Page 13 of Each Their Own Devil (Our Lady of Fire #3)

9

DEATH KINDLY STOPS

“The blade does not sever; it carves the path to a realm unseen.” — The Book of Open Doors , Book VI: The Crossing of Worlds

Aleja had met the Third once before, when she had gifted him the sickle that now hung in the stables—glinting in the corner of her eye like a tear—just out of reach of the cage Merit had built. As soon as she stepped into the stables, a strange calm came over her, like a thick fog temporarily obscuring the mountains of fear that loomed in her mind.

He was, as she remembered, in the form of a Throne with black fur, his wings cramped into the small cage. Only a reptilian tail hung past the bars, flicking against the metal with impatient thuds. The tail stilled the moment Aleja entered. The Third’s eyes were hidden behind a blindfold, beneath which thin streams of blood dripped—red on black, the only color visible on his body.

“There you are,” the great Throne purred as Aleja stepped into the stable. The only evidence that this building had once been used by the Messenger—or anyone else—were the stalls, far too large to house ordinary horses.

“We tried to warn you,” Aleja said, glancing behind her. The Messenger had not followed her into the stables, but her presence had been so large, so oppressive at her back, that the absence of it now felt just as heavy.

“Perhaps I was a fool not to listen,” the Third replied.

“Perhaps?” Aleja’s voice rose despite herself. What was the harm in taunting death when he was safely locked away?

“Yes, perhaps,” the Third repeated, his tail thumping against the bars. “The universe is a vast and unknowable place, even for me. The First is life, the Second is choice, and the Third is inevitable. The gaps between us are filled with chaos.”

“You need to help me,” Aleja said, reaching for the bars. She almost gasped at the smoothness of the metal against her palms. She had felt Merit’s craftsmanship before—in the little locked box that had held the Unholy Relic she’d cut from her own hand—but it was nothing compared to this. This was Merit at his most unholy: a cage strong enough to hold death itself.

“Drop your hands and step away,” the Third warned. “Imagine what it feels like to be trapped in it. I have always remained neutral in the conflict between the Astraelis and the Otherlanders, yet I find myself suddenly sympathetic to the Astraelis’s position. I should have ended Merit’s line centuries ago.”

Peeling her hands away from the bars was like setting down a bottle of wine when she was at that perfect point of drunkenness, blissfully unmindful of the hangover that would follow. “That Merit could make the cage isn’t the problem,” she said. “That the Astraelis forced him to is.”

“An argument made by many—both human and otherwise—Lady of Wrath. Is it a problem that humans can build nuclear bombs, even if they don’t intend to use them? What stops those who know how to end the world from doing so, other than the polite promise of mutual destruction?”

“I didn’t come here to talk philosophy. You said you had a message for me.”

“It’s a request. Or rather, advice,” the Third said, his tone softening, though his tail twitched again. “The Messenger will soon invite you to partake in a fig from the First Tree. It would be wise to accept her offer.”

Aleja did not understand whether the choked noise that come from her throat was meant to be a laugh or a sob. “Excuse me? The world is about to end, and you’d like me to eat a piece of fruit? That didn’t turn out so well for Eve.”

Something strange happened to the Third, then. His Throne body shimmered, and for a moment, Aleja was no longer staring at an enormous, winged lion, but a young woman identical to herself in shape and size—short, but with legs and shoulders that had grown muscled from her training. A curtain of dark reddish hair covered most of the Third’s face, but his eyes were concealed by a heavy black ribbon. Streams of blood slid across a pair of plump cheeks. Then, the illusion was gone and massive claws flexed as the Throne stretched.

“Are you trying to scare me?” Aleja whispered.

“No one should fear me, dear Lady of Wrath. There are many figs that grow on the First Tree. One, yes, will restore your memories, but another will reveal that the Avaddon is unstoppable. Eat that one.”

“Why?”

“Because it will bring you peace. The Avaddon comes, whether or not any of us want it to, and I will disappear the moment there is nothing left to die. Eat the fig and understand.”

“If you’re trying to get me to stop fighting the Avaddon, then you’re wasting your time.”

“I’m trying to be kind, as you have been to me. There is no need to fight. You can go gently.”

