Page 100 of Spit

The dream shifted again, the same room, but the table was gone, and bodies littered the floor. Legion was splattered in blood. My hand flew to my mouth as I looked down at the bodies, in pieces, at his feet. Arlo, Trey, Sev, Quinn, Mars, and even the bald-headed demon—who I assumed to be Camio. They were alive, but barely. Feathers littered the floor; a carpet of gold, bronze, and silver.

In the middle of it all stood the supernova. God, in all of her angry glory.

“You chose your side,Humility.” Her voice thundered. “As did your brothers. You have spurned my love. Questioned my judgment and took the side of the Deceiver. You can join him.” Her eyes blazed with the fury of a sun dying. “Ifyoucan survive the fall, that is. I know your brothers won’t.”

I felt it when they fell. I felt them as if I were Legion in the sands of Wrath, staring out onto a barren land, surrounded by his dying brothers as their lives winked out.

God said their bodies couldn’t survive the fall, so Humility saved them. He took them into his body, merging with his fellow angels until he was unsure where they ended, and he began.

He becameLegion.

Chapter Seventeen

Iwoke with a start, unable to stop replaying how I had felt as my demons had laid dying. It felt so real, like I was there, inside Legion’s head. I hadn’t even thought of trying to reach out in the dream, but I should have. Did Sev send me that dream for a reason?

I didn’t dare tell Quinn that I had seen his fall. I had seen him dying on the sand and reaching for his brother. Somehow I felt closer to Legion and the others, closer than even my own family. I had felt what they had felt; I had experienced it. I didn’t know what it meant, but it had to mean something.

Quinn and I were left alone for the better part of the day. I only knew how much time had passed when two more oatmeal bowls slid into the room to join the first.

The longer I sat in the room, staring at the congealed oats, the more appetizing they became.

Whatever they had used to drug me had worn off, but there must have been a ward on the cell to hinder demonic magic because my shadow was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t stop the hunger, though it had dimmed down to what I assumed were typical human levels.

I lay on my back and daydreamed about my life before the curse, before finding out I was a null witch. Days filled with picking herbs and berries and praising the witch gods. Communing with nature. The coven was a family; I had been part of that—part of something bigger.

I had assumed that the bond couldn’t be broken, but Quinn had said otherwise. How long would I be stuck in a cell, watching Quinn die?

Was I going to die?

When I was a child, I had dreamt of my dad coming and taking me away from the lonely cottage on the edge of the property, but that never happened.

I was thankful to Adelaide for gifting me the New Orleans apartment when she passed, but sometimes that kindness made me feel even sadder. Highlighting the need I’d had to escape my family in the first place.

I often wondered what would have been different if I had been born with Rose’s magic.

I loved Rose, but she was not a practical person. Rose lived for her garden; she lived for the coven. Her greatest desire was to marry a man and pop out as many children as possible, continuing on our bloodline and strengthening the coven. She fed her blood into the dirt of Beaux Bridge—she was a giving and sensitive person. Empathetic to the needs of others.

I was… not.

“What are you thinking about?” Quinn, the demon, asked, speaking for the first time in hours.

“Family,” I said, turning to face him. “You and Legion are brothers, aren’t you?”

“I would say we are more than that.” Quinn’s brow furrowed, and his nose wrinkled, highlighting the freckles on his face. “Wefelltogether.”

“I know.”

Quinn blinked, shocked. “You know?”

I nodded. I didn’t explain what I had seen in my dream vision. “Sev told me,” I said vaguely because he had, in a roundabout way.

“Have you bonded with Sev?” the demon asked, restrained as if the question meant more than the sum of its words.

“Bonded?” I echoed.

“Has he walked in your dreams?”

My cheeks burned in response. What did it mean if I saw all of the stewards in my dreams? Had I somehow bonded with all of them? Or was I just an interloper in their own personal broken bonds?

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