Page 23 of Each Their Own Devil (Our Lady of Fire #3)

16

ALL THE OPEN DOORS

“Chains are not broken by strength, but by the will to see beyond them.” — The Book of Open Doors , Book VII: The Return to the Threshold

Amicia had never been a particularly loud presence in the palace, preferring to stay within the quarters reserved for her when she wasn’t suppressing her power. But her absence felt strangely disorienting, like the loss of a home’s faint background noise—a dripping faucet or an electrical hum so pervasive, you forgot to notice it until it was gone. Now that it was, Aleja couldn’t shake the uneasy stillness.

None of the other Dark Saints had spoken Amicia’s name to her, though Aleja suspected they’d seen the tremor in her chin each time she noticed an empty plate setting or caught sight of one of Amicia’s devotees wandering the palace with red-rimmed eyes.

“It’s not your fault, dove,” Nicolas said, finding her staring at one of Amicia’s earrings carelessly left on a dresser in one of the palace salons. The emerald gem, the exact shade of Amicia’s irises, caught the sunlight and seemed to pulse with life. “It was her choice. If it hadn’t been for her?—”

“I know,” Aleja interrupted softly. She wiped her eyes, feeling safe enough to do so in front of Nicolas.

Each night, more memories came to her in dreams—not the murky, fractured impressions of her first weeks in the Hiding Place, but sharp, vivid recollections. When she asked Nicolas about them, his expression betrayed a storm of emotions he tried hard to mask. The memories felt oddly deliberate, as if her old self was carefully selecting what to reveal, gifting her insights when she needed them most.

In the last war, she had been forced to burn one of their generals alive to stop her from being swallowed by an Authority. The general had begged Aleja to do it, sacrificing herself to keep their enemy from gleaning valuable information. Aleja had never stopped being haunted by it. Just as she knew she’d never stop being haunted by that little emerald earring, abandoned perhaps in the heat of a tryst.

“Hey,” Nic said, his large hand warm and grounding on her shoulder. “Garm’s been begging for a walk all morning. He says he wants to show us something. Let’s get some fresh air.”

Aleja was too tired to walk but also too tired to argue. Lately, it felt like all she did was sleep, though the rest never seemed to reach her bones. Nicolas had sent Orla to search for Val, who had disappeared shortly after Aleja had returned to the First’s chamber with the Messenger’s blood on her hands. The Third’s cage had also been unlatched and was empty. “I couldn’t stop them,” Nicolas had said, though the emotions tangled in their bond suggested he hadn’t tried very hard.

The morning after their return, Nicolas had taken the Messenger’s heart, still bloody in the satchel Aleja had carried it in, and left their quarters without a word. They hadn’t discussed who would deliver it to the Second, but Aleja knew her own reluctance had been written too plainly on her face.

These days, they both still donned leather armor before leaving the palace. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but many Astraelis soldiers remained camped on the grounds. Aleja had damaged a vast swath of their realm, yes, but their presence here felt less like a necessity and more like curiosity.

Taddeas, ever the diplomat, seemed perfectly content to lunch with the not-quite-refugees, especially now that Jack was back at his side. With Jack around, Taddeas spoke more freely, though even he could offer little insight. “All their lives, they were told we’re treacherous, greedy, and excessive. Now, after fighting beside us, they’re trying to understand how they were wrong.”

Outside, Garm’s front paws landed on Aleja’s shoulders, so he could give her a wet kiss on the cheek. “There you are! It’s been ages. Come on, come on!”

He led them into the woods around the Hiding Place, which had survived the war unscathed. Without thinking, she reached for Nicolas’s hand and grasped it firmly. Though she did not turn to him, his smile was wide enough to be visible in her peripheral vision.

“Here we are!” Garm barked as they neared the open clearing where she had once found the young Avisai willing to carry her in secret to her meeting with the Messenger. And just like last time, that Avisai was still in the clearing, albeit a little worse for wear. She couldn’t stop the happy gasp that escaped her as she rushed to the dragon-like creature, who still had a fair number of fresh bandages wrapped oddly around her torso and neck, as if the healers hadn’t quite known what to do but had tried their best anyway.

“You’re okay,” Aleja breathed, leaning in close, taking in the creature’s smell—like wet rocks, leather, and a very cold winter’s day.