“So, the Avaddon is real?” Aleja choked out, the words as painful as trying to cough up a shard of glass. She had believed it before, but as Val had pointed out, it had been a matter of faith. A part of her had always hoped he was wrong, even if it meant she had ruined her reputation with the Dark Saints for nothing. The taste of vomit rose in her throat, but she swallowed it down.

“My sister stirs for the first time in many millennia. Beyond that, I know no more than you. The Messenger has had plenty of time to interrogate me. If you want to know more, eat the fig.”

“I’ll think about it,” Aleja said, desperately wishing that Nicolas was by her side. Even Orla would have been preferable to standing here alone, with Violet and the Messenger probably still bickering over the dining room table.

“Go on, then, Lady of Wrath. I have nothing else to say to you.”

“Wait,” she began. “If I freed you?—”

“You cannot. Only the one who designed and made my cage can unlock it.” The Third dropped to his stomach and licked one of his paws. As his claws flexed, they reminded Aleja of her abandoned sickle. “I must rest now.”

“Hold on?—”

But the Third was true to his word. Aleja could not see his eyes close through his blindfold, but the great lion’s head dropped heavily between his paws, and the tail that had been twitching against the bars finally stilled.

“ Please ,” Aleja whispered, unsure what she was even pleading for. She was alone in enemy territory with no true allies, save Garm. Her husband would surely defend her actions to the other Dark Saints, but to what end? She had betrayed them in the worst way possible, ensuring that each of them would lose soldiers, lose friends, lose lovers. And for what? Val himself had admitted that he was no closer to learning how to stop the Avaddon—not without studying the Second.

Well , Aleja thought in a voice that sounded suspiciously like the woman she had once kept in that locked door inside of her mind. If what you need is knowledge, then there is a tree full of ripe figs that can grant you just that .

Aleja threw up in what she assumed was the Messenger’s bathtub until nothing came out but stomach bile, and even then, she heaved silently for nearly half an hour with Garm’s head heavy in her lap.

She hadn’t meant to sleep in the bare room that the Messenger had assigned her; both Orla’s and Taddeas’s voices had whispered in her ear that she was a fool to let her guard down in enemy territory. And, for most of the night, Aleja had stayed awake atop her admittedly lovely linen sheets, like soft mist against her skin, clutching her stiletto blade, even with Garm pacing restlessly by the room’s door.

But eventually not even her Dark Saint body could avoid dozing off for a few minutes. When Aleja finally slept, the sky was a pale lavender that had shifted to pale pink by the time she was awake again—just a matter of minutes.

Her first thought was of Nicolas and the Hiding Place, but that was so painful to contemplate that it was easier to let her mind turn to Violet. Last night, at dinner, she had barely been able to raise her fork. And Aleja had a fig in her backpack that would grant a human immortality, even though it meant a promise of servitude to the Astraelis. A promise that Violet had made all on her own. What harm could the fig do her?

No , Aleja told herself. Violet betrayed you. The fact that you didn’t kill her on sight was kindness enough .

Still, that wasn’t the question clawing at her mind now. It wasn’t Violet she needed answers about, but the Avaddon. The word whispered through her thoughts like a curse she couldn’t shake.

She had to see the Third again. He had been maddeningly unhelpful in their last encounter, but perhaps he had only been waiting for her to ask the right question. Her steps were quick and sharp, though her legs still felt leaden from exhaustion.

The heavy doors creaked open, revealing the dark stables. She froze, startled to find Val already there. He was crouched beside one of the luminariums, his fingers lightly tracing its glowing surface. The Third was curled in the corner of the cage; his head did not turn to Aleja as she entered.

“How will it work?” she snapped at Val. “How do you kill a god?”

“I am adept at channeling large amounts of magic. I simply have to channel the Third’s magic through myself, effectively giving me his power for a short amount of time.”

Aleja crossed her arms. “You’re planning to become death?”

“I won’t be becoming death,” Val tutted. “But I will temporarily gain the Third’s power. Or rather, I will be a conduit, channeling the Third’s power into the First. Everything must succumb to death eventually, the First included.”

The Third did not seem to react to this information other than to give a wide yawn that revealed his lion-like teeth.

“What’s to stop this from triggering the Avaddon?” Aleja asked, wishing she had spent more time studying magic with her cousins—or even browsing the libraries in the Hiding Place’s palace.

“In theory,” Val stressed, “it will be like snuffing out a star before it can explode.”

