Page 87 of Each Their Own Devil

“It was an interesting experience,” Violet said. “I was scared when I fled. I knew I wasn’t useful to either side anymore. Ifigured maybe the fig would help me survive out there in the Astraelis wilderness. But I must have hallucinated for days. Strange hallucinations—not like mushrooms back in college. It felt like looking into both the past and the future at once. Like looking inside myself.”

“What did you see?” Aleja asked, setting aside her notes on the end table.

She watched Violet carefully. While her relationship with Nicolas had simplified, she could not name what she felt toward Violet. She loved the girl Violet had once been: the starry-eyed hiking influencer who adored the sound of trees more than anything. But the Violet who had taken the Trials to become a Dark Saint was more of a mystery.

Yet the fact that her old best friend had eaten a hallucinogenic fig and wandered through a strange realm for days, armed only with tattered clothes and the mask of a dead angel, seemed so entirelyVioletthat Aleja couldn’t help but sympathize.

Violet looked at the mask in her hands, then placed it back over her face, securing the strap. Freshly adjusted, it hung higher, allowing her mouth to show. “Well, the first one made me want to walk.”

“The first one?” Aleja sighed, folding her arms.

“Yes. The first one told me which direction to go, so I did. Eventually, I came across the First Tree. It’s dying now that the First is gone, but there was one fig left, and I was ravenous. I ate it. The snake let me.”

“And what did it tell you?” Aleja whispered.

“That I understood what it was to be trapped between two worlds, and that there are probably people here who feel the same—and just like I talked to the Third, I could talk to them too. I don’t think I’m supposed to be the new Messenger, nothing likethat, but I thought maybe I could make up for what I’ve done. So, I’m sorry, Al. I hope that one day you’ll forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” Aleja said. “By me. You might have to do more work with Bonnie but know that she practically forbade me from killing you when I wanted to.”

“I know,” Violet whispered. “I’ve already made it very clear to her that I’ll grovel for the rest of my immortal life, if only she’ll take me back. She’s thinking about it.”

“I don’t know if the Astraelis will ever accept a human as their leader. Or…psychologist? Therapist? It’s still not entirely clear to me what you plan to say to them, but you can tell me all about it later.”

Violet shrugged, and the mask shifted on her face. “I’ll do what I can. Oh, that’s not the only thing the fig taught me.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“It sent me back here to help you kill the Second.”

The daytheir god died began with a golden sunrise.

As usual, Nicolas was up before her but hadn’t moved from the bed, where she was tucked beneath his arm. His fingertips gently stroked her ribs. Strangely, Aleja had slept through the night, her mind free of the fear she expected to feel about what she was about to do. Val and Merit had spent weeks working on the new wards that would envelop the Hiding Place once the Second’s were broken—wards that would buy them time until Nicolas could find two new Dark Saints.

Her dreams had instead been rich and detailed—not of her life as a Dark Saint, but the one before that. She rememberedNicolas shaking the first time he was called to war by the leader of their tiny village. She could see herself shuffling through the drawings he left behind—heavily shadowed charcoal sketches of the hills surrounding them, the glittering bay, the disobedient sheepdog that liked to escape the fields and visit their hut for slices of raw rabbit meat, and, of course, countless drawings of her.

Aleja, wading knee-deep in the river.

Aleja, dozing by the fireside, her bare feet tucked under her.

Aleja’s hands, carefully stringing her bow.

“We don’t have to get up yet,” Nicolas muttered into her hair. His chest was warm against her cheek.

“Val said to meet him at dawn.”

“Val can wait. So can the Second, for that matter,” he replied. But once the haze of sleep faded, the marriage bond between them felt taut. The anticipation felt like watching a horror movie—tense but distant, fear not fully realized until the moment it arrived.

“It’s still okay to change your mind,” Nicolas said, watching as Aleja fit her stiletto blade into her sash.

The blade was still so cold that Aleja wondered if the Third’s magic had permanently infused it. It was a terrifying weapon now—a god killer, with the blood of one already on its blade.

Aleja didn’t feel remotely guilty keeping it.

“Dove,” Nicolas said softly as they crossed the last barrier out of the unused throne room, where their two chairs sat empty, flanked by enormous batwing-shaped onyx stone. It was a shame the room was so disused, Aleja thought, remembering how much Nicolas had once enjoyed being on his knees before her.

“Husband?”

“If this works—if the Second or Val’s experimental magic doesn’t kill us—then tomorrow, we’re going to Italy.”

---