Through the marriage bond, she felt Nicolas preen.

It was another week before Aleja woke up having decided to kill the Second.

It was fortunate that Val had returned to them a week before, with his mask still in tatters and one bright hazel eye that seemed fixed on Aleja, no matter where she moved. There had been a fight, mediated by Taddeas, who formed a barrier between the Knowing One and their ex-prisoner, but neither of them had seemed particularly angry with the other. Just tired enough to bark out a few insults and retreat to their beds—Val’s, now in a previously unoccupied room where someone had dropped a few pillows and a scratchy wool blanket on the floor.

And that night, as usual, Aleja had dreamed. This time, it was of the night she had gone to beg the Second to spare her husband and let her face his punishment instead. She had pictured this moment many times, but it was something else entirely to relive it like this. To know that she had fallen to her knees, just this once, in front of the Second and asked him for the impossible.

Now, she could remember how the waters of his well had rippled. How he had emerged one enormous, clawed hand at a time—wings, and horns, and cloven hooves. But Aleja could recall that she had not been afraid of the Second. The Hiding Place was safe, for the moment; the war had ended, in a drawn-out way that had only seemed to truly conclude because both sides were too tired. The Second could do whatever he wanted to her, and it wouldn’t have changed anything.

Aleja had clutched her bleeding finger against her chest, waiting for him to slash through her with his claws, feeling a deep detachment from her body. She didn’t even think it would hurt. But the Second hadn’t struck her. He had spoken.

YOU’LL BE BACK. YOU’RE TOO MUCH OF A DAMN THORN IN MY SIDE NOT TO BE.

The Aleja of now could remember a vague sense of surprise, as if feeling the emotion through a filter that removed much of the nuance. “If ever I return here,” her old self had said, “it will be to kill you. For what you would have done to the Knowing One. For what you’re doing to me. What was the point of rebelling when we were just going to turn into the very thing we were rebelling against?”

THERE IT IS.

“There what is, you son of a bitch?”

NOW YOU’RE BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND, LADY OF WRATH.

“If you have something to say, say it. I have served you for decades now, Second. I have gone to war in your name. If anything, you owe it to me to be honest. You owe it to all of the Otherlanders.”

The Second was silent for a long time.

YOU’RE RIGHT. WE ARE ALL KEPT DOWN BY OUR CHAINS. I AM YOURS , DEAR LADY OF WRATH. A CHAIN THAT IS DIFFICULT TO brEAK, CERTAINLY, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE.

“What does that mean?”

IT MEANS THAT WE DO NOT ALWAYS RECOGNIZE OUR CHAINS. IT MEANS THAT CHAINS CAN BECOME SO COMFORTABLE THAT WE ARE AFRAID TO brEAK THEM FOR FEAR OF WHAT WE MIGHT DO ONCE WE ARE FREE.

“Cryptic Otherlander nonsense,” the Aleja of the past said. It would not be the last time, but when she uttered those words again it would be as Alejandra Ruiz, a caretaker in the Gentle Hearts agency, who had lit a black candle to summon the devil in the hopes of finding her long-missing best friend. “Just say it plainly, Second.”

I CANNOT. THAT IS THE THING ABOUT CHAINS. YOU CANNOT ASK YOUR JAILER TO brEAK THEM FOR YOU. SEE YOU SOON, LADY OF WRATH.

And, with that, the Lady of Wrath—who had become a Dark Saint after her husband lit the black candle to save her from a snakebite on her ankle—ended her first long life to await the next.

The new Aleja woke as if suddenly seeing a door in a wall she’d stared at for years, a door that had been there all along but had remained unseen. When she glanced at Nicolas beside her, still asleep, she knew immediately that he would not be hard to convince.

It was Val she worried about. The other Dark Saints, she thought, might be easier to win over. Taddeas would back her. Merit would be drawn by the challenge of testing his limits. Orla had been surly but still hovered around the palace, while Bonnie mostly roamed the forests. She’d been kind to Aleja in their last conversations, but the distance she’d shown since Violet fled had hardened into unmistakable bitterness

Her thoughts were heavy as she walked the long path to Bonnie’s cabin, unsure why she had come here instead of heading straight to Val. By the time she raised her hand to knock on the door, she realized the air was already fragrant with the smell of frying meat and let herself in.

