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As Rook slowly regained awareness, she quickly understood that something wasn't right. Her mouth tasted of acid and metal, her body felt as though every edge of her had been smudged and blurred. She opened her eyes and for a moment saw nothing but darkness. Slowly, however, that darkness shifted to gray, and in that same moment she began to remember.
She had gone with Lucanis to meet Viago and Teia. They had come with news…what was it again? Something about Illario, surely. They had met with Viago and Teia and…then what? Why couldn't she remember?
The landscape around her continued to shift in tandem with her illuminating memories. That's right, they said Caterina might still be alive. Alive but prisoner. And she remembered looking at Lucanis to see him frozen with terrified indecision. Rook had reached out to touch him and…
She blinked rapidly, eyes and mind finally clear. Rook recalled how, after she had touched him, the world suddenly vanished behind a purple haze. His brown eyes turned blazing violet as they stood frozen in time and Spite's voice begged, almost yelling, “Help us.” Then that haze overpowered her.
She looked around with fresh understanding. This was no longer the mortal plane, but something different. Rook turned in place until she saw him, watching her, waiting for her. “Hello, Spite,” she greeted quietly.
Wherever they were, Spite still bore Lucanis’s resemblance here. She wondered if that was for her benefit alone. No matter how human and familiar he looked, this was truly Spite, undiluted, standing across from her.
“Rook…you're here…”
It was strange to hear the demon’s voice. She was used to hearing it filtered through Lucanis’s form, picking up the rumble from his throat and the lilt of an accent that was so deeply impressed upon his tongue that the demon bore it, too. But right now, Spite was free to use the full breadth of his voice, a snarling thing engineered to inspire fear. Yet he wasn't trying to scare her; she got a sense he was trying to do the opposite.
Rook looked around, still feeling a bit dazed. “And…where is here?” She could feel a sense of magic around them but had trouble pinpointing where it began and ended. “Are we in the Fade?”
“Not the real fade,” Spite explained, having no trouble speaking now that he was inhabiting his own space, “It is Lucanis’s. Private.”
“Private Fade…” she murmured thoughtfully. “Like…his mind, then?” Rook looked at Spite for confirmation and he just shrugged. She supposed spirits had no sense of a person’s mind. “…Why am I here?”
Spite looked past the top of her head. “Something is wrong,” he growled uncomfortably. “Lucanis is locked away. His presence went black.”
Rook blinked, fingers brushing a stray curl from her forehead. “What does that mean?”
“It is…new,” he admitted, sounding distinctly displeased. “He is locked away and Spite can do nothing. His body or his mind are both trapped. Only Rook can help.”
“Wait, why me?”
“We only trust Rook. Both of us.”
Rook had enough sense to be touched by this, even if she was still sluggishly trying to put everything together. Spite had drifted closer to her, and she caught him eyeing her with a sort of wonder. “Rook is…really here…” he repeated again to himself. He reached out towards her slowly. She had been uncertain how corporeal her body was here, so it was a surprise to feel the feather light touch against her cheek. Spite seemed surprised as well and snapped his hand back. Rook felt a swell of affection for the demon; for a spirit, he had some disarmingly human moments.
“It's all right, Spite,” she reassured, extending a hand to him. “I'm here. I'll help.”
Spite regarded her hand uncertainty for a moment before taking it, holding it softly. She smiled and squeezed his hand, which appeared to fascinate him. “We’ll go get him together,” she promised. Spite nodded only once, too intrigued by holding her hand to say much. Rook released him. “Do you know where Lucanis is?”
The demon nodded. “He’s there.” He pointed behind Rook and she turned.
There, she saw an entire world had somehow spun together when she wasn't paying attention. Walls, walkways, doors, all cobbled together in the impossible way things held together in the Fade. She took a few steps towards this new landscape before she stopped suddenly with a gasp. “This…” her heart dropped, “This is The Ossuary.”
Spite came up to her side. “Yes.”
“I thought when we freed Lucanis–”
“We were never free,” the demon spat. “We are always here.”
Rook looked at him with a dawning understanding. “...you said that he didn't keep his promise. This is what you meant.”
