Page 55 of The Devil May Care

“They don’t care.”

I take a step forward, heat rising under my skin, not from anger now but from helpless, useless fear.

“They will make you fight again. They will keep calling you until you can’t stand up anymore. And if you die, they will not grieve. They will use your blood as ink to document their cause.”

She’s still looking at me like I gave her something. Like being seen matters more than any weapon in that room. And I almost let the silence settle. Almost let that be the end. But then I speak and it’s a mistake.

“You are not the only one this affects,” I say. “You think I wanted you to bleed in front of the court? To draw the Asmodeus’s attention? You could have—”

“Oh, fuck you, Ember Heir.”

Her voice rings like a slap.

It silences the rest of my sentence, and something in her breaks open—fast and sharp and livid.

“You don’t get to do this,” she snaps, stepping toward me again, flushed now not from pain or adrenaline—but fury. “You don’t get to yell at me for reacting when you’ve given me nothing to go on.”

I open my mouth. She steamrolls through it.

“You dumped me in a bedroom I didn’t ask for, left me at the mercy of flame-eyed cultists screaming riddles about fate and marks and rites I’ve never heard of, and then vanished.”

Her hands gesture wildly now, half-rhetorical, half-exhausted.

“And then you show up and yell at me when I don’t figure it out perfectly on my own? Really?”

I flinch. Barely, but she sees it. And it drives her harder.

“Am I supposed to be grateful that you brought me out of the lava hellscape only to let me drown myself out here? Not imprisoned you said, could’ve fooled me. There’s rules I don’t know and then consequences when I break them and there’s only so much S—”

She stops short, a name on her tongue. I hear it stall her words. Watch her swallow it back down. The silence rings louder than the yelling. She exhales hard and turns her back to me. I keep my mouth shut because she’s right. And she’s bleeding.

And I left her alone.

When I do speak, it’s not defensive. My voice is quieter than I mean it to be, but perhaps it’s just right.

“I was wrong.”

She turns her head slightly, just enough to hear me.

“And?” she asks, voice tight.

“I was thinking only of what might happen to me. I forgot, ignored, what was already happening to you.”

It’s not an apology, but it’s closer than I’ve come in a long time and for once I mean it. Her throat bobs like she’s swallowing something bitter, but when she meets my eyes again, there’s no fear. Only something quiet and stunned.

“You were scared.”

I exhale through my nose, sharp and silent. “Don’t mistake emotion for weakness.”

“Too late,” she says. “You showed one anyway.”

Her voice isn’t mocking. It’s cool, calm, truth and that terrifies me more than anything else. Rejecting the flame, turning from it’s warmth, means living a muted life. Emotions buried deep where they can’t sting and snarl and snap. But Kay… her very existence here is challenging that well of self-control. I hate it.

She doesn’t speak again. Just stands there with her back half-turned, arms crossed like she’s holding herself together. The room is too quiet now. The air heavy with heat that has nowhere left to go. I should leave. There’s nothing more to say. Nothing she wants from me, and nothing I can offer. But I stay, just a moment longer. Just long enough to see her fingers uncurl. Long enough to see the smallest trembles in her shoulders shudder to a stop.

“I will speak to the court,” I say. “They are… considering options. I will see to it that you are protected.”

She turns then to meet my eyes. Her voice is hoarse.