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“Ding, ding, ding!” she sang. “It was more of an accident, though. Malcolm was only meant to go in as a form of distraction while I checked to see what that interesting letter Azrael received from the Council was. You can imagine my disappointment when I opened Azrael’s safe and found it was just about you.

Although I guess it worked in my favor since it only proved how much the Council manipulates.

” She sighed, shaking her head. “It’s a shame, though, that Malcolm had to die.

He sacrificed so much for me without any questions.

Something that the Council could never do. ”

My throat burned. Everything did. “You killed innocent people—people who trusted you.”

“Innocent?” Eden scoffed. ‘You’re so stupid, Grace. None of them are innocent. Not the Council, not the Celestials. And certainly not him.” She turned her gaze to Hunter, and everything collapsed around me.

“What does she mean by that?” I asked him, trying to keep the quiver in my voice at bay.

Hunter didn’t meet my eyes.

“Hunter,” I said again, his silence only feeding further into my fear.

Eden’s laugh was bitter and cruel. “Go on, Hunter, tell her.”

A muscle ticked beneath his jaw.

“Tell her,” Eden goaded him. “Tell her how you’re just as corrupted as I am. That your soul was marked by a demon the moment you realized the Celestials failed you and your brother.”

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “That’s not true.”

Hunter finally looked at me, his grey eyes filled with desperation. “Grace,” he started, but I stepped back, my heart splintering.

“Cain...” came Silas’s voice, looking just as hurt as everyone else.

Hunter’s gaze never left mine, not for one second. The longer I stared at him, the longer I felt I would break.

When that balance shifts—when demons gain too much power, or there is corruption within Celestials and Ascendants—the barriers weaken.

The memory of that day Lucas died rang so clear in my mind. Hunter knew the barriers were weakening. He was one of the reasons why. He and Eden—two corrupted souls.

“When you’d sneak off, telling us you were training. It wasn’t true, was it?”

He tried reaching me, but I pulled my hands back as if his touch would burn me.

“When you came back, beaten, making us think it was the Riftkeeper’s... it wasn’t really them, was it?”

He didn’t deny it.

And that was the worst part.

“Ah,” Eden chuckled. “Is that what he made you all think? That it was the Riftkeeper’s? Oh, Hunter, we both know those times were only for your lack of work. The demons don’t like it when you waste their time.”

Betrayal pounded against my chest.

Hunter could only look at me with sorrow and pain flashing across his face.

But I didn’t care in that moment. I didn’t care because I was officially broken.

“And you .” Eden turned to Joe with a vicious smile plastered on her lips. “You know what I’m going to say.” Her gaze drifted towards me and her smile grew. “But maybe Grace, should hear it come from you first.”

I froze but there was only silence for those few seconds before the faint sound of a weapon unsheathing clashed in the distance, and I turned to see as Joe lunged toward Eden before she could say anything else.

She was faster, already drawing out a weapon of her own as the boys reacted, rushing to intercept her, but it was Marnie who was closest to Eden.

She threw herself between the boys and Eden, her hands glowing as she tried to blind Eden.

Yet Eden’s blade sank into her abdomen, and time seemed to freeze.

“No!” The scream tore from my throat as she crumpled to the ground. My legs nearly buckled beneath me as I dove forward, catching her before she could collapse completely.

Blood. So much of it.

My shaking hands pressed against the wound at her abdomen, desperately, frantically.

“Marnie—” My voice trembled. “You’re going to be okay. Just—just heal yourself. You can heal yourself.”

I grabbed her hand and pressed it over the wound, waiting and pleading for the familiar golden glow to bloom beneath her fingertips.

Nothing happened.

Her breath shuddered in her chest. “Grace...” She coughed, red staining her lips. “I can’t—it won’t—it won’t heal—”

“No, no, no, that’s not true—just try again, okay? Just concentrate.” My vision blurred, tears welling and slipping past my lashes. “You always fix things. You always fix me .”

I glanced back at the boys. My voice cracked as I choked out, “Go get help!”

They hesitated.

“Please!” I screamed, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. “Somebody—just get someone! Please!”

At my urgency, Brandon and Silas ran, leaving Hunter behind. I heard their hurried footsteps disappear into the wreckage of Celestia and somewhere in the distance, Eden’s retreating heels clicked against the stone. Joe’s voice shouted after her, but it all faded into nothing.

Because Marnie was looking at me like she already knew.

She gripped my wrist, her fingers sticky with her own blood. “I don’t want to go,” she rasped. “Please don’t let me—don’t—”

“You’re not going anywhere. Just breathe in and out, yeah? You’re okay; you’re going to be okay—”

She gasped one final time, her hand falling limp as the sigil stones tumbled from her grip, clattering softly against the cold floor.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

And I knew.

Everything inside me shattered at once. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move.

“Marnie?” I whispered, pressing her hand against her wound in hopes it would finally work, and she would be healed.

“No,” my voice broke. I looked up for help, but Hunter was the only person I found staring at me with the same pained look.

“No.” I shook my head as grief swallowed me whole and sobs wracked my whole body.

They sounded like I was screaming. “I—I can’t —” I gasped for air.

“I can’t do this without you. Please... please don’t leave me. ”

But she already had, and there was no one left to fix me.