“And the world doesn’t need the First to function? If the Second dies, so do all of the witches who use his magic, remember?”

“The First has never lent her magic to anything but the First Tree and the Messenger. If anything, it’s my mother who should worry. But no—in theory, the First’s death should be relatively painless for the rest of us.”

“Relatively?”

“If I do my magic correctly, yes. The first part of the ritual is a sort of severance, separating her magic from any who might depend on it. That’s actually the part I’m most comfortable with. I spent much of my early life researching weapons, remember? Before the Astraelis had any idea they could capture the Third and use him to kill the Second, they asked me to research whether or not I’d be able to sever the flow of his magic into the Knowing One and his Dark Saints, leaving them defenseless.”

Aleja unfurled her arms and took a step forward. Although she was able to keep the flames from springing to her hands, Val still moved back. She tried not to let it feel satisfying. “Explain.”

Val crouched, but even so, his head still hovered over hers. “By the time I had completed my research, I already knew I’d be defecting,” he whispered. “I figured it out, but I destroyed my findings so thoroughly that no scholar among them could put the pieces back together.”

“You figured it out?” Aleja said, trying not to sound as horrified as she felt.

“It wasn’t that difficult,” Val replied, sounding all too pleased to see Aleja’s wide eyes. “It’s not as if the Second can control every witch and occultist who learns a bit of forbidden knowledge. It would be like simply damming a river. But don’t worry, Wrath. As I said, my research has been thoroughly destroyed. The only person who could ever hope to revive it is me.”

“And would you?”

Val’s uneven mask tightened around his face. Although she couldn’t see his eyes, she could imagine them darting to the bandages around his hand—permanent proof of the Otherlanders’ fury. “No. And not because of your veiled threats. In truth, I have little love for the Otherlanders, but even less for my own brethren. It’s not my place to decide whether a group of people lives or dies.”

“You’re choosing to avert the Avaddon,” Aleja pointed out, some of her anger dissipating.

“It’s different when you’re saving everyone . Then, we can all decide to duke it out among ourselves. As it should be.”

“That’s the most Otherlander thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Well, perhaps my lovely prison stay has shifted my mindset.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Don’t be.” Val rubbed his forehead. “Just because I don’t want you all to die doesn’t mean I agree with your ideals. And I say this as someone who has spent their life acquiring knowledge that has nearly driven me mad.”

Aleja decided not to comment on the nearly driven me mad part. She couldn’t handle it.

“Anyway,” Val said, straightening to his full height. “What I mean is that perhaps not everyone is suited for every type of knowledge.”

“Suited?” Aleja raised an eyebrow. “I think I’m beginning to understand our philosophical differences.”

“I don’t mean it that way,” Val said. “What I mean is that not all knowledge is beneficial. In fact, I would say some of it is actively harmful.”

“I can prove you wrong once we avert the apocalypse.” Frustration welled in her chest as she turned and strode toward the door.

Val raised his head slightly. “Where are you going now, Wrath?”

“To find your mother,” Aleja said, her tone sharp.

The Messenger was already in what Aleja could only assume was her salon by the time Aleja entered, feeling greasy from her old clothes. Meanwhile, the Messenger’s armor looked freshly polished, her circular mask shining in shades of pale orange, gold, and pink. Garm yawned widely as they entered.

“I want to go to the First Tree. Forget the fig that will grant me my memories; the Third claims there is one that will tell me more about the Avaddon,” Aleja said, eyeing the Messenger’s mug. A curl of steam rising from it crimped the lower feathers of her mask. Aleja still felt too nauseous to eat, but the smell of the liquid—something like honey and lavender—made her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, like it was full of sugar as well.

“How interesting,” the Messenger said, stirring her tea. “Are you ready to leave now?”

“ Now ?” Aleja asked sharply.

“Of course now,” the Messenger said. “I’m still commanding an army—or some of it, at least. I’ve given an excuse for my absence, but that can only stretch for so long, considering the mutiny brewing among my soldiers. I need to be back on the front line this evening. It gives us just enough time to make it to the First Tree and back.”

“How far is the tree?”

The Messenger set her teacup aside next to a sculpture that was definitely not human in origin. Like the furniture in her home, it bent and curved in ways that were both natural yet extreme. “That depends.”

“What do you mean ‘that depends’?”

