Pain lanced up Helena’s side. She tried to twist away from it, but her body was too heavy, her limbs like weights. She groaned. Light fluttered around her. Where was she? It wasn’t her bedroom in her apartment: the space was cramped, full of unfamiliar towering shapes.
The pain receded; something warm and dry pressed against her forehead.
“Fever’s gone down,” said a woman’s voice. “We’re out of the danger zone.”
“Good.” This voice sparked inside Helena’s head and sent images flickering through her thoughts: a man in a field of overgrown grass, a sweep of black hair, a hand strumming wildly against a guitar.
Helena tried to ask where she was, but all that came out was a gurgle of sound.
“Shh.” A shadow moved beside her. A hand closed around hers. “Don’t talk. We pulled you out of the worst of it, but you’re still coming down from the after-effects.”
Helena looked at the owner of the hand. When she saw his face, his black eyes, she was dragged upward out of the drowning ocean, into clear air.
“Aleksi,” she breathed, reaching for him.
“Yeah.” He stroked her cheek, his touch feather soft. The last thing she remembered was him touching her, his hands tracing the lines of her body.
After that, a blur of blood and greenery. A black bowl.
Screams.
“She’s coming around.” Corina’s voice sounded far away. “Thank the gods I mixed up that ointment.”
Ointment. Storm clouds in the kitchen.
Aleksi ran his thumb along Helena’s lip. “I’m so sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I never should have asked you to do that. I tried to buffer the magic, but—”
The black bowl.
A droplet of blood.
Now.
“She needs to rest,” Corina said. “Her sister will be here in an hour and a half. And we’ve got to decide what we’re going to do next.”
All Helena could see was Aleksi’s face. His dark eyes, intense with concern. Her sister was coming. That was why she had to help. He said he needed her hands.
To make the spell stronger.
“Don’t go,” she whispered to him. “I don’t want to be by myself.”
Aleksi smiled, squeezed her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.” Then, to Corina: “You hear that?”
“I heard it fine. My point stands. We’re surrounded by the C.O.A., and the Lineage is on their way.”
Helena pushed against the weight of her body, trying to sit up. She was still too heavy. Gravity pressed on her like water.
“Just lie there,” Aleksi said. “I’m right here.” He looked over his shoulder. “I’m staying with her. It’s my fault this happened, and as long as the wards hold, we’ve got time to plan.”
“The wards are fine,” Corina said. “I reinforced them before we went out there, remember? But we can’t stay here forever.”
Forever. Helena felt like she had seen what forever looked like, right before she pulled the knife away. As if she was sinking into the darkness.
“And I can’t guarantee the wards are going to keep out her sister, either. She’s coming here on a rescue mission. You know how those things work.”
“I’m not worried about her sister.”
A scoff of annoyance, a shuffle of footsteps, the creak of a door hinge. Helena drew her hand out to Aleksi again, and he caught it, brought it to his mouth. She barely felt the kiss.
“You wanted me to kill that man,” she said, not wholly remembering until the words formed on her tongue.
For a long time, Aleksi didn’t say anything. Helena watched the line of his jaw, waiting for it to move, for him to speak, even though it hadn’t been a question.
“Not exactly,” Aleksi finally said, his voice rough. “You just had to spill his dying blood.”
“So you killed him,” she said flatly.
“I got him close,” Aleksi whispered. “But it doesn’t matter—”
“Because I didn’t do it.” Her mouth felt dry. “I pricked him, that was all. I saw him get away.” She stared at Aleksi. “It didn’t work, did it? That’s what Corina meant, about being surrounded by the C.O.A.—” Once again saying the words made them real. Speaking cleared the gauze of her confusion. But the clarity brought with it a sharp pain straight through the center of her heart. It brought with it the memory of the ritual.
The drop of spilled blood, the bones rattling in the wind. The trees thrashing side to side, swinging their leaves like hair.
The blade of the pocketknife slicing cleanly through translucent skin.
“The ritual failed,” Aleksi said.
Helena closed her eyes. Nausea rose up in her stomach. All that suffering and the ritual didn’t even work.
“Not your part. All of it.”
Helena looked up at Aleksi. He was still holding her hand, but his gaze was fixed away from her, at some point in the middle distance.