Spite’s lip curled into a snarl. “He lied.”
“No! No, Spite…” she reached out and touched his arm, “He thought he did keep his promise. I–I don't think he sees this place. At least, not the way you do.” For Lucanis, The Ossuary was a terrible memory, a nightmare, a place he remembered at his most unraveled. For Spite, this was ever-present.
The demon looked dissatisfied with her statement. “I don't…understand.”
She could hardly blame him; she wasn't sure she understood enough to explain. “Let’s…handle this first,” Rook smiled apologetically, “Maybe Emmerich can help us figure it out when we’re done.”
His eyes lit up, figuratively and literally. “Curiosity!”
“Yes, with Manfred, that's right!” Rook laughed a little, surprised at the things Spite remembered. He tilted her head as he studied this reaction, took note of her amusement, but asked no questions. Rook took that as a cue to get going.
She hopped down from the ledge they had been surveying from. “So, how do we get to Lucanis?”
Spite followed dutifully. “Must get by. Guards.”
“Guards?” Her brow furrowed as she contemplated what that might look like. “Do I…fight them?”
“No,” Spite made a sound that was suspiciously close to a scoff, “Can’t be fought. Lucanis made them.”
“Right. So…?”
“They’re the only ones who can touch the locks.”
Rook repressed the urge to growl in frustration. She didn't want Spite to think she was angry with him, but, at the same time, this was decidedly not helping. “I hate the Fade,” she grumbled, continuing forward into the shattered mirror version of the Ossuary.
She couldn't be sure how long they were walking; the passage of time was incomprehensible here. However, quite suddenly, a shock of red was visible in the previously near-colorless world. It was a door, Rook realized, just as Spite said. As they drew closer, she saw Spite had also been correct about the guard. At least, that is what she made of the figure positioned between them and the door. It wasn't a particularly intimidating guard from a distance – it was smaller, willowy. As they drew closer, she could make out the flash of silver hair, an ebony cane…
Rook came to a sudden halt. “Is that…Caterina?” As she asked, the First Talon’s features came into focus. “Why is she here?”
“First guard.”
“Is she a spirit?”
“No. She is what Lucanis makes her.”
Rook nodded, unsure of whether or not she actually understood. She approached the old woman. Even as an idea of Caterina as opposed to the real thing, Rook still found herself intimidated by her presence.
Spite came alongside her and inhaled deeply before letting out a displeased hiss. “She reeks of contradictions,” he complained. “The warmth of fire and the burn of ice. A hand that strikes and soothes. She wields ‘favorite’ like a knife. It cuts everyone. It cuts the holder.”
Rook frowned, crossing her arms. Part of her was fascinated by what this revealed– the other part was sure this was highly invasive. “Are you sure it's all right with Lucanis that I hear this…?”
Spite considered. “He wants you to know. To understand. He cannot always say things he wants you to know.” The demon growled unhappily, “More contradiction.”
Rook squeezed her crossed arms close, almost hugging herself in a soothing gesture. “Mortals are confusing that way.”
“Even Rook?”
She laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah. Even me.” She checked his expression. “It doesn't mean that they’re untruthful. Not intentionally. It can just get…complicated.”
Spite took this knowledge, looking thoughtful but not fully satisfied with this lesson on the mortal mind. Rook looked back to the shade of Caterina. “Caterina, can you open the door?” She asked, straightforward as always.
The visage of Lucanis’s grandmother turned stony, critical, disappointed. “Why should I?” She asked in Caterina’s voice. “You broke our deal, Rook.”
“What?” Rook made a face. “How?”
“I asked you to save my grandson,” her steely gaze drifted to Spite, “and instead you brought an abomination to Treviso.”
That familiar defensiveness rose on Lucanis’s behalf. “He's still Lucanis.”
The vision of Caterina scowled. “You say that standing next to the demon in his mind?”
“Aw, Spite’s not so bad when you get to know him,” Rook said cheekily, glancing over. He looked radiant at this compliment.
“And what if he is trying to deceive you?” The First Talon’s voice asked quietly. “What if the demon has found a way to take over, and you are the key?”