“I mean that Astraelis magic will be as unfamiliar to you as Otherlander magic is to us. The First Tree must want to be found. We can ask it to appear for you, but ultimately, the tree will decide how and when to meet you. I know only the direction to ride in.”

“Wonderful,” Aleja said flatly. “I don’t think a Throne will tolerate me on its back.”

“I have other means of transportation. Let us go before either of our sides does something so spectacularly stupid that this fight is lost before it has begun.”

I don’t have a choice , Aleja realized, with the sort of fatalism that she had felt before stretching out her arm and striking her bargain with the Second. She had done the most dangerous thing she could to save Nicolas and she would do it again. Her husband would do the same thing if their positions were reversed.

“Fine. Let’s go,” Aleja said.

“Don’t you want breakfast?”

“I thought you said time was paramount.”

“There’s always time for breakfast.”

“I agree,” said Garm.

Aleja’s eye roll was exaggerated enough to ache. For a moment, she understood everything Orla had ever said. “I’m surrounded by fools. We’re all going to die.”

The Messenger’s mounts were so staggeringly beautiful that Aleja could not help how her mouth popped open.

“You liked them before too,” the Messenger said, her voice oddly gentle. “You never let your soldiers kill them unless absolutely necessary. The Otherlanders once stole one, but I don’t believe they ever managed to tame it. I reckon it died in captivity. They only eat honey of the bees that pollinate the First Tree.”

Two shining creatures stood in the field before them. While the Umbramares resembled horses, these were closer to the massive elks Aleja had often seen in Violet’s pictures from her remote hikes in the Pacific Northwest. Like the furniture and sculptures in the Messenger’s house, their antlers were…improbable. Once they left the creature’s skulls, their tips were too numerous to count, knotting together in strange ways.

“Will they let me ride them?” she asked.

“We’ll find out.”

Aleja was too used to this sort of answer from the Otherlanders to roll her eyes. Yet when she took a few steps forward to approach the mounts, it was not fear of their sharp antlers that made her pause.

This is it , she thought. She wondered what Nicolas would say. Perhaps he would want his wife back—the one who remembered their old jokes, their old lives, the centuries they had spent together. He had never once expressed as much, but that didn’t mean that, in some way, it wouldn’t have been a relief for him not to have to explain every nuance of the Hiding Place.

“Are you coming or not?” the Messenger barked, swinging her leg over the back of her elk. With the Messenger’s height, it was an easy movement.

“Yeah,” Aleja grumbled. The Messenger gave a low whistle, and the second elk bent its front legs. Like the Avisai, it wore a saddle, though it was more of a struggle to pull herself atop it when the elk huffed and tensed its body.

“We’re going to ride fast and hard. This needs to be quick. I cannot give the appearance of having abandoned my armies,” the Messenger said.

“Lead the way,” Aleja said, craning her neck to look at the Messenger over the elk’s head. It took a few wobbling steps to the side at the sight of Garm.

“Wait, wait!” someone called from the direction of the Messenger’s home. Aleja recognized the creature that came running down the hill as one of the robed servitors that had served them dinner last night.

“What is it?” the Messenger asked sharply. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.”

“It’s—it’s the Otherlanders, Messenger,” the servitor stuttered. “Word comes that a large group of them have breached the wards.”

The Messenger’s mask turned to Aleja lazily. “I see. Tell me, Wrath, was this your plan all along?”

“Fuck,” Aleja barked, unable to keep the waver out of her voice. “Maybe they want to take me back as a prisoner.”

“I have always believed that no good deed goes unpunished.”

“If a single Otherlander dies on Astraelis soil, our deal is off,” Aleja hissed. “I don’t care why they’re here, but they are not met with force, do you understand? You sent a delegation to the Hiding Place once?—”

“A delegation you killed , Lady of Wrath?—”

“I don’t care. Tell your servitor that the Otherlanders are to be met with an offer, not battle. Ask for whatever you want in exchange for me. I don’t care if it’s a damn lie, as long as it doesn’t lead to bloodshed,” Aleja snapped.

It was a surprise when the Messenger’s enormous, winged mask dipped in a nod. “It’s a simple request, but not simple in practice,” she said. “I will get word to those loyal to me as quickly as possible, but it may not grant us enough time. And that’s assuming the Otherlanders will accept the sight of a white flag on the battlefield.”