Bonnie looked up, wiping her hands on her apron. Garm was dozing on the couch in the small salon past the kitchen, his paws twitching in a dream.

“It’s been a minute since you’ve been down here. Stay for a while.”

“I’m going to kill the Second,” Aleja blurted out. Since she had cut the Messenger’s heart from her chest, she had learned it was easier to just do things instead of worrying endlessly. Worry was infinite—until the thing happened, it was like being stuck in a maze of forking paths.

“Oh?” Bonnie asked softly, wiping her knife clean on a kitchen towel. “Do you mean this literally?”

“Yes.”

“Is that even possible?”

“I think so. My dagger still has the Third’s magic in it.”

“And why would you do such a thing, Lady of Wrath?” Bonnie asked, offering Aleja a piece of buttered bread topped with sheep’s cheese and honey, as if Aleja were a hungry child whose nonsense could be temporarily silenced with food.

“Because he told me to. I just couldn’t remember until now.”

They sat and ate, and Aleja told Bonnie all she knew, speculating on what she didn’t. When the conversation ended, Bonnie refused to let Aleja help with the dishes. Aleja leaned on the counter with her arms crossed as they talked, and Garm, who had briefly woken at the promise of food, had resumed his long nap by the fireplace.

“All right,” Bonnie finally said.

Aleja stopped chewing on the extra piece of cheese she had snatched from one of the boards Bonnie hadn’t cleared yet. “What do you mean ‘all right’?” she asked through a full mouth.

“I’m the oldest Dark Saint here,” Bonnie said. “I’ve seen more people come and go than I can count—Dark Saints and Knowing Ones alike. And I’ve watched the Second retreat, grow quiet, except to dole out the occasional punishment. We’re Otherlanders, Aleja. By nature, we rebel. But you need to promise me something. When the Second goes, we don’t replace him—not with the Knowing One. Not with anyone. We govern another way. Jack, Taddeas’s husband, has been living in the foothill villages for years. He joins our Dark Saint meetings. We choose others, from both the mountain towns and the valleys. We no longer go to war just because a council of eight says so.”

Bonnie’s voice caught on the words “a council of eight.” They were down two Dark Saints—lust and pride—and if those roles weren’t fulfilled, the Hiding Place’s magic would become unstable again. Aleja was hoping Val could help with that, if she could convince him to speak with her.

“Nic is working on it,” she said, reaching for another piece of bread. It felt good to be stress eating again. “He’s already made a few trips to the human realm to scope out candidates.”

This was true. Aleja had gone with him, but she had been too distracted to feel inspired by any of the humans they observed from a distance. Bonnie didn’t press. After a moment, she put down her sponge and let her soapy arms fall to her sides.

“You haven’t heard from her, have you?”

Great , Aleja thought. From a difficult topic to an impossible one. “You know Violet would come to see you first.”

“Hm,” Bonnie breathed. “We’ll see. Go speak to Val. He’ll help you. Taddeas was here for breakfast this morning, complaining he couldn’t get Val out of his hair. Apparently, our Astraelis guest is extremely bored. Killing another god is exactly the sort of activity he needs.”

“You killed my mother,” Val said, his voice devoid of emotion.

“She was already dying; I needed her heart.”

Val no longer bothered to hide his hazel eye, which moved slowly beneath his tattered mask. He squinted at her suspiciously but said nothing. The only sounds were the Avisai grazing behind him and a Throne, which had mysteriously appeared several days earlier, covered in ash. When the Avisai had risen to strike the Throne down, it had rolled over, exposing its soft belly.

“No offense, Val, but it never seemed like you liked her very much.”

“I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m not upset. She—well, I suppose she cared for me in her own way, in the end, didn’t she?”

“She killed a god for you.”

“I figured out how to kill a god. She just provided the firepower.”

“That’s understood, Val. I came here to ask if you’d like to try to do it again.”

All in all, it took frighteningly little effort to convince Val to agree. The Dark Saints—especially Orla—were harder to sway. Their meeting was tense, the weight of betrayal and unspoken arguments heavy in the air.

“The Second lied to us. About the Avaddon. About everything. He knew what was coming and said nothing. He made us pawns in a game only he could understand,” Aleja said.