It would be a lie to say that Rook had considered that. She had done what every mage since the dawn of time had warned against: trusting a demon and taking what he said at face value. Rook looked at Spite again, who was scowling now. Angry? Upset to be found out? Offended? She stared at him, searching his face, the one he took from Lucanis.
Spite noticed her staring and his scowl deepened. “I...never lie to Rook,” he insisted, almost miserably.
Rook watched him a moment longer, then turned to Caterina. “I believe him.”
“Then you are a fool girl.”
“Probably,” Rook shrugged, grinning. “But I'm just thinking that we see how Spite affects Lucanis. Maybe what we don't see is how Lucanis has influenced Spite.” She was musing more to herself now as she continued, “I mean, they were forced together. Neither of them wanted that. Maybe their relationship has to be more…symbiotic to survive that.” Rook tilted her head as she looked at Spite. “Because Spite likes me. He…cares about me. And I don't know if a demon on their own could even do that.”
Spite looked at Rook with a wide-eyed wonder she had seen once or twice from his host, and it was still just as endearing. “So,” Rook continued brightly, “go ahead and open that door up, if you please.”
Caterina did not move. “He's an abomination,” she repeated, but this time, it wasn't just her speaking. There was an uncanny echo clinging to it, and Rook needed no time to recognize the familiar beats of Lucanis’s voice. It was as Spite said: this version of Caterina was what he held in his head.
Rook looked down. “Spite…” she hesitated, “can Lucanis hear me?”
“I cannot say. Maybe.”
“‘Maybe’ will work.” She focused over Caterina’s head, hands cupped to her mouth, shouting at the sky. “You're more than an abomination, Lucanis, alright? Listen to me! Your grandmother sent us to save you because she never gave up on you. Give her a chance to make up her own mind when we save her!” Rook walked in a small, self-contained circle, letting her hands drop to her side. “Beyond that, we need you. And not because you’re the Demon of Vyrantium, but because you are thoughtful and kind to the people you care about. We can't do this without you.” Rook stopped walking and inhaled to say, “I need you. So please…” She pivoted and gestured to his version of Caterina, “get this old bitch to unlock the door!”
As soon as the words left Rook’s mouth, Caterina started to dissolve, like sand falling through the neck of an hour glass. Eventually she vanished completely, a sweep of dust flying away in a non-existent wind. The red door faded in the same way, leaving it open for Rook and Spite to pass.
“Alright,” Rook let out a sigh of relief, “one down.” She went for the open doorway, glancing over her shoulder. “And don't you dare tell anyone I called the First Talon an old bitch. I just felt like I should take the opportunity while I had it.”
Spite followed after, quiet now. Past the open doorway, Rook’s vision went bright white for a moment, enough to startle her. When her eyes cleared, the world had once more changed around them. Still the Ossuary, but a different part. Rook had a hard time remembering the layout of the prison where they rescued Lucanis. So much else had happened that day, she hadn't exactly taken in the scenery. With a deep breath to settle a spell of dizziness brought on by the entire world rearranging itself, she pressed on, picking her way down a rock face to get to the next level.
“Hey,” Rook called over her shoulder, “how many doors are there?”
“Cannot say.”
She pivoted to see Spite avoiding her eyes. “As in…you can't tell me or you don't know?” The demon grumbled an inaudible response. Rook tried again, “Is it all family members? Or are his friends here, too?”
Spite scowled. “People only come in three kinds: Family. Contracts. Enemies.”
That certainly sounded like something Lucanis would have said once. But now? Rook frowned. “So…what am I, then?”
This seemed to take Spite off guard. He scrambled, looking almost embarrassed. “Rook is…Rook. Never had a kind like her before. ”
She would have liked to keep prying for answers, but this was clearly not the best time. So she kept on walking forward. Maybe when they found Lucanis, she could ask him herself.
Rook had barely walked ten steps when she noticed that her tread was growing slower, more difficult. She looked down, expecting to see the worn tops of her boots. Instead, she realized that she was ankle-deep in an expansive pool of blood.
Rook froze as the blood sloshed against her. She had a very good idea what was coming next, now. When her head lifted, the second door had appeared across the room, and the ghoulish visage of Zara was waiting.