“It wasn’t strong enough,” she whispered. “Because you had to rush—”
“It wasn’t just that,” Aleksi said. “Gavin was expecting it. And with my shard, and the power he’s leaching out of Hell—it was stupid, for us to try the same thing.” His expression darkened. “So fucking stupid, even with all the time in the world.”
Helena squeezed his hand and he turned toward her. With a surge of strength, she lifted her hand and pressed it against his face, and he leaned into her palm, his cheeks rough with stubble.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Juniper,” she rasped. “I just wanted her to know I was safe. I told her not—”
“I told you, it wasn’t that we were rushed,” he said, his breath hot against her skin. “I should have known. Dom and I thought we just had to make it stronger.” He shook his head. “I should have known.”
Helena took a deep breath, the air rough inside her lungs. She looked up at the ceiling fan stirring the air in slow lazy arcs. Even with Aleksi’s hand wrapped around her own, she felt removed from him. Because of what he had asked her to do, and because of how terrible it had felt when she had almost done it.
And because he was sitting here, telling her it had been pointless.
“I’d never—” She stopped herself. “I’d never done blood magic like that before. That strong.” She pulled her hand away and waited for Aleksi to say something, but he didn’t.
“I didn’t like it,” she said flatly. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t like when we brought Corina back. Or when we were playing music. It was—” She kept her eyes fixed on the fan. A hard metallic taste rose up in her throat. “It felt wrong.” That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to say. “Transgressive,” she added.
“It is transgressive,” Aleksi said. “It’s magic.”
Helena shook her head.
“It’s blood magic,” he added. “Infernal magic that’s been shaped by human hands. It doesn’t belong in this world.”
Helena shifted on the bed, pressed herself up to sitting. Unlike Corina, Aleksi didn’t try to stop her, but he did try to steady her, laying his hand against her back. Helena felt herself stiffen against his touch.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know if this is for me. I feel like I might have—”
She cut herself off. She could feel Aleksi staring at her.
“Made a mistake?” he said quietly.
She looked down at her lap. “Not exactly,” she whispered. Because it wasn’t him who felt wrong. It wasn’t the time they spent tangled up on the conduit.
“It was the magic.” She looked up at him. “That magic—it just felt wrong. And not even because of the Lineage. It just—”
“I know.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and gathered her to him, and she let herself slump against the familiar warmth of his body, too exhausted to try and untangle her confusion. “I’m sorry. But I was desperate—it was the only way to strengthen the spell.”
“And it didn’t even work,” Helena murmured.
Aleksi said nothing. They pressed up against each other, not speaking. Helena listened to the strange rhythm of Aleksi’s heartbeat and tried to match it with her breath. In the silence her thoughts were heavy. She thought she had uncovered some truth the Lineage had kept from her, that blood magic and Infernal magic weren’t the evils the Lineage claimed. But she felt like a piece of herself had been carved out when she cut that man and left him to rot on the forest floor.
She felt the remnants of the spell clinging to her skin like oil.
“I want to take a shower,” she said, and pushed herself forward. Aleksi let her go, but when she tried to stand, her legs buckled, a million pinpricks stabbing up through the soles of her feet. Aleksi caught her and his arm scooped around her waist.
“You should wait,” he said. “Until you’ve recovered.”
Helena shook her head. She rubbed at her arms, half expecting her hands to come away coated with sticky, Infernal residue. “I want a shower,” she said. “Juniper’s going to be here, and I need to be ready. Come with me. Hold me up.”
Aleksi laughed.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I need—I have to get this magic off of me.”
Aleksi’s smile vanished.
“Please,” she said. “I feel so—I can’t see my sister like this. I can’t.”
“Come on,” he whispered.
He led her into the hallway, into the empty bathroom. She pressed herself up against the counter while he ran the water. She refused to look at herself in the mirror, afraid of what her reflection would reveal. Instead she watched Aleksi strip off his clothes. She traced the movements of his tattoos and wondered for the first time what exact magic had gone into enchanting them.
A man’s dying blood?
A woman’s tattered soul?
She had not been honest with herself about Aleksi. Just because he wouldn’t rip out her heart physically didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it in some other way—
Like forcing her into the darkest sort of blood magic.