“And yet we won,” Orla said, her arms crossed. Her voice was as sharp as ever, but there was no venom in it. “Do we kill him just for that? For being who he’s always been?”

Nicolas stepped forward, his shadows trailing behind him like a cloak. “He didn’t just lie. He used us—manipulated us. He let us suffer, let the Saints break themselves apart, while he stayed safe in his cave. What kind of leader does that?”

“A leader who’s grown old and bitter,” Bonnie said, her calm voice cutting through the tension. “The question is, what kind of future do we want now? Do we need him?”

Aleja’s shoulders straightened. “We’ve averted the apocalypse, but the cycle isn’t broken. It won’t be, not while he’s alive. He told me to ‘break the chains.’ I think he wants this. I think he’s waited for someone to end it—end him. ”

Orla scowled. “And you think we’re the ones to do it? You think we can handle the fallout?”

“We’ve already handled worse,” Aleja said, her voice firm. “The Otherlanders don’t need the Second. They need a future they can build themselves. No more lies. No more chains.”

There was a long silence. Orla finally sighed, shaking her head. “Well, Wrath, it’s your call. If we’re doing this, it’s on you.”

“It’s always been on me,” Aleja said, meeting each of their gazes. “And I’m ready.”

The council deliberations stretched for hours afterward, voices rising and falling as doubts, fears, and grudging agreements filled the space. But once Aleja secured most of the council’s support—which now included not only Jack but a handful of Otherlanders from the hillsides she had never met, and even an Astraelis representing those in the refugee camp—it gave Orla permission to concede. After all, none of them had escaped harm from the Second or the wars that had ravaged their Hiding Place for millennia.

“I thought we were about to start our own civil war,” Aleja muttered one night as she and Nicolas lounged on one of the palace’s high balconies, watching the red sunset fade into a violet evening.

“We’re Otherlanders,” Nicolas said with a shrug. “We know when it’s time to fall from grace. Most of us came here from places where we felt we had to hide. The name of our realm isn’t an accident. And in the past few centuries, it’s felt like the Second’s cruelty has been the point. We’re Otherlanders because we’re people who decided not to be afraid anymore.”

“When should we do it?” Aleja asked, looking to the sky. The Throne had finally managed to fly close enough to the Avisai without being attacked, following their slow circles at a careful distance.

“Soon. Taddeas has been accompanying Val as close to the Second’s cave as they can get without rousing him. Val seems confident he’ll be ready to force the Second to appear within weeks.”

Nicolas’s fingers grazed the inside of Aleja’s knee, the touch so gentle it clashed with the darkness in his voice. “In the meantime, we wait. We rebuild. And we figure out how to teach the Astraelis some damn manners, because I saw one touching a painting in the palace the other day. He thought I was about to drag him out to the law for a public execution.”

“Oh?” Aleja frowned. “It wasn’t the Titian, was it?”

“The Bassano. That’s the only reason the Astraelis is alive right now. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it anymore tonight. Come here. Your skin is freezing.”

“No, it’s not,” Aleja laughed. Since the Messenger had pulled the Third out of her, Aleja’s body had felt as uncomfortably hot as Nicolas’s.

From up here, she could see beyond the foothills into the mountains. The sun had finally dipped behind them, and the stars were emerging—constellations Aleja now knew by heart.

“On the balcony , Nic? Someone will see!” Aleja tried to pull away half-heartedly, as he slipped a hand beneath her jacket to cup one of her breasts. But, despite her chiding, her nipple tightened beneath this touch and a heat even greater than her baseline flared to life in her core.

“Let them,” he muttered.

“Maybe you have an exhibition fetish—” Aleja laughed again, but swallowed her own words once Nicolas coaxed her mouth open with his own. Once his hand trailed from her breast to her stomach, it slipped underneath her tunic so that he could trace the soft curve of her abdomen with his fingertips. Aleja was lucky that she had never be ticklish.

“Oh, maybe just this once,” she muttered against his mouth.

When he lay her down, all she could see was her husband’s face, intense in concentration on her alone, and his messy hair, highlighted by a streak of gray by his left temple, and the sky above them—as boundless and free as their world was about to become.

The Messenger returned the day before they were going to kill the Second.

