Helena snipped away her sister’s bloody clothes. Juniper groaned and shifted on top of the bed, her movements jerky and painful-looking. The bandage at her throat was a brilliant white in the dim light of the room.
“They’re ruined,” Helena said, peeling away the stiff fabric of Juniper’s skintight jeans. “And you’ve got plenty of pairs of these things.”
They were in the guest bedroom of Corina’s trailer. It was strange seeing Juniper here, stretched out on the bed where Helena had slept and slowly slipped away from the Lineage for good.
She snipped into Juniper’s tank top, splitting the fabric in half. Dried blood spread across her stomach and stained her bra. Even with the blood, Helena could see the raised scar tissue where Aleksi had attacked her.
That felt like it had happened a million years ago.
“Could—wash them.” Juniper’s voice was cracked and rough. “Cold—”
“You shouldn’t be talking.” Helena cut away the flaps of Juniper’s tank top and tossed them on the floor with the remains of her jeans. Then she dipped a towel into a bowl of warm water and tried to wipe the blood away from Juniper’s skin. “You have to take things slow.”
Juniper grunted. Helena rinsed out the towel and wiped the residue of blood and water away with another towel. Then she sprinkled Juniper with fresh feverfew leaves left over from when she dressed her wound.
She wished Corina were here. She’d know the spells to make sure Juniper recovered properly, Helena was sure of it. But they had made it all the way to Florida by the time Aleksi was summoned away by Gavin. It would take Dom and Corina hours to get back.
“What—do?” Juniper said, lifting her head a few centimeters off the pillow.
“It’s just feverfew.” Helena pressed her hand onto Juniper’s forehead. “You need to rest while the magic wears off. Your cut is all wrapped up.”
Juniper looked over at her. She could turn her head now. Smile, or frown. The small muscles came back first, it seemed.
“You—right,” she said, her voice gravelly. “But still—demon.”
Helena dipped the towel back into the water. “He stopped a madman.”
“I know. But Mom and Dad—”
“They were picked up by the Lineage. They’ll be fine.”
The water had turned red with Juniper’s blood. She wished she was strong enough to carry Juniper into the shower. But this would have to do for now. She wiped the towel across Juniper’s hips.
“But—they’re furious—your place—Lineage—”
Helena’s chest tightened. She kept smearing the blood off Juniper as best she could. “The Lineage is more complicated than it seems,” she whispered. “And we can talk about this later. You need to rest.”
Juniper nodded. Her fingers twitched. “Am sleepy.”
“Then sleep.” Helena dropped the towel back into the bowl and smoothed Juniper’s hair away from her face. “It’ll help you recover faster.”
“Will. But one thing—” Juniper’s eyes glittered. “Thank you.”
Helena’s breath caught. She curled Juniper’s fingers up in her own, and Juniper smiled.
“Strong,” she whispered. “You’re strong.”
Helena felt something crack through her numbness. Juniper closed her eyes, dropped her head to the side. When Helena had left home, Juniper had always felt like the only family member she had left. The only one who knew about her music, the only one who thought she might have something to offer despite her lack of magical ability.
Now her parents would almost certainly disown her. But Juniper wouldn’t. Helena was sure of it.
Helena wrung out the towel again, and continued to clean her sister, moving slowly and carefully, washing away the reminder of the world that almost ended.
Helena slipped out of the guest room. Juniper had fallen asleep, her breath even and rhythmic. She still wasn’t that clean. But it was better than before.
Helena eased the door shut and went out into the living room. The trailer was dark and empty, and the blood magic ritual remains were still scattered across the floor, misshapen lumps in the darkness. The sun had set while she’d been tending to Juniper.
She walked into the kitchen. A jar sat on the kitchen table, glowing with soft white light. Aleksi’s shard. The broken piece of him that gave Gavin so much power. She had put it in one of Corina’s jars when they’d arrived, terrified of losing it. Now she picked the jar up. The glass was warm to the touch, and the shard made a chime as it knocked around inside.
If she was going to keep Aleksi safe, she would need more than an old jam jar. She knew that. But for now—it would have to work.
She set the jar back on the table and went outside, onto the broken porch. The lamp was still working, and in its yellow sphere of light she saw Aleksi, crouching at the edge of the marsh, looking into the trees.
He was still in his true form.
All she could see of him from the porch was the sweep of his black wings and the horns twisting up toward the sky. A nightmare come to life. She thought of all the illustrations of demons she had seen in her Lineage textbooks. None of them really looked as he did. They were impressions, dark shadows that only hinted at the reality of his form.
He shifted weight, a shadow slipping through the swamp.
“She fell asleep,” Helena called out.
Aleksi turned toward her, his eyes rubies in the dark. “Good,” he said, rising to his full height. “I hope she’ll sleep through the worst of it. When Corina’s here, she’ll be able to help.”
His voice was clear and deep and strong, not distorted at all. He was speaking Infernal, Helena realized with a start. And she could understand him.
