Page 26 of The World Undone

“What does this say?” I asked, staring at the closed file like it might explode if I touched it.

She considered me for a long moment, ran her teeth gently over her bottom lip, like she was finding a way to coax the words out. “Since the night of Cy’s death, it seems the council has devoted a significant amount of their resources trying to uncover exactly what—or who—you are. I don’t know how, but they know the truth now, or something close enough to it. They may not know with scientific confirmation that you are Lucifer’s child specifically, but they suspect it. And they know that you are at the heart of things, that your power is connected to the hell realm’s.”

My focus drifted up from the folder until I met her eyes—unwavering and sure. She hadn’t reacted when I’d told Charlie and the others the truth about my father. At the time, I thought it because, like most protectors, she was uncharacteristically good at bottling up her emotions.

“You knew—Levi too.”

She nodded. “Like I said, Levi was able to get this information and, after sitting on it for a few months,” she grunted, rolling her eyes, “he gave it to me.” The amusement and gentle affection for her son melted into something sharper. “But there’s more in that file Max, than just a hypothesis about your father. The council wants you. More specifically, they want your powers. And they will do whatever it takes to get them. To harvest your power and use it for their own purposes. I suspect that they’ll tell the rest of The Guild that they’ll use them to repair the realm, to restore the balance—that you alone are responsible and to blame for the tearing of worlds, that they are the only thing standing between you and the death of us all.”

My blood turned cold, every muscle in my body freezing until I was half-convinced that even my heart had stopped beating its steady rhythm.

Her jaw stiffened. She held my stare, hard and demanding. “You can’t let them capture you, under any circumstances. If they drain your power, if they find a way to harness it, they will mold it into something for their own needs. Judging from the words in that file, they hope that your power will find them a way to not only trap all demons in hell irrevocably, but to eradicate them entirely. Until theirs is the only power left.” She tilted her head a few degrees, “do you understand what I’m saying, Max?”

I swallowed, my throat thick and scratchy. If the choice came between my death and letting them steal my power, allowing them to use it to further their own, there was only one choice.

I nodded.

It was an easy concession. This would inevitably end in my death anyway—that was the lot of holding this power, of being a catalyst.

“You don’t seem entirely surprised by this possibility,” she said, as if she had plucked the thought from my brain. She leaned closer, her voice hardly a whisper. “This plan of yours. This power you wield—” her eyes narrowed as she studied me, “it only leads to one conclusion, doesn’t it?”

I cleared my throat, my lips parting.

Her posture slumped, her expression horrified as she read the truth that I couldn’t voice on my face. “Do they know?” She paused, reigning in her emotions until her expression hardened again. “Max, does Eli know that you’ll?—”

Die.

She let the word drift in the air between us, heavy and unspoken, but loud as a roar all the same.

I shook my head, my eyes darting to the door, where I knew they waited only a few walls away.

Her expression fell, a sadness pulling down at the corner of her eyes, her lips—whether for me, or for the grief her son would inevitably be put through, I wasn’t sure.

“I’m sorry,” was all that she said.

I nodded, unable to latch onto any words.

“You’re so young. You don’t deserve the burden that you bear.” Her hand reached forward until it found mine across the table. Her skin was cool to the touch, soft—unexpectedly comforting. “But they deserve the truth—the chance to say goodbye, when the time comes.”

My vision blurred as I fought back tears, emotion clogging my throat.

When the time comes.

It hadn’t escaped me that the harder I pushed to go after the council, the closer we got to uncovering the stone, the more I bonded to my team—that I was simultaneously pushing the needle closer to my own end.

I nodded, feeling a rebellious tear carve a path down my cheek.

I wiped it quickly with a sniff.

They did deserve the truth, I just didn’t know how to give it to them.

Because once I did, everything would change.

Because once I did, I’d have to do the very thing that made me hate every last drop of power that I had.

I’d break their hearts.

I’d spent months convincing each of them that hurting them was the last thing I’d ever do.

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