Page 48

D ante was framed in darkness, shaped by it like the library itself had conjured him from the ink of its most vile stories.

The journal was still in my hands. The confession burned into every word, into every line, into the ink smudged by the force of his hand pressing too hard to the page.

“I trust you found understanding,” he said simply.

He watched me carefully, like one word might cause total collapse.

I thrust the book at his feet. “I am done with your ridiculous games.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care.

It mirrored the break I felt inside, and outside, too.

Everything I’d known and trusted about my world had come undone at the seams.

If what I saw was true, then all of this was just an elaborate trap. And my parents’ death. I didn’t even have a minute to process the convenient timing of it, and what it might mean.

Dante stilled, jaw locking. “Games?” He didn’t look at the book on the floor. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

I stepped forward, scooping the journal back up and shoving it between us. “Why?” My voice cut through the room, wavering. “Why did you want me to find this? To be pulled into those stories, visions, whatever they were?”

Dante didn’t answer, but his shoulders tensed.

“I deserved the truth from the beginning. These pages are dated before we met. You kept me in the dark to manipulate me,” I seethed. “ So why now?”

Dante’s throat bobbed. “Arabella.”

I flinched. Even my name sounded like a curse when it was spoken by him.

“No.” My nails bit into the journal’s vellum. “You don’t get to say my name like that. You don’t get to look at me like that.”

Something fractured across his face. It was hesitation, a glint of something that looked too much like regret. It made me hate him more. I turned to leave, but Dante moved fast. His hand slid around my waist.

I turned, fire licking through my veins.

Then, in a voice barely more than a whisper, he said, “I need you to know that those were not lies. Not games. Everything you read was the truth.” I inhaled.

Dante’s fingers loosened, just slightly, his hold on me trembling, like he knew— he knew —that what he was about to say would unravel everything. “Because that’s what you deserve.”

“Didn’t I deserve it then ?” My heartbeat slammed against my ribs, the weight of his words pressing in. “When you first met me. The moment you knew who I was.”

Another question clawed its way up my throat, one I didn’t dare breathe aloud. What’s wrong with me?

A war raged behind his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he’d heard it. He looked like he wanted to explain, to tell me the truth all at once. But all that came was a whisper, softer than a dying breath?—

“I’m sorry, little thief. ” Dante wavered, his fingers jerking free as if it had taken great force to make himself let go. For one, fragile moment, we were suspended in the gravity of something neither of us could name.

He released me, but the cold of his touch lingered far longer.

The truth felt like a brand, scorched into my skin in a way that would never heal right. I was the only one of my kind. A girl born not to live, but to repay a debt, bound to Elsewhere before I’d even drawn my first breath.

He’d left me in the library. I had to get out. If I stood still any longer, I’d shatter beneath the weight of it—the knowledge, the horror, the inevitability of what I was.

My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms. Had my mother known? Had she felt me inside her, growing, and thought, this is the girl I am damning ?

I scanned the room. Anything. A book, a map, a hidden door.

I needed a thread of knowledge I could pull until this entire place unraveled at my feet.

Because I wasn’t just someone’s forsaken daughter, a thread fate had tried to cut.

That couldn’t be how my story ended. It couldn’t be all I was meant to be.

From the moment we met, Dante hadn’t just been trying to break me, he had been using me.

It had always been about dragging me under before I could escape, forcing me to Fall.

Maybe that was the cruelest part of all—that he’d never even needed to lie.

He just left out the truth and wound the clock, waiting for all of this to detonate when the timing was right.

Tension locked in my chest. I hurled myself at the door, bracing for impact, but at the last second it swung open. I stumbled forward, crashing to my knees against the cold marble. It had never been locked. Yet another of his games .

The marble corridors of the Sanctum stretched out before me, impossibly empty.

The torches flickered, their flames burning too long, their shadows stretching too far.

No, he hadn’t needed locks because this place was vast. The Sanctum was far bigger than I had anticipated. I’d never find my way out.

I continued down the darkened marble-floored corridor. What if—What if freeing the Archangels was a mistake? I forced the doubt down. I wouldn’t let him into my head. Again.

A gust of wind swept through the corridor, tugging at the ends of my hair. It howled and howled, shrieking until it simmered into silence.

Then, a hand snatched my arm. I twisted violently, heart roaring in my ears as I looked up. Dorian.

“It’s fine. I’ve got you.” His face was pale, drawn with exhaustion, but his grip was firm as he drew me into his chest. His breath came in bursts, chest heaving like he’d been running for his life. “But we need to leave. Now.”

“What are you doing down here? Are you hurt?” I demanded. He had been dragged away from the Sanctum’s entry hall when I last saw him. If Dante caught him down here again, I dreaded to think what he would do.

“I’m fine. I got my mother to tell me where they were keeping you.” Dorian worked his jaw. “Listen to me. Things are moving fast up there.” He nodded above us. “If we don’t go now, you’ll never leave. You’ll never get out. It’s the High King, he wants you. ”

For a moment, I stood frozen, my brain scrambling to catch up. The High King and his court, Verrine and Dante, all needed me to Fall. For a reason I didn’t quite understand, my choice mattered.

“I know.” I nodded. “But leave? I can’t . Dorian it’s the Archangels—” I felt tears pressing against my eyes. “They’re trapped. That’s what’s in the Arcana deck. ”

“I know, Davenant.” He let go of me, pained, hands raking through his hair. “ I already know. Esmerelda told me everything before they dragged her away. The cards, the Archangels, the lot. With them caged away, there’s a massive power imbalance. The High King can claim the entire Afterworld.”

“We have to get them back,” I pleaded. He reached for me again, this time to drag me forward. I drove my heels into the marble floor.

“We don’t have time for this. You have to go. Now.” Dorian tugged my arm. “The Rift’s in two days?—”

“I know,” I cut in. “I saw my name drop. But Ruby?—”

“Scores are tanking everywhere. They’re planning to mark most of Lower Sixth as Fallen. Twelve graduates only, Arabella. And they’re being funneled straight into Elsewhere.”

My breath caught. Twelve. Just twelve. “And the rest?”

“Erased.” He looked away. “Or worse.”

“So it’s over? That’s it?”

“That’s it, Davenant.” His hands dropped to his sides. “We can’t let them take us.”

The Rift would arrive in two days, and when it did, they wouldn’t need to chain me anymore. The ether would mark me, brand me, twist me into exactly what they needed. Forever.