Or, at least, Aleja thought that it was the Messenger, returning to life to get revenge. But it took only a second to realize the woman was far too small, and her mask was not the enormous, circular mandala the Messenger had always worn. Instead, it was dirty and uneven, as if it had been plucked off a corpse.

“You really shouldn’t be here,” Aleja said, annoyed that Violet had managed to sneak up on her while she was taking notes on one of the paintings in a lesser hall off the palace’s south wing. Aleja was almost certain it was an undocumented Fra Angelico. “There are plenty of Otherlanders and Astraelis here who want you dead, peace be damned. Who let you in?”

“Bonnie,” Violet said with a shrug, adjusting her mask. It was too large for her, covering her upper lip and leaving barely more than her chin exposed. “I went to see her first. No offense.”

“I’m offended by that mask,” Aleja said. “You eat one of their figs, and suddenly you’re out to rain righteousness on the world?”

“I didn’t say anything about righteousness,” Violet replied, unhooking the clasp that held the mask to her head—a clasp usually missing or glamoured into invisibility by the other Astraelis. She let her face show. Her skin was sunburned; the red of her cheeks made her green eyes stand out even more.

“The mask was originally to prevent this,” she explained, gesturing to her peeling face with her free hand. “And then—I don’t know—I found myself sleeping with it on. I wore it even in the shade. It’s more comfortable than you’d think. After so many years forcing myself to make my smile reach my eyes for my content, it was nice, for once, not to have to worry about it.”

“And the fig?” Aleja asked, turning to face Violet fully.

Violet’s clothes were in tatters, but she wore new shoes, distinctly Otherlander in style. She must have picked them up from Bonnie’s cabin. Aleja tried to summon anger for Violet—or at least annoyance for Bonnie, for enabling her—but couldn’t manage it.

“It was an interesting experience,” Violet said. “I was scared when I fled. I knew I wasn’t useful to either side anymore. I figured maybe the fig would help me survive out there in the Astraelis wilderness. But I must have hallucinated for days. Strange hallucinations—not like mushrooms back in college. It felt like looking into both the past and the future at once. Like looking inside myself.”

“What did you see?” Aleja asked, setting aside her notes on the end table.

She watched Violet carefully. While her relationship with Nicolas had simplified, she could not name what she felt toward Violet. She loved the girl Violet had once been: the starry-eyed hiking influencer who adored the sound of trees more than anything. But the Violet who had taken the Trials to become a Dark Saint was more of a mystery.

Yet the fact that her old best friend had eaten a hallucinogenic fig and wandered through a strange realm for days, armed only with tattered clothes and the mask of a dead angel, seemed so entirely Violet that Aleja couldn’t help but sympathize.

Violet looked at the mask in her hands, then placed it back over her face, securing the strap. Freshly adjusted, it hung higher, allowing her mouth to show. “Well, the first one made me want to walk.”

“The first one?” Aleja sighed, folding her arms.

“Yes. The first one told me which direction to go, so I did. Eventually, I came across the First Tree. It’s dying now that the First is gone, but there was one fig left, and I was ravenous. I ate it. The snake let me.”

“And what did it tell you?” Aleja whispered.

“That I understood what it was to be trapped between two worlds, and that there are probably people here who feel the same—and just like I talked to the Third, I could talk to them too. I don’t think I’m supposed to be the new Messenger, nothing like that, but I thought maybe I could make up for what I’ve done. So, I’m sorry, Al. I hope that one day you’ll forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” Aleja said. “By me. You might have to do more work with Bonnie but know that she practically forbade me from killing you when I wanted to.”

“I know,” Violet whispered. “I’ve already made it very clear to her that I’ll grovel for the rest of my immortal life, if only she’ll take me back. She’s thinking about it.”

“I don’t know if the Astraelis will ever accept a human as their leader. Or…psychologist? Therapist? It’s still not entirely clear to me what you plan to say to them, but you can tell me all about it later.”

Violet shrugged, and the mask shifted on her face. “I’ll do what I can. Oh, that’s not the only thing the fig taught me.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“It sent me back here to help you kill the Second.”

The day their god died began with a golden sunrise.

As usual, Nicolas was up before her but hadn’t moved from the bed, where she was tucked beneath his arm. His fingertips gently stroked her ribs. Strangely, Aleja had slept through the night, her mind free of the fear she expected to feel about what she was about to do. Val and Merit had spent weeks working on the new wards that would envelop the Hiding Place once the Second’s were broken—wards that would buy them time until Nicolas could find two new Dark Saints.