But we had to, she thought. Because of Juniper. Because she’ll be here soon—
Aleksi took Helena’s hand in his, interrupting her thoughts. When she looked up at him, she flushed with warmth. And suddenly, all the concerns about magic seemed as insubstantial as steam. Despite her pain and her weak, trembling legs, she was here with Aleksi, who’d apologized, who understood it was all too much for her, who didn’t even care that she hadn’t done it, in the end.
She pulled her shirt up over her head, bracing her hip against the counter. Aleksi took the shirt from her and tossed it on the ground, and then he pushed down her shorts, his hands lingering softly on the curve of her hips. His touch was so kind she could only forgive him for what he’d done.
She kissed him. His fingers fumbled with her bra, pulled it away. Then he lifted her up on the countertop, the tiles cool against the back of her thighs. He slid off her underwear like a sigh. His eyes never left hers.
She didn’t feel the magical residue anymore.
“Come on,” he murmured, and helped her down from the counter. “We don’t have much time.” She could barely walk, but his smooth bare skin against hers guided forward. He helped her into the shower and drew the curtain closed and she leaned up against the tile as the water sluiced over her, warm and bright. She looked up at Aleksi through the glittering water droplets.
What she felt wasn’t exactly desire.
Aleksi pressed his fingers against her scar, stroking the places where her skin had knit back together after the demon attack. A dull ache pounded in her chest.
“I’m glad it wasn’t able to steal your heart.” Aleksi pulled his hand away. Water showered between them, a constant roar like the ocean. “I’m glad we had this time together.”
Helena pressed into him, winding her arms around his shoulders, and he was the only thing holding her up, like a fence for climbing roses.
The water spilled over her, washing away the darkness. She buried her face in Aleksi’s neck and let her thoughts empty. The sweet steam of the shower made her feel stronger.
“Do you hear that?” Aleksi said suddenly.
Helena pulled herself away from him, frowning. He reached down and shut off the water.
In the wet, dripping silence, a siren rose up in the bathroom, a low, vibrato whine.
“The wards,” Aleksi said. “Someone’s stepped through the wards.”
“It’s too early for Juniper.” Helena reached for a towel, her arm trembling. Aleksi wrapped it around her shoulders.
Someone banged on the bathroom door and shouted, but Helena couldn’t make out who it was or what they were saying over the screaming of the siren.
She dried herself off halfway, her movements slow, like moving through molasses, as Aleksi threw on his clothes. The banging continued, loud and persistent. Helena caught a word—
“Lineage!”
“The Lineage?” She looked up at Aleksi hopelessly, her T-shirt hanging from her hand. “It can’t be. Juniper should still be an hour away.”
The bathroom door slammed open, the lock splintering. Helena shrieked and held up her shirt to cover herself, but it was Corina, wild-eyed. The siren bored into Helena’s brain.
“—the wards,” Corina said.
“What?” Helena cried, clamping her hands over her ears. Fear clung to her heart.
“Your sister!” Corina screamed. “Your sister has crossed the wards!”
At crossed, the siren shut off abruptly, and Corina’s voice clattered around the steamed-up bathroom. “Thank you, Dom,” she whispered, sagging up against the door frame. “The siren goes off anytime someone new passes through the wards.” She paused. “Someone without bad intentions.”
“Juniper,” Helena whispered. Her ears rang.
Her sister was here to save her, after all.
“Get dressed,” Corina said. “She’s probably to the bridge now.”
Helena nodded and pulled on her shirt and the rest of her clothes. How did Juniper get here so soon? Helena needed more time. They all did. They were weak from the failed binding and Juniper didn’t understand what she was walking into.
“Come on,” Aleksi said brusquely, stepping out into the hallway. Helena followed on shaky legs, one hand pressed against the wall to steady herself. She was the last to come into the living room, where the three others stood in fighting stances, staring at the front door.
Helena steadied herself, taking deep breaths. “Let me talk—”
The trailer’s electricity failed with a slow, dying moan.
Aleksi grabbed Helena by the arm and pulled her up beside him. “Are we sure it’s Juniper?” he growled at Corina.
“The C.O.A. could never have crossed over. All the spells are still in place.”