“ Fuck ,” Aleja huffed again. “Go. We ride as fast as you can manage until we find this damn tree. But I meant what I said before, Messenger. If a single drop of Otherlander blood is spilled on your soil, then our deal is off.”

“Noted, Wrath. Servitor, do as she says. Instruct my son to conceal the Third; he’ll know what to do. And, for the love of the First, make sure that Violet stays in her designated rooms. If she steps one foot outside of my home, you shall be the one to pay for it in blood, do you understand?”

“Yes, Messenger,” the servitor said before scurrying off.

Aleja barely managed to take a breath before the elks took off at the sound of the Messenger’s low whistle.

The beauty of the Astraelis realm was endless.

Aleja had always found the Hiding Place to her tastes, having grown up with a macabre streak all the Ruiz’s inherited. But this was the farthest she had ventured into the Astraelis realm to see the rolling green hills grow taller and taller, without growing jagged or losing the verdant plants that decorated them. It was like riding through tall storm clouds in shades of juniper and sage, smooth and welcoming, despite their dizzying height.

Yet it wasn’t long before an Avisai swept across the sky overhead.

“It seems your fellows might be the one to break your conditions,” the Messenger shouted. By the time the words reached her, the Avisai scout was already gone, leaving only the scar in the thin clouds as evidence.

Aleja tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry, despite the humid air and the smell of petrichor. Was Nicolas with them? She reached out with the marriage bond, but the distance between them was still too great; it was like tugging on a slack, endless rope.

It was a wonder she could keep her voice steady. Orla would have been proud. “You’d better hope that both of our troops can restrain themselves. How much farther?”

“We’re close,” the Messenger said, slowing her mount.

Aleja’s elk followed suit, but the landscape around them had not changed. “How do you know?”

“I just do. I ate from the tree myself, remember? We should continue on foot.”

Aleja did not realize how much she would miss the elk until she was no longer on it. From atop the creature’s back, the hills had seemed less imposing. Garm caught up to them as Aleja’s boots hit the ground unsteadily, and she was forced to shoot a hand out and grasp his helmet as she landed.

“Your hellhound is loyal,” the Messenger noted, as she joined Aleja on the ground and the elks both wandered off to graze among the dandelion greens.

“Loyal enough to sink my teeth into your throat should the Lady of Wrath ask,” Garm said with a rare amount of calm.

“Garm, that’s enough,” Aleja said, but the Messenger chuckled.

“I would expect no less,” she answered. Aleja knew she must be deluding herself, but the Messenger’s smile looked genuine. “Are you ready, Aleja?”

Aleja tried to remember if the Messenger had ever used her real name and couldn’t recall. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Ah, how foolish of me. I had forgotten our friendship would only last until you got what you wanted from me.”

“Friendship? This isn’t even an alliance , Messenger. This is a temporary ceasefire. Walk, before either of our armies have the chance to ruin our plans.”

“As you wish.”

Garm stayed close to her, the fragrant air of the Astraelis realm enough to wash away the slightly sulfuric smell of his fur. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he said, voice low, as he slowed their pace and allowed the Messenger to trail ahead.

“Of course not.”

“Don’t you want your memories?”

“Yes. Maybe,” Aleja muttered. “I just never thought it was a real possibility. What if it…what if it changes me? What if I’m not the same person anymore?”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“No? Do you think you’re the same person who made a bargain with a Knowing One that you couldn’t fulfill? Besides, I’m choosing the other fig.”

Garm did not have an answer for that, but he huffed and nudged Aleja’s shoulder, forcing her attention back to the Messenger, who had stopped walking. Ahead of them, it was as if the hills themselves had parted like grand green curtains, revealing an enormous fig tree.

It was so much like the second Trial that for a moment, Aleja almost shouted for the Messenger to stop—that this was a trick, and whatever purpose they had for gathering the figs was meant to force them to betray each other.

“Is that it?” Aleja whispered, coming to stand beside the Messenger. On this small patch of even ground, the top of Aleja’s head barely reached the Messenger’s biceps.

“That’s it,” the Messenger said. There was a wistfulness in her voice that Aleja would have doubted was genuine if she thought the Messenger would bother faking wistfulness. “I thought my calling was a trick, and I was to be killed just as my husband had, for… I don’t know. Having the gall to love a man who I knew didn’t fully subscribe to the ideals I had been taught since I was a girl. But for whatever reason, the First chose me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Aleja whispered back. It was all she could muster.

