Page 45

T he stone groaned as it opened into Godwin’s office. The books had shifted, the room in total disarray. The desk that had once been in the far corner had been moved to the center of the room.

The surface was chaos. Maps lay strewn across it, some so brittle they looked as if they might disintegrate at the slightest touch. Sigils etched deep into parchment, surrounded by fevered, frantic calculations.

Blood rushed to my ears as I turned to Godwin. “The Archangels are trapped within the Arcana.” My voice fractured against the stone walls as I held up The Fool . “You knew about this, didn’t you? That’s why you asked me to get the cards back.”

Godwin didn’t flinch. But something in his posture shifted, collapsing. “I suspected. Yes. But I had no way to confirm.”

“Dorian said the cards went missing a few weeks ago, just before I arrived. Dante must have taken them. He must have bound them.”

“Dante?” Godwin hesitated, throat bobbing. “Dante might have stolen the cards, but he could not have done this. Arcane magic like a binding curse is far too advanced. No.” He stroked his chin. “This was the work of the High King.

“The High King? I thought you said his return was a rumour.”

“When you mentioned him before, I still hoped it was nothing more than whispers. The evidence now is incontrovertible. He is back.”

“And Dorian.” I swallowed the growing lump in my throat, formed by the question I didn’t want to ask. “He was meant to be watching the cards. He’s not involved, is he?”

“Dorian is not involved.” Godwin shook his head. “He is not working with them.”

My shoulders sagged, tension easing. Good.

“How could you let this happen?” I brushed my thumb over the card, over the fraying edges. “Right under your nose?”

“I knew Verrine was planning something,” Godwin admitted. He looked away. “I just thought I had more time.”

A brittle laugh scraped my throat. “More time? For what, Professor? To sit here while the entire student body is dragged to Elsewhere? Or killed?”

His fingers twitched over the papers, but he didn’t look at me. “It wasn’t that simple,” he said quietly. “I never thought she was capable of something like this.”

The silence was suffocating. “And Ruby?” I asked, throat thick. “Where is she? What happened to her?”

“Kingsley’s in the lower cells of the Sanctum. High Council wants a live demonstration of forced Falling,” he said bitterly. “I’m pushing back. I think they’ll agree to wait until the Rift.”

“You let them all believe they had a choice this year, Godwin.”

“I know.” Godwin exhaled, slow. “I did not realize the danger until the Archangels vanished. Now my time is running short, too. This is bigger than Evermore. ”

Something painful lodged itself in my chest. “What are you saying?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he inhaled deeply, reaching for one of the maps. The ink bled beyond the academy’s borders, sprawling outward.

“What is this?”

Godwin hesitated, just for a second. Then, in a steady voice he said, “Evermore isn’t just creating Daemons, Arabella. It’s funneling power into Elsewhere, tilting the scales of the afterlife itself.”

I barely heard the rest. My brain was still snagged on the words. Funneling power to Elsewhere. I gripped the edge of the table, steadying myself against my shaking. “So you’re saying it’s shifting the balance, it’s shifting power?”

“Yes. Without mediation from the High Council, the equilibrium between light and dark is unraveling. And with every shift toward darkness, he draws more power. The High King of Elsewhere. Without the Archangels, there’s nothing holding him, or the darkness, back”

This was a war. Not just within Evermore, but beyond it. The very fabric of the afterlife itself was being rewoven, and we were losing.

“But we know where the Archangels are, now.” I held up The Fool. “We can fix this. We just need to get the rest of the deck. ”

The candlelight stretched Godwin’s shadow long across the stone floor, twisting it into something gaunt.

For a fleeting moment, he didn’t look like himself.

Something about the set of his jaw, the cut of his silhouette, sent a prickle of unease down my spine.

At last he said, “Getting the deck is one thing, freeing them is another. I have no idea how they were bound.”

I paused, trying to remember what Dante had said. “Dante spoke to an alchemist. They said the cards were bound with the blood of a Fallen Angel, but the seal was breaking. I think the deck is weakening, that’s why one of them was able to break free and speak to me.”

“You’re right.” When Godwin met my eyes, his face softened into something close to sympathy.

He reached for The Fool Card, tracing the edges before moving to his desk to inspect it beneath a magnifying glass.

After a moment he said, “The blood of a Fallen Angel is powerful. It could be used to imprison the Archangels. But it sounds like there wasn’t enough, or the binding spell went wrong. See here, the edges are fraying.”

“What does that mean? The deck will break itself, in time?”

“In time,” Godwin nodded, adjusting his glasses. “Years, decades maybe. We don’t have the luxury of waiting.”

“Then what do we do?” I pressed. “The Archangel said this was arcane magic. How do you undo a binding spell?”

“With blood,” Godwin grimaced. “Blood of an opposite kind.”

“An Angel?” I found myself mirroring his disgust. Something heavy thudded overhead.

“I don’t believe the blood of an Angel is its opposite.” Godwin shook his head. “ No .”

“Then what is?” My voice felt hoarse, scraped raw.