Something thumped against the front door. Helena sucked down a deep breath and caught the scent of fresh herbs: sage, rosemary, yarrow.
The familiarity of that scent was terrifying. She had spent hundreds of afternoons watching her parents prepare it before they went out to hunt blood mages.
“Watch out!” she screamed. “She has a fireba—”
The wood on the door splintered and showered out across the living room.
“Jig’s up, you sacks of Infernal shit!” Juniper stepped through the jagged hole she’d blown into the door, a ball of energy sizzling between her palms. In the green light she looked sickly and strange, more like a monster than the monster Helena knew she was hunting.
“I know you’ve got my sister in here!” she bellowed, shooting off an arc of energy toward Dominic. He sliced his arm with a knife he produced out of his pocket and flung out a spray of blood. The energy bolt fizzled.
“Juniper!” Helena shouted. “Juniper, stop it!”
Juniper paused, then flexed her fingers. The energy ball brightened, casting the entire room in green light. Helena put her hand on Aleksi’s arm, the muscles flexed beneath her touch. Don’t attack her, please.
“Helena?” She stepped forward, lifting the energy ball. “Who the hell is that with—”
Even in the murky light Helena saw the rage flash across Juniper’s features. “That blood mage son of a bitch was right!” she roared, and she sent an arc of energy straight at Aleksi.
With a burst of adrenaline, Helena yanked him out of the line of fire. The energy bolt exploded on the wall behind them, flinging showers of herb-garden-scented debris against Helena’s back. She collapsed to her hands and knees as smoldering Sheetrock scattered across the floor.
She lifted her head to check on Aleksi, but he was a dark blur streaking toward Juniper.
“Stop!” She tried to scramble after him but her movements were still too slow; he had already slammed into Juniper, and they both flew backward onto the front porch. Helena screamed and ducked through the ruined door. Juniper and Aleksi were entangled on the front lawn, Aleksi growling and shrieking, Juniper sending up bolts of energy into the empty sky.
“Stop it!” Helena shouted again. “Both of you! Juniper, he’s not—”
A flare of green light. Aleksi roared, his voice distorted and graveled. In the energy light, Helena saw the long spiraling horns, the rough skin. The claws.
Her scar began to ache.
“You demon fuck!” Juniper screamed, scrabbling to her feet. “What are you going to do to me, huh? Gavin told me how to keep you—”
Aleksi leapt into the air, his long spine curved and sharp. His clothes were in tatters, revealing patches of gray skin. Helena stumbled sideways, slamming up against the porch railing.
In the green light, Juniper grinned.
Aleksi—no, Byleth, he was Byleth now—leapt onto her. Dirt and grass exploded around them, and Helena gasped in terror.
“No,” she cried out hoarsely, forcing herself to her feet. Her eyes were streaming allergy tears and the back of her throat was burning, but she stumbled down the porch steps, landing with a thud in the lawn. Her sister screamed incantations; her lover chattered wildly in Infernal. His back was turned toward her, his spine bony and jagged beneath his thin, shimmering skin. Every now and then she caught a flash of black, flapping wing.
She crawled toward him. Toward Juniper. Infernal magic pounded against the center of her head.
“Aleksi!” she gasped.
He lifted his hand, his fingers long and tipped in glistening black nails.
Terror lanced through Helena. The scar around her heart throbbed.
“No!” she screamed, her throat ragged.
His hand plunged down, and Juniper let out a strangled, horrible cry.
Her panic flooded her with strength, and she leapt onto Aleksi’s back. For a moment she could only cling to him, the bony protrusions in his spine digging into her chest. She was weeping now, her face washed in tears. Her thoughts whipped around, all her memories of the last few days, Aleksi smiling at her in the sunlight, showing her the magic inside herself, drawing his hands down the length of her naked body.
And through it all she saw Juniper sprawled on the lawn with a bloody circle around her heart.
“You stopped me!” Aleksi shouted in a distorted English, half his glamour voice, half his demonic.
“She’s my sister!” Helena screamed. She fell down beside Juniper, who was gasping and arching her back, her face twisted in pain. Helena ripped the bloody fabric away from the wound and pressed her hand on the claw marks—Aleksi’s claw marks.