Her dreams had instead been rich and detailed—not of her life as a Dark Saint, but the one before that. She remembered Nicolas shaking the first time he was called to war by the leader of their tiny village. She could see herself shuffling through the drawings he left behind—heavily shadowed charcoal sketches of the hills surrounding them, the glittering bay, the disobedient sheepdog that liked to escape the fields and visit their hut for slices of raw rabbit meat, and, of course, countless drawings of her.

Aleja, wading knee-deep in the river.

Aleja, dozing by the fireside, her bare feet tucked under her.

Aleja’s hands, carefully stringing her bow.

“We don’t have to get up yet,” Nicolas muttered into her hair. His chest was warm against her cheek.

“Val said to meet him at dawn.”

“Val can wait. So can the Second, for that matter,” he replied. But once the haze of sleep faded, the marriage bond between them felt taut. The anticipation felt like watching a horror movie—tense but distant, fear not fully realized until the moment it arrived.

“It’s still okay to change your mind,” Nicolas said, watching as Aleja fit her stiletto blade into her sash.

The blade was still so cold that Aleja wondered if the Third’s magic had permanently infused it. It was a terrifying weapon now—a god killer, with the blood of one already on its blade.

Aleja didn’t feel remotely guilty keeping it.

“Dove,” Nicolas said softly as they crossed the last barrier out of the unused throne room, where their two chairs sat empty, flanked by enormous batwing-shaped onyx stone. It was a shame the room was so disused, Aleja thought, remembering how much Nicolas had once enjoyed being on his knees before her.

“Husband?”

“If this works—if the Second or Val’s experimental magic doesn’t kill us—then tomorrow, we’re going to Italy.”

She spun to face him. Despite her careful braids, a few stubborn hairs had fallen across her forehead.

“Tomorrow, Nic? There’s so much to do around here. And we should be looking for two Dark Saints to fill?—”

“There’s an entire council to make decisions for the Hiding Place now. And as long as Merit is here, Orla will be too. We will look for new Dark Saints—but first, we’ll look for them in Italy. If we visit a few museums and eat some pasta along the way, we could hardly be blamed. Besides, you have plenty of devotees there.

“It’s the humans who call out to us, pray to us, light candles in our name, who will help keep the wards strong. Their magic, combined with ours. So, I think we should kill our leader, come back, pack a few things, and leave. If you want, we can even bring Garm, although you know he’ll want to share the bed?—”

“We’re bringing our hellhound, Nic.”

“Fine. We’ll bring the dog. After Italy, we should really check Spain for new candidates. Then, maybe Greece, or?—”

“We’ll see,” Aleja said, unable to suppress her smile.

Now that the fear was tangible, Aleja didn’t expect to get close to the Second’s cave, despite the words he’d spoken to her before her punishment. Had she interpreted them correctly? Surely, the Second couldn’t have meant for her to kill him. This was foolish. He’d wipe them all out the moment he saw their motley band—Val and Violet, possibly the first human to don an Astraelis mask; Orla, Merit, Taddeas, and Bonnie, who walked close to Violet’s side; and finally, Aleja, Nicolas, and Garm, back in his Doberman form, whining softly as the cave mouth came into view.

No one else spoke. Aleja wondered if, like her, the others were starting to realize this was a bad idea.

“I can’t believe I let you fucking people talk me into this,” Orla muttered.

Aleja glanced at Val, who was fiddling with one of the luminariums he left scattered around the palace, like he was still in the habit of planting false information for his mother.

“You’re sure this is going to work, right?” she asked.

“Technically, nothing in my sciences is one hundred percent certain, but?—”

“Val, stop,” Nicolas interrupted. “I believe what my wife wants to know is whether we are more likely to survive than not. I ask this for your own good, Astraelis, because if she does not walk out of that cave safely, I will drag you in there myself as a sacrifice to the Second.”

Val’s hazel eye flinched, but the wings of his mask remained still. “I’m as certain as I can be. If you follow the steps I’ve outlined, the Second should be forced to appear before you. Are you sure you and the Lady of Wrath want to go in alone?”