Godwin paused. “That’s what we need to figure out. Esmerelda is a gifted alchemist. I will seek her out and discover the decoagulant that will undo the binding spell.”

“Right.” I nodded, moving toward the door.

Esmerelda, the alchemy professor. She had been concerned about the Archangels the night I arrived.

She’d want to stop this. “I’ll try Dante again, try and get the deck back.

” I paused, questions burning in the back of my mind.

“Was it always this way? Was it always a rigged game?” Even when my mother attended Evermore?

Godwin didn’t answer at first. Then, finally, he said, “ Always.” He gave a clipped nod, his features set stark against his face. “Evermore’s game has never been fair. My own score is proof of that.” Air caught in my throat.

My fingers curled at my sides. That must have been why my mother fled. She’d tried to leave when she realized that no one was playing fair.

Godwin had admitted to tampering with the system, too. Could I trust him? Could I trust that he knew what he was doing? I wasn’t sure. He was either the last true ally I had left, or the final hand pushing me over the edge.

The room seemed to exhale, the only sound the rustle of ancient parchment like Godwin’s books were breathing. A sound cracked through the stillness, echoing from the staircase. Stone groaned overhead, boots slamming.

Godwin’s face blanched. “This isn’t just our Headmistress you’re up against,” he whispered.

“She’s working with the High King of Elsewhere.

” The air was suddenly too thin. “This is Elsewhere you are fighting, young Arabella.” The shadows beneath the door stretched, curling at the edges like prying hands. “And you are out of time.”

The door flew open, crashing against the stone with enough force to send dust spilling from the rafters. The room seemed to shudder, recoiling from the presence that had stepped through the threshold.

Dante stood framed in the doorway, wreathed in shadow like a dying star, two guards flanking him.

His coat hung loosely around his broad frame, his eyes deeply ringed, as though he had just roused from a dream—or a nightmare.

His eyes shifted between me and Godwin, something knowing settling in his features.

“I see you’ve been busy,” he murmured.

I took a slow, measured step back. “Stay away from me.”

Dante tilted his head, considering. His attention fell to my necklace. “Oh, but I can’t do that, little thief .” The words slid down my spine like a rod of cold steel.

Godwin moved first. I barely saw it happen. His hand shot out, fingers curling around a shard of light as an incantation spilled from his lips. The room surged with power.

His coat singed at the edges, but the flames died instantly. Then he barely lifted a hand, like the act bored him. Godwin was flung back like a doll, his body colliding with the table, wood splintering beneath his weight. A strangled gasp left him, blood blooming at the corner of his lips.

He was powerful, more powerful than I realized.

I lunged, instinct overriding reason, but Dante was already there.

His hand caught my wrist mid-motion. We were inches apart, his presence overwhelming, suffocating.

Behind his ear, a crescent moon. I hadn’t noticed it in his room the other day.

He’d been marked. He’d Fallen. Of course he had.

There was never any doubt which side he’d choose.

“ Don’t, ” he warned, voice low, quiet.

Rage clawed up my throat, hot and all-consuming. “Another betrayal,” I spat.

“Orders from the High King,” a guard bellowed, reaching for me. “The girl must be secured until she has Fallen.”

My blood curdled, mind scrambling to make sense of the words. The High King of Elsewhere had issued the order himself. Why?

“Yes. Take her below,” Dante commanded. His expression a mask of indifference. “She knows too much, now. The Sanctum wards will keep both courts from sensing her. Until the Rift, she stays where no Archdaemon—or Archangel for that matter—can reach her.”

“No!” I cast a frantic look to Godwin as the guards hauled me forward, but he was unconscious, slumped against the far wall. Why? What did the High King of Elsewhere want with me?

“They were always going to find you.” Dante’s gaze dragged over me, slowly, dark with something I didn’t want to recognize. “I’d rather it be me than them.”

I could have screamed. I could have run. But what would be the point? The walls of Evermore had already closed in. Every move I made, Dante would already see coming. Maybe he always had.

“You don’t get to act like you care about what happens to me,” I seethed. “Not now.”

There was a long silence. And then, so softly, so carefully, as if it were the only thing that mattered he said, “You have no idea what I care about.”

I could have laughed. Or screamed. Or cried. I had never met someone so utterly frustrating. Every time I felt like I knew him, every time I felt close to a sliver of truth, he torched it. He was right, I had no idea what he cared about. I had no idea who he was, really.

He might have felt familiar, a constant presence in the back of my mind. The Thread. But he was a master illusionist and a gifted liar. Every time I thought I understood him, grasped onto something, it slipped just out of reach. Again.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to tear him apart, to rage, to fight… but it was over. Verrine had won. Elsewhere had won. Just before the doors slammed shut, I saw something cross his face . I was too tired to puzzle it out this time.

The Thread buzzed beneath my skin. It wanted to reach for it, to sever it.

A feeling crept through me like an echo, a reverberation.

Grief. Not just for this but for Hugo, too.

I could still feel the warmth of him in memory, like the touch of a hand that lingers.

I didn’t know if the feeling was mine. If it wasn’t, I hated him for making me feel it now.

All I wanted was to feel nothing at all.