She looked up at him, at the monstrous form she had found so darkly appealing only a day ago, the monstrous form she had glimpsed in the flurry of her ecstasy. “How could you?” she whispered. “How could you?”
Aleksi took a step backward. His eyes glowed red and fiery. “Gavin sent her,” he growled.
Helena stared at him. That blood mage son of a bitch.
She turned her gaze back to her sister. Her hand was pressed on Juniper’s chest, blood seeping up through her fingers. Juniper’s heart was still beating.
“Juniper,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you just listen to me?”
“She wasn’t trying to kill me,” Aleksi rasped, still in his demon form. “She was trying to capture me.”
“She was trying to rescue me,” Helena said weakly. “That’s how she got through the wards—”
“She was trying to do both.”
He slammed down on his knees beside Helena, a dark presence beside her. She kept her gaze fixed on Juniper, on the flicker of movement beneath her eyelids. She’s still alive.
“She was trying to give me to Gavin.” His voice was smoothing out, sounding more like Aleksi. Not Byleth. Just Aleksi, who had shown her all she was capable of. “If Gavin had me—”
Helena looked over at him. The glamour was only half working. A human face with red eyes and massive black horns. His hands were human hands again. But the right was still crimson with her sister’s blood.
“Why did you try to rip out her heart?” Helena shouted. “Why did you do the one thing a demon had done to me?”
Aleksi looked away. His bloody hand curled into a fist.
“He wants to use my blood to open the boundaries,” he said, voice shaking. “Everything we talked about—”
“Juniper would never do that,” Helena said. “She would never bring the Infernal realm into our world.”
“She probably didn’t know!” Aleksi roared.
Helena turned back to her sister. Lifted her hand cautiously. The blood had stopped welling, but the skin was angry and red-looking. Demon infection.
“She needs help,” Helena muttered. “I have to heal her. She healed me—”
“Helena, listen—”
“Go away!”
She expected him to argue, to say something more about Gavin and the leak. The leak! As if her sister would ever do something to endanger the world like that. She was Lineage. She had given an oath when she turned thirteen. She had been magically marked with the seal of the Muir Clan. She would never help a blood mage.
But Aleksi didn’t say anything. Helena was aware of him shifting his weight. Standing. Walking away. Tears welled along her lash line. She took a deep breath. Don’t look at him. She needed to heal Juniper, the way Juniper had healed her eleven year ago. After everything that had happened the last few days, she knew she could do it.
Even without Aleksi. Because Aleksi had done this. Maybe he’d done it out of self-preservation. Maybe, if it hadn’t been her sister, Helena could almost understand it.
But no. He’d gone too far.
He’d done what all demons do. He’d gone straight for the heart.
“I’m going to get you fixed up,” Helena whispered. Juniper made a strangled noise. Blood gurgled up out of her mouth. Helena lifted her hand to examine the wound again. What had Juniper done, eleven years ago? Lineage magic, blood magic?
The wound throbbed.
Distantly, she heard shouting. Dominic. She glanced over her shoulder, saw a flash of movement in the doorway. Dominic and Aleksi yelling at each other. She shook her head. She couldn’t think about Aleksi now. Only—
His magic. Infernal magic.
Music.
She closed her eyes and started to hum. She didn’t know if her voice would do, but she had to try. She sang out the melody of one of Black Moon’s songs, the notes mournful and strange in her husky singing voice rather than a squealing electric guitar. She laid her hand on Juniper’s heart, felt the heat surging up through her skin, and lifted her voice higher, the notes wafting up on the humid air.
Juniper’s blood sparked beneath her fingers. Helena felt a surge of power.
The notes distorted.
They scraped her throat the way the Infernal language did, coiling back in on themselves. It was no longer her voice, but the voice of some other Helena, a demonic Helena. But she could control it, she could shape the magic glistening within the harsh, atonal melody.
Juniper threw back her head, made strange coughing noises. But the red around her wound was turning pink. The blood was hardening.
Helena grabbed her hand and squeezed. It’s just me, she thought, as if they could read each other’s minds. She buried the Infernal melody deeper in the Black Moon melody, a double voice spilling around the yard. The wound was almost healed. Helena pressed her palm against Juniper’s heart, felt the flutter of a heartbeat.