Spite nearly screeched, loud and terrible, throwing himself back. Rook flinched at the sound, instinctively raising her arms in defense.
“No!” He shrieked, “Dead! We should have gotten to kill her! Kill her for the pain she gave us!”
Rook tried to turn, to take a step towards the demon, but the blood pool had made her stride sluggish and labored. “Spite–”
“I remember! We remember! She smells of blood and horror and blood.”
“Spite, it's alright!”
The spirit had blocked himself off, his body obscured as his wings crossed in front of him as a shield. He was angry, but…more terrified. Rook swallowed, trying to choke back the ache for what Spite and Lucanis had been through that she might never fully understand.
“You stay there,” Rook ordered softly, “Alright? I’ll take care of this. I'm here.” She turned to slowly, slowly make her way to the door through an ever-deepening pool of blood.
By the time she reached Zara, the blood was knee-deep, and Rook felt as though she had trudged a mile up a mountainside. She crossed her arms, breathing heavily as she shouted upward, “I don't suppose you can just…make her go away, Lucanis?”
“Lucanis?” A sickly sweet voice, unpleasant as metal on dry clay, purred, “Whoever might that be?”
Rook dropped her gaze back to Zara, who was smiling so that the blood in her teeth was visible. She was truly grotesque up close, captured in perfect clarity in Lucanis’s mind. A woman whose possible natural beauty had long been excavated by blood magic in pursuit of perfection. She wore nothing but a figurative gown of dried blood that clung to her unnatural skin, contrasting her neatly tied ebony hair.
Rook sighed. She didn’t really want to talk to any version of Zara, real or imagined, but it seemed she had no choice. “Oh, you know,” she responded casually, “just the man you tried to break. You failed, by the way.”
Zara laughed, yet her face did not move. “Who’s to say I failed?”
“Well, it’s certainly not your head I’m investigating.”
A hand, somehow young and withered all at once, lifted to touch a finger to Zara’s lips. “But can you honestly say that it's Lucanis? Maybe Lucanis died long ago. Maybe his body would be rotting in the Ossuary if I hadn’t gifted him the demon.” She waved a hand. “Maybe...the demon is all that’s left.”
Rook clenched her teeth, raising her voice to shout, “That’s not true, Lucanis.”
“What makes you so sure?” The echo was back now, Zara’s voice underlaid with the fragments of Lucanis uttering the questions that he had been asking himself for the year he had been imprisoned with Spite.
“I watched you try to fight the demon, and–” a thought occurred to her, “Maybe that’s been the wrong idea. Trying to pretend he doesn’t exist. You and Spite need each other now, whether you like it or not.” She looked back at where Spite still hid, petrified. “And, if you must know, I know it’s you because you’re a stubborn asshole,” an unguarded fondness crept into her voice, “and that’s pure Lucanis.”
Zara audibly snarled. “You’ve never known a Lucanis outside of what I created.”
Rook sighed loudly, unsheathing the mageknife at her hip. “Zara…shut up.” And then she drove the knife into the skull of the approximation of Zara. It did not have any visceral impact - it was more akin to slicing through paper - but the action had the desired effect. Much like Caterina before, Zara crumbled away, turning into debris that vanished into the ether. Rook slotted her knife back into her belt, happening to catch sight of the ground as she did. The pool of blood had vanished, leaving behind no stain or indication it had existed. Her shoulders slumped with relief as she backtracked to get Spite.
“I know you said we couldn’t fight them physically,” Rook claimed as she approached, “but it felt pretty damn good anyway.”
By the time she reached the demon, he had lowered his wings, but he still managed to look anxious and frail in his ghostly, Lucanis-like demeanor. “Blood,” he murmured to himself, “Fear…”
“Normal way to feel, believe it or not,” Rook smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”
His eyes lifted, regarding her as though he had no clue where she had come from. “Don’t want…to stay.”
She nodded. “Me neither.” Once more, Rook extended her hand, “Let’s keep going and get out of here.” Spite took her hand and held it like a lost child, allowing her to lead him out of the horrible room. He gripped her hand until they passed under the arch of the door, a new space constructing itself on the path ahead.