She stepped off the porch, jumping to avoid the splintered wood, and walked barefoot through the cool grass. Looking at him like this, she felt a tremble behind her eyes. An unmistakable pull of attraction.
“Did you know you’re speaking Infernal?” she asked softly.
Aleksi’s scales caught the porch light and glimmered like the surface of the marsh water. “Yes,” he said, the word melting and translating in Helena’s ear. “I—I like that you can understand it.”
“Ian told me about the Lineage,” she said softly. “And Infernal magic.”
Aleksi looked at her. His eyes burned, and Helena felt that heat deep in her belly. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head, brow furrowed.
Helena sighed. It was too much to think about. The reality of the Lineage. The reality of her magic. Still, she told him what she could, stumbling around the words. Every now and then, a Lineage child was born who could work Infernal magic.
When she finished, all he said was, “I always knew you felt like home,” in a voice that unspooled the tension inside of her.
She took a deep, shuddery breath, her eyes never leaving him.
“Ian said it felt like I practiced,” she said. “I think it was my project. I was doing magic without realizing it.”
She could do Infernal magic. She could speak the Infernal tongue.
She could love an Infernal king.
“You haven’t changed back,” Helena said eventually, the silence too much.
“I can’t.” Aleksi looked away, into the trees. “Gavin almost killed me. My glamour’s shattered. I need—I have to recover, too.”
“Oh.” Helena paused. They were both quiet for a long time. Then she took a deep breath. “I—I don’t mind.”
Aleksi turned back at her, red eyes streaking through the shadows. His expression seemed to soften, and Helena saw the impression of his human face amid the harsh, demonic features.
She moved closer to him, gliding softly through the liquid night. His eyes never turned away from her. “I like it,” she said, and cupped his cheek. Aleksi blinked, then leaned into her palm. His skin was soft the way silk is soft. She didn’t want to stop touching it. “I’ve always—liked it, when I saw glimpses of it before.”
Aleksi pulled her hand to his mouth and brushed her knuckles with a kiss. Helena let out a shivery breath. There were, in this moment, a million things passing unspoken between them. But the most vivid was a desire trembling inside her. And she knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking about it now, after all she’d seen. Those Lineage agents’ slit throats, her family frozen in a pool of blood.
Gavin’s head rolling across the floor.
All that death. But she was alive. Juniper was alive. Her parents were alive, even if they despised her now. Aleksi was alive.
The world was alive.
And she wanted to revel in it. The swamp breathed around her. Insects trilled; owls called mournful songs out to their prey. Hot, damp wind billowed across the yard, stirring up the scent of vegetation, of growing things. Above her head: a trillion stars. An entire galaxy of living light, orbiting a million other galaxies. An entire universe that would have been shredded into dark matter if Gavin had succeeded.
And in her own body, Helena’s heart thudded soft and rhythmic. Her lungs swelled with warm damp air. All she wanted was a million reminders that she was alive.
Which was why Helena threw her arms around Aleksi’s neck. Why she kissed him with a hunger that welled up from the darkest places inside her.
Aleksi made a surprised noise in the back of his throat.
“Please,” she whispered into the side of his neck. “Please. Because everything is alive.”
She looked up at him, her hands in the black thatch of fur growing around his horns.
“I know,” he whispered back.
Then he grabbed her hips, drawing her even closer. He kissed her furiously, his mouth trailing over her jaw and down the side of her neck. He hoisted her up as if she weighed nothing, his strength sudden and unexpected, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, running her hands up and down his satiny skin, licking her tongue across his sharp teeth. He moaned into her and carried her across the yard, into the golden light of the porch lamp, where he let her down and pressed her back up against the side of the trailer. His strong hands pushed at her shorts, and there was a tearing sound as he ripped the fabric away. Then his fingers were on her, massaging the heat out of her body, and she fumbled until she found his erection, heavy in her palm.
Pleasure flooded through her, surging and retreating like ocean waves. She moaned from deep inside her throat and her fingers slipped away from him, her head thrown back toward the sky. He gripped her waist, hoisted her up again, and entered her with a deep, rumbling groan. It felt the way magic did: a sudden swell of power, dense and overwhelming.
They thrust together, bodies moving in a frantic, desperate rhythm. The porch light shone over them in a pale, golden circle. Helena was heartbroken and exhausted and sure of only one thing: that she could find her solace in the demon Byleth as he swallowed her whole.
She screamed his name.
Afterwards, they lay in the damp grass. Helena rested her head in the crook of Byleth’s arm, her eyes on the black sky. She could hear him breathing beside her, that sweet and constant reminder of life.
“I didn’t expect that,” Byleth said. She was getting used to the way his use of Infernal opened up for her like a flower. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Helena propped up on one arm and studied Aleksi’s new face, Byleth’s true face: sharp-lined and inhuman in its beauty. She was aware of the scar on her chest, the weight of Infernal lining her soul. The complexity of the life she knew she had chosen for herself.
“I’m sorry I left,” she started.