The Messenger shrugged. She turned her head to the skies, her mask stilling as she scanned the clouds for what must have been signs of another Avisai, or perhaps a Throne, come to warn its commander of a brewing battle at the border. “I’ve gotten sentimental in my old age. Something that you will understand soon, I suppose. Are you ready, Wrath?”

NO , every voice in Aleja screamed.

“Yes,” she said.

“You must walk to the Tree on your own. Once you are there, you will be tempted. The fruit of the First Tree is sweeter than any that exist in any world. Each bite will grant you power and knowledge that is, to others, unimaginable. The voices will whisper to you… They will offer you every fruit on the branch—the means to fill your belly and your mind with whatever you could possibly need, for all eternity. Look at me, Wrath. Look at me and swear to me that you will resist this temptation. You must only take one fig from the tree, do you understand?”

Aleja fought the urge to wipe her damp palms against her pants. She had assumed that it would not be so simple as walking up to the tree and yanking a fruit off of its branches, but damned if this didn’t feel like she was starting another Trial—one she hadn’t had a moment to prepare for, either mentally or physically. “ Now you tell me this?”

“I know what Trials the Second puts his Dark Saints through, and you’ve done them twice now—this should be easy for you. Your hellhound will be able to walk no farther with you than the tree’s shadow. Do not attempt to take him with you.”

“I will not let her go alone,” Garm growled.

“You, hellhound, would become distracted by the first piece of glamoured meat that the tree dangled in front of you. You will be a liability for Aleja once you pass across the shadow’s edge.”

“She’s right, Garm. Stay here and make sure that the Messenger doesn’t try to come after me and stab me in the back,” she said. It was a half-hearted demand. She didn’t think the Messenger would do any such thing; they wouldn’t have come so far together if that was the case.

Garm gave another low huff but knew better than to protest when Aleja used this tone of voice. He shook off, the helmet shifting on his head, and Aleja scratched what she could reach of his neck through his armor.

“Anything else I should know?” she asked, turning to the Messenger again.

“I could not tell you more about what you will experience, even if I wanted to. I do not have the words.”

The distant cry of an Avisai echoed through the hills again, but when Aleja’s eyes shot to the sky, the clouds had already closed from the path of the last one’s flight. “Fine,” she said. “Garm, you have my permission to act as you see fit, if you think that Otherlander lives are in danger. But her—” Aleja’s gaze turned toward the Messenger. “You leave her to me.”

“Understood, boss,” Garm said, with a wag of his tail.

Aleja turned toward the tree’s mottled shadows and stepped forward. It was only a few strides until the temperature dropped as she entered the space beneath its branches, as if she had somehow passed the time from spring to summer to fall in a few steps. A shiver came from deep beneath her rib cage.

She was searching for fruit. What she should have been searching for was a serpent.

Being the child of Satanists, she had seen this imagery her entire life—a snake coiling around a fig tree. So many near-identical statues had been burned into Aleja’s mind that it took her a moment to register that the creature dropping out of the branches was in motion. It wasn’t until a thin tongue flickered out of its mouth that Aleja realized the branch she was reaching for was actually the scaled body of a viper.

“Ah, it’s been so long since I’ve had a visitor,” the snake hissed in a voice that sounded so much like that of the Second that Aleja felt as though she was briefly back in his cave.

“Hey,” she said, nonchalant. She had learned a few hard lessons these past few months, one of which being that it was never worth it to show an Otherlander—or an Astraelis for that matter—that you regarded them with anything other than boredom or bemusement.

“It’s been even longer since once of your kind came here.” The snake’s tongue flickered out between its fangs. “There is one great difference between the Otherlanders and the Astraelis. One great difference that causes war, that causes witch hunts, that has caused countless deaths. The Astraelis were able to resist my temptation. The Otherlanders were not.”

“Temptation?” Aleja asked to buy herself time.

“Yes,” the snake said. It slithered closer. Its eyes were the color of Aleja’s hair—a brilliant dark red that shone like two embers in its skull. “Knowledge is power, but too much of it is madness. The Messenger warned you to take only one fig—one that would return your memories—while the Third advised you to choose a completely different one. Yet there is a balance you can strike, dear Lady of Wrath.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know everything,” the snake hissed, lugging its big head back atop one of the branches. Its body was slow to follow, curving in a slow figure eight.

