Page 42 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
Sophia nodded. Such simple instructions. Such an impossible task.
I am going to die tonight.
“I’ll bring you back, Sophia,” Juniper whispered. She met Sophia’s wide, unblinking eyes, and squeezed her elbow. “Do you trust me?”
Again, Sophia nodded. The truth, harsher, far more complicated, sat close to bone.I covet you.
The psychic inclined her head. “Good. Let’s begin.”
The ritual started the way all terrible things were meant to start. With the death of innocence.
Sophia held Hazel like a lifeline before reluctantly handing him to Tehlor. Her consciousness, cluttered and fearful, still clamored for the stability slowly slipping out from under her. Tehlor handed her a long, hollow blade, shaped like a needle—horror movie shit, the kind people plunged into eye sockets or pushed between ribs—and gestured to the soft indent on the rabbit’s chest.I can’t,she thought, again and again, like a metronome ticking.I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
But as she lowered herself into the tub, water soaked through her clothes, and she watched the witch kneel beside the freestanding bath, saw how carefully she held Hazel in place. Her pale hands, gentle and sure, lifted him up, and one long, knobby finger stretched toward the middle of his upper half, tapping rusty fur. Her glacial eyes stayed pinned to Sophia.
Mayhem thickened the air. The cloistered magic, humming between each wall, radiated outward from the individual practitioners, churning into an unrecognizable presence. On the other side of the tub, Lincoln removed his labradorite necklace and shook out his wolfish head. Bishop, golden-eyed, mouth shaping an incantation, paced in front of the doorway. Colin trickled Holy Water onto Sophia’s forehead and said a quick blessing. Her hand trembled, pinching the silver weapon. She exhaled a quaking breath and urged her wrist to move. Nothing. Water sloshed around her shoulders.
Tehlor adjusted the rabbit. “It’s okay,” she assured, nodding. “It’ll be quick.”
I’m sorry,Sophia thought, screaming a silent apology to nowhere, to no one. The spirit world echoed her, hollering the same sentiment.I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—
Before she realized what she’d done, Hazel seized and twitched, flopping uselessly in Tehlor’s grip. Blood dripped into the water, twisting like distilled smoke. Sophia hardly glimpsed the rabbit’s limp corpse before two hands latched around her shoulders—Lincoln—and another landed on her sternum—Juniper—and she was submerged.
Beyond the water, Sophia saw Tehlor streak the rabbit’s blood down her face.
At the same time, Colin struck his palms together. A heavenly, powerful gong cracked through the room.
Sophia opened her mouth to scream, but she gasped instead. Water, so much, too much, filled her tired lungs. Death arrived, déjà vu, and peeled Sophia De’voreaux from flesh and bone, de-armoring the soul from the body. She slipped free, glassy and incorporeal. The silence she’d once longed for surfaced in an instant. Postmortem rung, almost, like tinnitus.
But it didn’t take long for the quiet to shift, making room for distant drums. No, not drums. Hooves smacking hard ground, growing closer.
The comfortable darkness gave way.
Oh, king of sorrow.Lilith’s breath tasted like dried apple, fresh fig, old blood.This child is mine.
Chapter eleven
The first time Sophiadied,she felt nothing. It waswater, struggle, thrash, noandplease, breathe, mercy, stopfollowed by unbothered darkness and a weightlessness she could not replicate. There was a surety to it that left her feeling unsatisfied. One moment, she’d stared into vast pitch, unable to decipher herself from wherever she’d gone, and the next, her lungs had rioted, and she’d returned. Unmaking murder had been an act of violence. Bringing her back from the brink, deciding against death, was a violation.
This time, Sophia wasn’t met with serenity. The otherworldliness split, unfurling around her like a cobra lily, and she stood on a black surface, staring across the night sky, searching for something familiar.
Where am I?
Water dripped from her soaked trousers and her shirt clung uncomfortably. No water puddled beneath her feet, though. In the distance, beyond glittering comet-trails, she noticed light—firelight—wading across the blackness toward her.
After is an odd place,she thought.
Unlike the séance, when she’d sank inside herself, death was a place outside her body. Wherever she stood, it was apart from the attic, away from the Belle House, somewhere mortality couldn’t reach.
The flame grew closer. Sophia bundled her wet sleeves in her palm and squeezed, focusing on the flickering orange and glinting gold, how cinders glowed atop slender shoulders and singed the end of dark, cropped hair. Sophia’s rosary was still fastened around her wrist. The medallion warmed her palm, but she couldn’t recall where she’d found it.It was a gift, wasn’t it?Slowly, the figure became human-shaped and decipherable.
Sophia didn’t say their name, but she knew, somehow. Jehanne d’Arc. Joan of Arc. The androgynous saint’s eyes shone like polished stone, stark against their milky skin. Flame chewed on them, but they didn’t burn, and when they came to stand before Sophia, she expected heat to radiate from their half-melted armor. None did.
Darkness rippled and bent, making room for another meteorite to beam beneath Sophia’s feet.
“Courage.” Jehanne spoke without opening their mouth. Their voice manifested from above, falling like a cup over a spider.
Something vaguely familiar gnawed on Sophia. The urge to be somewhere different with someone else.