Juniper gasped and sat up, sending Helena launching backward into the grass, cutting the song off abruptly. For a moment she lay in the silence, blinking up at a patch of blue sky.
“What the fuck happened?” Juniper bellowed. “Where’s that demon piece of shit—”
“No!” Helena tried to scramble forward, but she was dizzy, her limbs weak. Juniper tried to jump out of sitting but immediately collapsed back down on the grass.
“My fucking chest,” she moaned. “Jesus Christ.”
“We have to get out of here.” Helena glanced over at the door, shut tight against the trailer. Someone moved in the window. Her heart panged. So did the scar ringing around it.
“Hell no,” Juniper said. “I got you, now I’m getting that demon.”
Tears glistened in Helena’s eyelashes. She was not going to let them kill each other.
“Goddamn it, Junie.” She turned to face her sister, hoping she had composed herself enough that Juniper wouldn’t notice she was upset. “You almost died. We have to get out of here.”
“Died?” Only then did Juniper seem to notice the fabric missing from her shirt, the red claw marks scraping across her chest. “Jesus fuck! What happened?”
“Alek—the demon attacked you,” Helena said blankly. “And we have to go now.”
“Attacked me? I feel fine.” Juniper stood up—more slowly this time—and wobbled to the left. “I mean—that should have killed me.”
“I’ll explain later.” Helena could feel eyes on her back. His eyes. She knew he was letting her go. And she wondered if he’d had the same thought as her—that it was better to lose her than to kill her sister.
“Did you do something?” Juniper peered at Helena. “Are you shitting me?”
“I don’t know,” Helena said blandly. “We have to go. He’ll be back, okay? We have to go. Where’s your car?”
Juniper frowned, glanced past Helena at the trailer. “What the hell happened to you in there?”
“We have to go.” Helena grabbed her sister’s arm and pulled her toward the tree line. “Please. Before they kidnap me again—” She tried to make her voice sound panicked, terrified. They were going to walk right out of the wards and into the C.O.A. camp and she had to play the role of the worthless sister. She had to pull Gavin off Aleksi’s trail.
He almost killed your sister. It was her mother’s voice, cold and cruel. Why do you want to save him?
Tears fell hot and sticky down Helena’s cheeks. She let out a gasping sob and reached out to Juniper.
“Oh, Hellie, you’re safe now,” she cooed, because these were the roles they were both supposed to play. Juniper threw her arm around Helena’s shoulders and they ducked into the woods. Helena wept harder. She kept seeing Aleksi-as-Byleth, his claws dripping blood. She kept seeing Aleksi-as-Aleksi, smiling at her in the silvery dark, long fingers brushing across her face.
Was she heartbroken? Was she saving him? She didn’t know anymore. All she knew was the intense, suffocating pain welling up inside her, spilling out in angry, gasping sobs.
“Hey, it’s fine.” Juniper’s voice was sugary in its condescension. Just like it always was when Helena was hurt, or couldn’t do a spell. Just like it had been all their life.
But she was still Helena’s sister. And Aleksi had no right to kill her. Especially when she wasn’t even trying to kill him.
Just capture him for Gavin.
But that wasn’t fair. Juniper didn’t understand the implications of what she was doing.
They stepped into a clearing littered with the detritus of recent campers. Trampled earth, broken bottles, piles of ash, broken branches, fallen leaves.
But the clearing was empty of people.
Helena made a surprised noise in her throat. Where were the Children of Adrasteia? Had they fled in the two hours after the failed binding?
“I’ve got a safe house set up in New Orleans,” Juniper said. “From the asshole who gave me the tip off. He’s gonna be pissed.”
“The one who was here,” Helena said weakly. “Who left all this.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a dick.”
Helena felt dizzy. “You shouldn’t trust him,” she whispered.
Juniper shook her head. “You need to be detoxed. Who knows what they were doing to you in there.”
Nothing, Helena wanted to say.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get you back to Houston in no time.”
A flash of red through all the dense greenery. Juniper snapped her fingers and the car beeped twice, switching off the alarm and the magical wards both. Helena glanced over her shoulder. All she saw was the woods.
He hadn’t come after her.