“Goodnight, Destroyer Whitlow.”
He returned her smile, but inside, he felt a twist of dread. Because she wasn’t wrong. Des was going to destroy this girl, one way or another. And he was going to destroy himself in the process.
Chapter 30
Aurelie
The sound of Des’s footsteps disappearing down the hall echoed the beating of Aurelie’s heart. She couldn’t reconcile the Des who’d just left her with the man she’d met weeks ago in a café. Stranger still, she couldn’t reconcileherself.
How, in a matter of days, had she gone from serious, studious Aurelie to a woman who willingly disrobed in front of a man? Where had she gotten the nerve to kiss him, never mind the gumption to proclaim her right to do so? She became a different person around Des, and the thought was both intriguing and terrifying. Aurelie had always known she contained multitudes, but this particular one had shown up out of nowhere, with rather shocking notions.
She placed a finger to her lower lip where Des had touched her, and smiled.
Mephisto had been smart enough to remain scarce until now, but it emerged cautiously from a crack in the baseboard and snuggled into its favorite pillow. Aurelie, suddenly exhausted, joined it on the sofa.
But though her body ached nearly everywhere now that it was devoid of adrenaline, she couldn’t fall asleep. They still only had days to finish the portal, and while Des and Jasper would certainly come in handy when it came to moving the stone slabs, she hadn’t finished with the runes. She had assured them that thisproject would solve all of their problems, but she didn’t know that for certain. Des was right: it would be foolish to trust Everard, a man who consorted with demons and knew things no one else seemed to. The possibility of him beingrighthaunted her. What if this was all it took—one final invention to rid their society of demons. What if she could save more than her uncle? What if no other child had to lose their parents the way she and Des had?
Aurelie actively avoided recalling the worst day of her life, but now when she closed her eyes, she allowed herself to travel back in time to the seat of a carriage she shared with her mother and father. They didn’t leave their village often, and there was an undercurrent of excitement all that morning. Aurelie had been wearing her favorite dress, plaid with a white collar and a smart bow at her throat. It had belonged to her mother when she was a little girl, carefully preserved over the years in tissue paper. Aurelie could still remember when her mother presented it to her the week before.
“This was my favorite when I was your age,” she’d said as she held it up to Aurelie’s chest. “Would you like to wear it to visit your uncle?”
Aurelie had nodded, her wide green eyes tracking her mother’s every move. Claudine wore simple dresses that were almost always covered by a smock or apron, because she spent most of her time working in her own laboratory or in the garden. Her hair, a few shades lighter than Aurelie’s, was usually tied into a knot at the nape of her neck, though it was constantly slipping free.
Her father, Liam, came into the room then and smiled as Aurelie held up the dress for him.
“Mama says I can wear it to meet Uncle.”
Her father, who was always easy with his smiles, had frowned, causing Aurelie to look to her mother, who gave a tight shake of her head. But by the time they were on their way to Wisteria University, her father was back to his usual, lighthearted self, and Aurelie chattered away between her mother and father about heaven only knew what. She’d been so indulged, so beloved, and she’d never appreciated it until they were gone.
The carriage had come to a stop, still in the countryside. Aurelie heard the driver say something, felt the shift as he stepped down from the carriage. Her father lifted the curtain and peered outside, ducking back in a second later, his face pale.
“What is it?” her mother had asked. By then, her father had removed a dagger from his pocket. Her parents began to argue, something they rarely did, and Aurelie had felt herself growing impatient. She remembered her father opening the door, against her mother’s wishes, her mother’s cry. “Liam!”
Only now, as she screwed her eyes tighter, the scene playing out in slow motion in her head, she realized it was possible she’d misheard her mother. Perhaps she hadn’t screamed her father’s name, but instead...
Demon!
Aurelie cried out, her eyes flying open, trying not to remember the next few moments but unable to stop herself. Her father, ripped from the carriage, his garbled scream. Aurelie pressed her hands to her ears as she had then, felt the weight of her mother’s body over her, before she, too, was torn away. Aurelie somehow had the presence of mind to lift the seat and crawl into the boot beneath,where she was found later by a man she’d always believed to be a police officer.
Now, with the clarity of hindsight, she realized he was a member of the Iron Guard.
Aurelie swiped away the tears streaming down her cheeks. How could she have blocked out such important memories for so many years? Perhaps it was her mind’s way of protecting her, but it had also kept her ignorant of so much. She had never seen the demon; that much she knew. The entry in Des’s logbook had said it was averitaattack. Which meant someone like her had likely caused her parents’ deaths.
Aurelie realized too late she was going to be sick. She only made it halfway to the garbage bin before she lost what little she’d eaten at the pub so many hours ago. Demons take her, she’d been such an absolute fool. She knew, if nothing else, that her own demons had never killed anyone. She’d never let them escape. But eventually, she would have conjured something beyond her capabilities, and then what? Had she truly expected someone else to risk their life to stop it? Her own selfishness brought up another bout of sick, though she managed to get this round into the bin.
When her stomach was empty, she cleaned up her mess and rinsed out her mouth, crawling under her blankets. How could Des possibly like her, knowing what she’d done? What she was continuing to do? What she stillwantedto do, even knowing how dangerous it was. Why had she been cursed to love something so terrible? Her body was racked by violent shivers until she finally fell asleep, with Mephisto curled up by her head, keeping watch over its creator as though it knew, somehow, that it would not exist without her.
When Aurelie awoke to a single beam of sunlight through the boarded-up window, she immediately wished to be unconscious. Her head pounded, from the whiskey or the vomiting or the fever caused by her wounds, or perhaps a combination of all three. But she’d never go back to sleep now. She pushed the board aside far enough to let some light—and some very cold air—into the room.
Aurelie removed the bandage on her chest gingerly, wincing as she peeled it away from her skin. The angry red streaks were gone, but the wounds were still raw and gaping. She likely needed stitches, though that would require visiting a physician. She was going to have three jagged scars cutting above her left breast, but she deserved them for what she’d done to Willoughby. He had no family, as far as she knew, which was why he had been working during the holiday. But surely there were people who would miss him, who deserved to know what happened to him.
If it weren’t for Uncle Leo, she would have turned herself in to Commander Yew. She made a new vow: if she managed to make it through this, she would. How could she live with herself otherwise?
With the new bandage in place, Aurelie dressed and steeled herself for the walk across campus to the cottage. Fortunately, the guards had removed Willoughby’s body at some point last night, but the snow was still stained pink with his blood. Aurelie forced herself to bear witness to it, to not look away from what she’d done. Her tears froze on her cheeks as she passed.
Inside the cottage, she lit a fire in the library and another in the kitchen to make tea for the others. They had promised to come as soon as possible, but she had no idea when that would be. Shesipped her tea in the library with the notes scattered before her on the floor. Her fever had left her lucid dreaming for most of the night, which meant she was still exhausted, but she’d also managed to translate several more runes in her altered state.
By the time the guards arrived, it was nearly noon. They let themselves in with the key they’d stolen, which meant Aurelie didn’t hear them until they were tromping down her uncle’s hallway in their heavy boots.