the war between Astaroth and us.

  Deva let out an impressed whistle at the view, and I realized just how little of Carmina my starlight had probably seen outside of the city and DIA. I didn’t have room to talk, but often my jobs before—the self-justified and satisfying killing of the bastards lurking in the shadows of Carmina—would take me out of the city, so I’d come this way a few times.

  “Not much farther now,” Grim said as we began moving downhill on the rocky terrain, the view disappearing behind the trees once again. “Their place is outside the next village, about two away from where our target is. We should avoid talking about that until we’re inside a warded property though—no telling who’s listening.” Grim warned as everyone seemed to agree.

  When Deva narrowly avoided tripping over an upturned root, I considered pulling her against me but fought the urge. It was clearer than ever that the woman was capable of pretty much any physical task thrown at her. Even watching her scale the walls of the Nyx estate had been a fucking turn-on, and it wasn’t one I understood. But then again, the intensity of the emotions I felt for Deva had never been on the scale of reasonable or logical.

  Deva was simply everything to me. It was pretty damn easy to sort in my head after all this time.

  “Where did you live before everything happened?” she suddenly asked me.

  My thoughts turned to a much different time when I had far different memories—ones that were skewed by the rage and sadness I’d felt. Of course I’d been young when my parents died, so young that most memories from that night had been blocked out or simply didn’t exist. One memory was crystal clear though—the expression on my parents’ corpses as they hung upside-down in the yard outside…

  “In one of these villages surrounding the city,” I said, keeping my emotions and tone extremely neutral, mainly because I didn’t know how I felt about it. In a way I was over it, but I also knew that if I ever let the rage seep back in, those years they were gone would feel far shorter. “I don’t remember much of the night except for the brief image of finding them hanging upside-down in our front yard as I escaped into the night.”

  “Oz,” Deva breathed out a hard whoosh of air as she tightened her grip on my hand.

  “The days following were a blur as well,” I admitted. “I had nothing with me, and it wasn’t until I was in the city that I was given anything to eat. I was aided by a neighbor from the village, that much I know because of the note left with me, before I was dropped at the front door of an orphanage. ”

  “And the killing?” My gaze moved to Alek who was walking next to us, his face filled with completely nonjudgmental curiosity.

  “Didn’t start until several years later. Coincided with needing to eat, oddly,” I admitted. “I didn’t last very long at the orphanage. As soon as I could, I went out on my own in the middle of the night. I’d planned on just stealing food, but when I came across a man trying to take money from a woman and her three children, I stepped in and killed him. I couldn’t tell you how, or why that was my reaction, but the woman thanked me by giving me some coins before ushering her children home.”

  And from there it had cascaded, with little to do with money or eating and everything to do with relief.

  My rage and sadness from what happened to my parents, the note left explaining the incident to the orphanage, morphed into a clarity of what I wanted my future to be like—almost a mission. Not only to eventually kill Astaroth, but to kill any bastard who deserved it. I became a god in my mind. It wasn’t healthy, but having control over those I killed, exacting punishment and justice…it felt really damn good. Especially after having control ripped away from me so young. But understanding the psychology behind it didn’t make me any less fucked up.

  “So it was a matter of survival?” Deva asked softly.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I admitted, not willing to allow her to give me the understanding I could see in her eyes—something that excused my darkness. I’d accepted long ago that I would be fucked for all of eternity; I was fine with that. When I met her, I realized that the bones beneath me, the remnants of every single soul I’d taken, would just be the platform I could use to raise her up.

  Although balancing the urge to worship her with the urge to run a blade against her skin to see what lay underneath had proven to be a bit more difficult.

  “I didn’t know she would give me money,” I said, finishing my previous thought.

  “Nearly there!” Grim called, interrupting us. Cage pointed to a gothic estate in the distance that was smaller than the Nyx one but still formidable compared to many of the houses in the surrounding village.

  Thunder cracked overhead and we quickened our pace, my instinct to get Deva inside overriding everything. It was that same damn instinct I felt the first night I’d met her. The one that made no sense because I was the last bastard who’d ever consider taking care of anyone. Something Deva knew but didn’t seem bothered by in the least. Rather, she seemed comforted by it.

  When we reached the overhang of the house, Grim knocked on the door. A shadow ward vibrated around it, causing my skin to prickle in an annoying flash of magic. Tightening my arms around my starlight, I eyed the door as it opened to reveal…a child?

  That was unexpected.

  “Mommy, Daddy!” the little girl called out, offering us a critical look that belonged on someone older than what I was guessing was this girl’s six years. “We have visitors.”

  A man appeared right behind her, his shadows surrounding her protectively as he crouched down and spoke in a tone that had the girl scowling. “What have I said about opening the door without us?”

  “I know, but I could feel their magic. One of them has shadow magic.”

  “Even so.” The man I had to assume was Renwick stood and nodded towards the long corridor behind them. “Go get your mother.”

  “Got your hands full?” Grim teased. Renwick shot him a look that was a mixture of frustration and amusement, seemingly unsurprised to see him.

 

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