This third door was not far at all, just a narrow walkway away, blocked by an instantly recognizable Illario. Spite and Rook made matching “uch” sounds, to her surprise.
“He has always smelled false,” Spite explained to an unasked question. “Expensive incense and refuse. Perfume to cover the stench of death. Hope and the absence of. Contradictions, again, always contradictions. He is a jagged shard of glass in Lucanis’s brain.”
None of this surprised Rook. “False” was the correct word for Illario, smell or otherwise; they all knew it for certain after what Emmerich revealed. Now familiar with the process, Rook walked up to Lucanis’s version of Illario.
He was smiling in that way that was meant to be charming, but did not reach his eyes. “You chose the wrong Dellamorte, Rook,” he hummed sweetly, seductively.
She crossed her arms. “Nah. Don’t think I did.”
“I could have given you so much more than Lucanis. I still can.” Illario inclined his head towards her. “If you leave now, you can still be mine”
This drew a shocked laugh out of Rook. “Yours? That was never on the table.”
Illario’s face did not react - did not seem to know how. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m–” she stopped, eyes fluttering in realization. “Lucanis…is that how you see Illario?”
Illario scoffed, his eyes darkening. “Lucanis has always gotten whatever he wanted…except someone who cared if he lived or died.” He grinned in a terrible way, “Even if he thought he found someone – it only happened once or twice, mind you – they were always susceptible to me. Lucanis could fell twelve enemies before he touched one heart. I may not have been Caterina’s favorite, but my bed was never cold.” Illario tilted his head. “And now that he’s a disgrace, he has even less to offer. No one would blame you if you stayed aligned with the true Dellamortes.”
“Gods, he talks just as much when he’s in your head!” Rook laughed, an almost harsh sound, “Not shutting up is a universal Illario trait, I guess!” She stepped back. “You have grossly misread this situation, Lucanis. I haven’t spent a second thinking about Illario. I’ve always wanted you.”
Somehow, she had forgotten exactly what situation she was in. Forgotten that she was essentially speaking directly into Lucanis’s head, even if she couldn’t see his face. Suddenly, standing on this impossible Fade bridge, she felt entirely vulnerable. As though she were standing naked in the middle of a full room, her desires blazoned across her body.
Illario’s image started to waver, like a mirage in heat. “Really?” She heard Lucanis again, speaking as one with Illario’s voice.
Slowly, Rook nodded. “Yes. Really.”
With that, Illario fragmented and fell apart to nothing, the door behind him now standing open. Spite, who had been almost silent, walked up to Rook’s side, almost as though he were experiencing the same awkwardness. “Close,” he confided quietly.
“Great,” Rook intoned with an almost hysterical giggle. “I don’t know about you two, but I think I’m reaching my limit on introspection for the day.”
Spite did not respond and instead started for the door. “I sense it now. One more.”
Rook let out a shaky breath. “One more. All right.”
They walked through the door and landed in a wide circle, a dais that didn't end so much as it spilled out into the nothingness of the Fade. There was a set of stairs at the other end, and a final door draped in red. One more…
Rook’s eyes lowered to the center of the room. There, she saw a vision that made her stomach drop into the ether. An elf, short for her race, curvy, with long, untamed strawberry toned curls falling on either side of her freckled face.
Her.
Rook herself was the last guard.
Her entire body grew tense. “Oh boy,” she whispered to herself. It was a reflection of her, perfectly captured, every little detail as retained in Lucanis’s mind. As she stepped closer, the other Rook stayed still, providing an out of body experience and forcing her to stop again. Spite remained posted by the door, and she got the sense that he would not follow until this was done.
Rook inhaled through her nose and released it through her mouth, a deliberate breath of courage, before starting towards the guard. Only when she was nearly to the center of the dais did she think to stop and turn halfway to look at the demon. “Out of curiosity…what do I smell like to you?”
Spite’s face did not move, and she got the distinct feeling that he was also not looking forward to seeing Rook face herself. The demon sighed. “Rook smells…like a warm hearth. Like the first taste of freshly brewed coffee. Like desire we cannot bury under self-loathing. We try. We cannot. She smells like beginnings.” There was a pause before he finished, “And cinnamon.”
