Page 161 of Devil's Doom

It’s all right. I don’t care where we are. Just that he’s here.

“We’ll bathe. I’ll make you warm. Nothing to worry about, sweet thing.”

I’m not worried. I cling to him as he lowers himself into the bathtub, with me still in his arms. As the water envelops me, I moan from how warm it is. Finally, I’m not freezing.

“There,” he murmurs, holding me close. “I’ll take care of you. Rest, my beloved. It will be all right. You can sleep.”

When I wake, we’re still in the tub, the water just as hot as it was. I can tell I spent a long time here, and he stayed with me. As I stir, he hums in greeting.

“How are you feeling? Are you hungry yet?”

I move around until he figures out what I want and helps me straddle his thighs so I can see his face. My body feels… well. I am rested. I hum with magic, his. There are no insects crawling inside me.

I am well. And my heart is only half-broken. I should shield it, but I don’t know how. If you cannot tell the truth from lies, how can you love? How can you not?

“Who was that?” I ask, hoarse but perfectly clear.

So I can speak, after all. I’m mended.

Woland understands me instantly. “That was me, love. I have—ah, another form. I was about to tell you six months ago. Before Mokosz took you.”

I am briefly distracted by that. “Six months? Was it really?”

He nods solemnly. “I searched for you everywhere,” he says, his voice catching in a rare moment of vulnerability that could be just a part of the performance. “I even came to that clearing. Jaga, I stood right above you, and I never knew you were there.”

He looks haunted. His hands shake, and he clutches my arms, gently. He trembles. Closes his eyes.

When a tear rolls down his cheek, and he blinks with a frown, as if angry with himself, I can’t take it any longer.

“Are you lying?” I ask. There is no accusation. Just simple curiosity.

He shakes his head once.

“Six months, Jaga. I knew you were hurting, I knew you couldn’t die, and I couldn’t get to you.”

I nod. “Couldn’t die. Yes. Am I a bies?”

I watch him calmly as he exhales, closing his eyes for a moment. He looks genuinely distressed, his hands clutching at me still shaking. I observe it with gentle interest. He’s so good at this. All the right emotions are here, for me to peruse.

Maybe he really made a scheme with Mokosz. Maybe I was wrong, and he had nothing against me being whipped and buried. How will I know?

“Yes and no,” Woland says, his voice straining. “You aren’t mortal in that you cannot die, but you are not a bies like everyone else who lives in Slawa. You are—exactly yourself. Only immortal. Like a goddess.”

I snort softly. There’s nothing godlike about what I went through.

“When you died that day,” Woland says roughly, wiping another tear from his cheek, “I lost my mind. I couldn’t let you go.Couldn’t.Not just because I needed you. I never thought of that, Jaga, not for a moment. All I thought was that I’d never speak with you again like this. That I’d never touch you like this. You’d be in Nawie, a shadow of yourself, and I couldn’t stand it. So I brought you back, and I made sure you’d never die again.”

I hum, not knowing whether to believe him or not. Woland must see the cool ambivalence in my face, because he looks away, his throat working.

“It took so many tries, because I wanted to remake you exactly, just without mortality. The pieces didn’t fit, over and over, until I found a way. And Jaga, I didn’t want to change even a single thing apart from that, because you were perfect. You are.”

“That’s a nice compliment,” I say with detachment, not letting it in.

Woland sighs, brushing his hand over his face. There’s a moment of hesitation until he nods with a grimace, like he’s about to do something unpleasant.

“I left a back door for myself. A sort of—loophole. I can kill you. I am the only one who can. I’m telling you because I promised myself you’d get only the truth from me now.”

“Hm.” I shrug. He said he didn’t think about my role in his war, but he definitely did, if he felt the need to leave himself this back door. I don’t care much, and I have no idea whether it’s true. Guess I’ll find out if he ever kills me.

---