They’d already discussed this so much that even Taddeas, normally the most patient of them all, huffed softly.

“Yes,” Nicolas said. “If this doesn’t work—if the Second kills us or the magic backfires—this world will need Dark Saints to survive long enough to appoint a new Knowing One. Orla will nominate herself. The Hiding Place has a chance to continue, as long as she can replace the rest of us in time.”

Val blinked slowly. Aleja briefly looked back at the others gathered at the ridge. Their goodbyes this morning had been tentative, not final, but clearly implied in the hugs and soft smiles. Even Orla had patted Aleja on the shoulder.

“Nicolas. Husband. Let’s kill the Second.”

“Nothing would make me happier, dove.”

The cave’s interior was cool and damp, the air heavy with moisture as if flowers could grow in it. Nicolas took her hand as they descended into the Second’s chamber, passing statues of satyrs and muses Aleja had grown familiar with during her Trials.

The ritual Val had taught them was simple and mostly completed by him already. With Merit’s help, Val had spent weeks tinkering with the luminariums until they could store magical energy. The one in Aleja’s pocket resembled the locked golden box she’d once been unable to open, the one that had kept the Unholy Relic from her own finger.

Reaching for it distracted her, and she didn’t realize Nicolas had stopped walking until his arm shot out, pressing against her chest.

They wouldn’t need to summon the Second. He was already there.

Four black horns spiraled from his head, but his face was indistinct except for his eyes, which flickered in shades of red and gold. His wings, vast enough to span the entire chamber, scraped against the stone, their clawed tips sending up clouds of dust with a painful screech. One of his clawed feet shifted, and Nicolas pressed harder against Aleja’s chest, as if to hold her back.

THERE IS NO NEED, KNOWING ONE , the Second said, his voice so deep it seemed to rise from the molten lava beneath the mountains. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU BOTH.

Aleja felt the tremor through their marriage bond—a warning from Nicolas. This could be a trick. But if it was, why let them get this far? It would’ve been better to slaughter the traitors in front of the others, to remind the Hiding Place to fear its leader again.

At least, that was what Aleja would have done.

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” she asked.

NO , the Second rumbled. FOR I SLEEP NEARLY ALWAYS. AND I DREAM. AND IN MY DREAMS, I KNOW THAT THE CHAINS ON YOU WERE PLACED THERE BY ME. MILLENNIA AGO, I TORE THE WORLD APART TO FREE THE OTHERLANDERS. I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO BECOME THAT WHICH SHACKLES THEM ANY LONGER.

“Will this bring you peace?” Nicolas asked. Aleja couldn’t parse the emotion in his voice or the flood of feeling rushing through their marriage bond. Like her reaction to Violet, it was both tender and dark at once.

WILL THE WARDS SURVIVE?

“Yes,” the Knowing One answered.

THEN ENSURE THAT I AM CONFINED TO THE BOOKS THAT THE LIbrARIANS HOARD IN THEIR MOUNTAINS.

“Don’t you have anything else to fucking say?” Aleja snapped, drawing the blade from her sash. If the Second felt the death magic rippling through it, he didn’t react.

I WOULD NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR THE GLORIOUS BEAST I HAVE TURNED YOU INTO, DEAR LADY OF WRATH.

“Do you want to do it?” she whispered to her husband.

“Please, do the honors,” Nicolas said.

Her bootsteps echoed off the stone floor as she stepped fully into the Second’s chamber. “Lower yourself,” she told him. “I want to reach your heart.”

The Second obeyed. His breath smelled of sulfur, smoke, and stone. For a moment, they were eye-to-eye, and she had to force herself not to squint into their scorching light.

If the Second had any last words, she wouldn’t let him speak them. The last thing on his lips would be her name.

Her hand didn’t tremble as she plunged the freezing blade into him.

Unlike the First, his body didn’t crumple. Instead, the darkness of his skin cracked, like black volcanic stone. Streaks of red and orange pulsed across his body. Aleja stared, mesmerized, until Nicolas pulled her back.

She didn’t look behind her to watch his body fall. She wouldn’t grant the Second the dignity of a witness. The body would be there later, for Val or some other intrepid Otherlander to study.

For now, she had bags to pack. Italy awaited.

At last, their chains had truly been broken.

The End