Rook smiled. “Right…thank you.” She'd unpack that later. For now, she turned and marched over to herself before she had a chance to think too hard and retreat.
As she reached her shadow self, Rook crossed her arms and forced a grin. “Let’s not say things we can’t take back here, shall we?” she called to anyone who could hear, sure that everyone was listening.
The Other Rook offered a tight-lip smile before tilting her head. “Rook…what are we doing here?”
“Finding reasons to drink, I can only assume.”
Other Rook chuckled and shook her head, her curly hair swaying hypnotically with the motion. “Always a line. We always have one ready, don’t we?”
Rook’s grin faltered and then fell away completely. “I think the better question is what are you doing here?”
“Maybe I’m here to reason with you. Like your conscience, your inner voice.” The reflection smiled. “You are one of the few people you listen to, after all.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I thought we liked having quips ready.”
Rook laughed humorlessly, rocking back on her heels. She looked down at her shoes. “I hate this!” She called out in hopes that Lucanis would use whatever magic he possessed here to usher this false Rook away. No such luck.
“What are you trying to do here, Rook?” The impression of her asked.
“I want to help Lucanis.”
“So he can fail you again?”
Rook’s head snapped up. “He didn’t– you didn’t fail, Lucanis.”
“I mean, if you look at it without emotion…” Other Rook shrugged, “he was supposed to kill Ghilan'nain and he didn’t. What other word is there for that than ‘failed’?”
Rook stared at herself, purple-blue eyes meeting their twins. “Well…” the original Rook smiled derisively, “We would know, wouldn’t we?” She gestured in the space between them, “I mean, we are the queen of failures, right? So I guess if anyone could call it…”
The Other Rook didn’t seem as though she knew how to react. “That’s–”
“I’m just saying,” Rook plowed on, “if you want to start pointing out who failed: day one, released vengeful gods into the world. So it’s me. It has always been me.” She held her arms out to her side. “We could go around all day doing this and it wouldn’t fix one godsdamned thing. But you should know that if I’m going to succeed at one thing, just one in this entire stupid plot, it will be getting Lucanis out of here. He deserves better than to sit in this prison. Even if it’s one by his design.”
Her imitation scowled, to Rook’s surprise. “You have no idea what he ‘deserves.’ Face it: we don’t know him. Not really. The one thing we needed him for, he didn’t do. He let us down. He will always let us down. Because he’s a pathetic–”
“Stop.”
The word rumbled out of Rook with a burst, like a cannon firing into a dark night. She stepped towards the guard version of her, shoulders locked, fire in her eyes. “Don’t you dare put those words in my mouth, Lucanis. You can’t make me say them– I won’t. Do you hear me?” The Other Rook went mute and still as the real one continued, “You don’t get to decide how I feel about you. I do. And I…I can’t do this without you.” The anger had come so fast, burned so hot, that it quickly started to cool into something else. “Not because you’re some god killer, but because I…I wake up every morning excited to see you. It gets me through the night. You have made this, all of this, the- the bullshit and the fighting and, yes, even the failures…bearable.” The view of her mirror image turned blurry and indistinct behind a thin veil of tears. “That's how I feel. So can we please go home now? Together?”
Her vision cleared as a tear slipped beyond her eyelid and traced a delicate path down her cheek. Once she could see, she realized that the guard version of herself had vanished, and so had the blockage to the door.
Rook quickly brought her sleeve to wipe her face, trying to scrub away any sign of emotions. She felt rather than heard Spite draw close to her.
“Do not…cry…please…”
She forced a laugh. “I’m fine, it’s fine! I’m all right, I swear.” Rook raised her head in a defiant grin, pretending like she wasn’t still obviously holding back tears. “This is all part of that complicated mortal-ness I was talking about earlier so, uh…take notes.”
Spite studied her with a new intensity. “Rook is…sad?”