He pressed a finger to her lips. “I understood why you went. I have a million siblings in Hell. I know what that bond is like.”
Helena fell quiet.
“I shouldn’t have done—what I did to her,” he continued. “Especially.” His hand dropped down to her bare chest and traced over the outline of her scar with a gentleness that made her tremble. “I realized later, how similar the attack style was. It’s a legionnaire attack, something we do when—” He hesitated. “When our blood is up. When we have to protect ourselves.”
Helena kissed him gently on his forehead. She knew Juniper would have killed him if she’d had the chance. Even if Gavin wanted him alive, she still would have blasted him with a demon-killer, black flames shooting out of the flat palm of her hand. They would have slaughtered each other.
The Lineage. The Infernal realms. Light and dark, good and evil. And if Ian was to be believed, the same thing, in the end.
Helena kissed Byleth again, this time on his mouth. She melted into his body, his hands drawing up along her back—
Pain lanced through her chest.
Helena shrieked and fell sideways onto the grass, pressing her hand against the scar as it burned beneath her fingers.
“Helena!” Byleth gathered her up in his arms. “What’s wrong?”
“My scar!” Helena moaned. “It’s burning! I can’t—”
Byleth pulled her hand away and pressed his palm onto her chest. Immediately, his eyes flared and he growled, low and dangerous.
“What is it?” Helena cried, squeezing her eyes shut. The pain sparked behind her eyelids like exploding stars.
Byleth yanked her up to her feet and drew her back behind his body. She pressed against him, her teeth clenched in pain. It wasn’t just the scar. It was deeper than that. A fault line in her heart.
Byleth roared something unintelligible in Infernal.
And then, to Helena’s horror, something roared back.
She clutched at Byleth’s wings to keep herself standing, trying her best to breathe through the deepening pain. She peered around Byleth’s side, her whole body shaking—
A monster stood in the marsh.
It rose ten feet tall, crouched on jointed legs, dagger teeth gleaming in the darkness. Its eyes bloomed with black light and in the center of its chest was a raging hurricane of color and sound that made Helena’s stomach churn.
It leaned forward, snarled and snapped. Byleth flung Helena behind him. “Stay down!”
Then he began to sing.
It was Infernal, of course, and the magic crackled on the air. To Helena it had the feel of a lullaby, even as the notes broke and shattered in the way Infernal music did. The burning in her scar faded to a faint sting, and she pressed her fingers to it, feeling the music vibrating against her bones.
She lifted her gaze to see the monster splash backward through the marshes. Long strings of swamp weeds trailed off its limbs, glistening in the starlight.
Byleth sang louder.
The monster slunk back through the water. It paused for a second, and then turned with a spray of weeds and mud, and disappeared into the trees.
Byleth’s voice faded. He walked forward, his hands dangling at his side. Helena pushed up to standing. “What was that?” she asked. “That was Infernal, wasn’t it? Even though it didn’t look—it didn’t look like you. Or any demon I’ve seen.”
Byleth didn’t answer.
“Aleksi?” But it felt wrong to use his human name. “Byleth? How did that thing get through Corina’s wards?”
Byleth stopped at the water line. Helena jogged up beside him.
There was a whiff of brimstone on the air, yellow and stinking.
“Byleth?” she whispered, pressing her hand to his arm.
“We didn’t close the opening in time,” Byleth said flatly.
Ice gripped Helena’s throat.
“But everything—everything’s fine,” she whispered. “The world still exists—”
“We closed it,” Byleth said. “But that—” Even in Infernal, Helena heard the tremor in his voice. “That was a fragment of the Black Emperor,” he said. “Part of it got through.”
For half a second, all the air left the world. Helena dug her fingers into his arm, horror wracking through her. Tears brimmed at the side of her eyes. “How—”
“Gavin almost succeeded.” Byleth stared at the woods. “He succeeded enough.”
“What did you sing to it?” she whispered. “It sounded like a lullaby.”
He laughed sharply. “It is like a lullaby, I suppose. It’s a containment spell. I sent it deeper into the swamp.” He looked at her, red eyes glowing. “I don’t know if that’s the only one. But even one fragment will tear this world apart, given enough time.”
Helena took a shaky breath and thought about her injured parents, who never believed she was capable of anything. Of Juniper, who always disagreed, deep down, and thought she had something to offer, who was the only reason Helena’s whole life had changed when she’d stepped out of her office that day.
And she thought of Aleksi, of Byleth, showing her the magic that burned inside her.
“Can we stop them?” she asked.
It was impossible to see fear in Byleth’s red eyes. But she saw the smile, the glint of teeth.
“My Infernal witch,” he murmured, cupping her face. He leaned down and kissed her. Helena closed her eyes against his kiss. It made her feel safe.
“We’re going to have to try,” he said.
Helena squeezed his hand, looked out at the void of the swamp. Insects screamed at each other. Frogs bellowed.
And somewhere, something inhuman shrieked like the devil.