“Shouldn’t you be mad, then?”

“Oh, I certainly am.” The snake flashed its fangs. “And yet, I still find it within me to protect this tree and the fruit that grows upon it. You have two choices, Alejandra Ruiz, Alexandra Rhodica, the Lady of Wrath, the Lady of Fire. This fruit—” The serpent’s tail touched a bright purple fig that looked sun-warmed and ready to fall from the branch. “…will grant you the knowledge you seek about the Avaddon, and that it may be inevitable.”

Aleja tutted, because she didn’t know what else to do. Aside from Val and the Messenger, everything else that had knowledge of the Avaddon shared the same sentiment, the Third included. But her mind had yet to catch up.

There was simply no way that everyone she knew and everyone she didn’t know, and every painting she had seen and every painting she wanted to see, and every book, and every piece of sushi and every slice of pizza, and every world-changing song that was still trapped in the mind of its songwriter, and every dog eager for its next walk, and every cat waiting for its owners to avert their eyes, and grape that would someday be wine, and every book that had never been checked out of the library, and every book that had been checked out of the library so many times that its spine was cracked, and every love letter that had ever been written, then burned, then written again with heavy editing, and delivered only after several long nights of contemplating, and every old movie that had been recommend to Aleja a hundred times and she had never watched but swore she would someday, would suddenly disappear.

“Are you listening to me, Lady of Wrath? That is one fig, but there is another,” the snake went on. It jabbed its tail at a fig that was darker red than purple, echoing Aleja’s hair. “This one will grant you all the memories of your old life. The life in which you believed so thoroughly that you could avert the Avaddon that you sliced off your own finger. But of course, you could have both. Yes, the Messenger told you that is impossible, that it is a poor choice—a deadly choice, even—but she cannot help but lie to Otherlanders.”

“Has she eaten more than one fig?” Aleja asked.

“The Messenger? No. Others, yes.”

“And what happened to them?”

“Who can say? Not one of them remains in the Astraelis realm.”

“Why is that?”

“If the First Tree grew in the garden of the Otherlanders, things would be different. The Astraelis have shut themselves off from knowledge; the Otherlanders have embraced it. I am only a snake, cursed to guard the First Tree until the moment in which it does not exist.”

Both fruits were ripe on the branch, deep red, deep violet, skin bursting so sweet-smelling juice could ooze—although it was too thick to drip toward the ground. “You’re a liar,” Aleja said, finally forcing herself to swallow.

“Perhaps I am,” the snake said, as it directed its head toward the upper branches and began sliding away. “Eat one fruit or both, it matters nothing to me. Once upon a time, some of the ancients nearly picked my branches bare, and…well, you know what happened to them. They became the Otherlanders. If I recall correctly, the first Knowing One who managed to sneak back here—she ate eighteen! Her name was Lilith. She was magnificent .”

Something rattled the leaves overhead and Aleja’s knees bent involuntarily, even though she was so deep within the dappled shadows of the trees that nothing could spot her from overhead.

“Forget everything I said,” the snake said, with long-suffering disdain in its voice. “You’ve hesitated for far too long. If you can’t even choose one, then how can I expect you to choose both?”

“What if I walked away without taking either?”

“Then I’d say you were a fool.”

“Do I need to eat the fig here?” she asked.

“I would recommend it. They are so delicious that you will surely want another once you’ve consumed the first. You might as well be nearby.”

“No, then,” Aleja muttered. The violet fig felt heavy, even before she yanked it from the vine. It was warm in her hand—textured, with dry skin, except for a few slits where the fig’s juice had pushed through.

I’ve never even liked figs , Aleja thought bitterly.

She swung her backpack to her front and placed the fig carefully in a pouch stitched to its interior. But before she could clinch the bag shut, her eyes drifted to the other fruit, ripe and fat on the tree—the color of the snake’s eyes, the color of Aleja’s hair, the color of bloodshed and war.

As the snake’s head bobbed in approval, she noticed it looked like less of a viper—the angle of its eyes were too sharp, the ridges of its brow too pronounced.

And because the Trials had made Aleja an Otherlander through and through, she snatched the other fig off the branch as well.