“No, not sad. Rook is, um…” she wiped her nose with her sleeve, “Rook is not very good at feeling her emotions and now she is paying for it.” She laughed, because even if the demon did not understand, she thought it was funny…
Rook expected an onslaught of questions to follow, but instead Spite just nodded. “Now we go. Together.”
Rook agreed and started for the door. They passed through, shoulder to shoulder, into a wide open space. It resembled, Rook realized, the place they had gone to destroy the vial of Lucanis’s blood that was being kept in The Ossuary. In the center of the room with his head in his hands, was Lucanis, a bright burst of purple in this unreal world.
Rook felt all the fight leave her body. “Lucanis!”
He looked up and froze. “...Rook?” Then Lucanis was on his feet. He ran to the door, grabbing Rook’s forearms as she gripped his, looking over her for injury. “Rook, I thought I heard– what are you doing here?”
She looked up into his face, so relieved to see him she was tempted to cry again. She refrained, not wanting Lucanis to panic. Instead, she offered with a watery smile, “Oh, here? Come here all the time. My family used to summer here.”
He laughed, but it did not erase the worried lines on his brow. “Mierda, you…but why? How?”
“A, um…mutual friend brought me here.”
Lucanis looked to where Spite was watching the reunion with curious eyes. Spite suddenly seemed sheepish as the attention shifted. “Lucanis…locked up. But he must keep it. Our deal.”
“Lucanis,” Rook’s voice drew the Crow’s attention back to her, “This…this is what Spite has been seeing.” She looked at the figment of the Ossuary around them. “I think maybe the whole time.”
“Lucanis keeps us here.”
Lucanis’s fingers dug into Rook’s arms unconsciously. “Don’t try to accuse me. I don’t want to be here. I…”
She could see his anger, frustration, fear, all mounting. Rook stepped in closer, in between his arms now. “You just don’t know what comes next.”
He stared down into her face, realizing how close she was. “I…no. I don’t.”
“We have that in common.”
He slowly, gingerly, came to rest his hands on her waist. “So…how do we go on? With not knowing?”
Rook tried not to let their closeness distract her, though it was really the only thing she wanted to focus on. “Together. You and Spite.” She looked down at the circle of Lucanis’s arms. “And me, I guess. If you’ll have me.”
“Of course.”
"Of course.”
It was the first time she had ever heard Lucanis and Spite speak in perfect tandem. It prompted a giggle out of her to hear it.
“First things first, then. We save Caterina. Together.” She looked over her shoulder to include Spite in this.
The demon’s face lit. “A contract?” He asked, clearly excited. Rook laughed again, a little louder.
“Look at that! I told you we’d make a Crow out of him!”
Lucanis sighed, acting less than thrilled at this development, though his face betrayed a sense of ease. “Let’s call it…an alliance.”
“And Rook will be with us?”
“Yes,” Rook jumped in to answer before looking back up at Lucanis. Her voice was unusually serious when she finished, “I will be.”
There was a shift in the air, a sense of joining, of unification. And then Rook’s vision once more went white.
When it cleared, the first thing she saw was her freckled hand grasping Lucanis’s sleeve. He was looking at her, blinking as he too exited the impossible place they had just been. Her heart skipped as a small, tired smile turned up one corner of his lips, watching her with the warmest brown eyes Rook had ever seen.
“What just happened?”
Viago’s loud, impatient voice made Rook startle away from Lucanis. “Shit, Viago–”
“What was that?” Viago continued to demand, irritated.
Rook put her hands on her hips. “What did it look like?” she asked, trying to sound flippant while also mining for information. She was not about to tell Viago more than he needed to know.
“You just went silent and stared at each other,” Teia explained in an infinitely calmer voice.
Lucanis and Rook exchanged a questioning glance. “We did?” Lucanis considered, “For…how long?”
“Long enough to be strange,” Viago grumbled, crossing his arms. “What is wrong with you two?”
Rook pressed her lips together to repress a laugh. She straightened and returned to her position next to Lucanis. As she did, she felt the brush of his hand against hers, just a bare touch, but enough. “Nothing,” she insisted honestly. “We’ve been fighting gods. Things get weird sometimes.” Her head tilted to the side as she grinned, “So…what’s the plan?”