Page 37 of Of Spindles and Nightfall
As they proceeded toward the manor, Casiel continued prattling on, not noticing Zarathos’s ever shorter answers. They walked, and the guilt inside Zarathos’s body twisted. The letter remained in his pocket, scraping at his leg, poking with every step, like a metronome in time, ticking down the moment when his friendship would end. The trees bent in the breeze, a dark cloud brooding over their head, the chilled wind blasting in their faces as if begging them to go back. To return to the river where he and Casiel could stay and cast their poles in the river without a care of life or death.
But that was the past.
Surely Casiel would understand. He’d understand that Zarathos didn’t want to die. That he didn’t want his father to kill him. Casiel’s parents were wrong. They were against everything Zarathos’s father represented.
Theyentered Zarathos’s room. It was plain, mostly. It was so big compared to the cottage that he’d grown up in that he’d never known what to place inside it.
“Where is the fishing bait?” Casiel asked, looking around.
Zarathos motioned toward a side door. “In the closet.”
He walked with his friend to the closet door. His eyes fell upon the latches up high. His father, when he visited, often locked him inside as punishment for hours in the dark.
Casiel peered within. “I don’t see any—”
Zarathos pushed him inside and slammed the door, throwing the bolt.
“Hey! Zarathos! Open up!” The handle jiggled, and the frame shook.
Shutting his eyes, Zarathos leaned against the wall next to the doorjamb.I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“Is this some kind of trick? Fine, you’ve got me, now let me out!” Casiel continued to bang on the door.
Zarathos did have him, but it wasn’t a trick, though he wished it was. Gods, he was a horrible person. A monster. And yet none of that diminished the prick of the letter in his pocket, reminding him of what would happen if he failed.
After warning Gresil not to release him, he left his estate, walking through the dark to the village. It only took a few questions to discover where Casiel’s parents lived. He walked up to the wooden hut at the edge of the town and knocked on the rickety wooden door.
It opened and aplain human woman stood before him. It was impossible for him to ignore the same light brown eyes that belonged to his friend.
“I am a friend of Casiel’s. May I come in?” Zarathos asked.
“Casiel?” She looked surprised. “Most certainly.” She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped aside. After a moment of checking outside, she shut the door behind him, turning to him with a worried expression. “Is he all right?”
“Where is Casiel?” a demon man demanded from a chair next to the fireplace. He had large wings pulled tight and the fangs that protrude from his bottom lip like Casiel. In that instant, Zarathos only gazed upon the worry on the demon’s face.
He swallowed, pushing any feelings he had over that far down. “You are part of the resistance.”
They both stiffened. “We don’t know what you are talking about,” the demon growled. His clawed hand tapped on the side of the chair with a sharp rap.
“Your son, Casiel, he and I often go fishing.” He lifted a lure from his pocket, setting it on the table. He’d taken it off of Casiel’s pole before coming. It had the bright red ribbon that he’d twisted together to look like a worm. The same ribbon that was tied in his mother’s hair.“Unfortunately, he is a bit more loose-tongued than his parents.”
Now genuine fear flashed across both their faces. “Where is he?” the woman demanded. The tapping of the demon’s claws on the wood increased.
Zarathos took a slow breath,fighting to keep any emotion from his face. “I can either turn in your son as being the child of conspirators, or you, the real culprits, can turn yourselves in.”
A silence fell over those present.
“Who are you, boy?” the demon snarled threateningly.
Zarathos lifted his chin. “What matters is if anything happens to me, your son will be turned in, unless you do something about it.” It was a bluff, but he sensed the parents’ worry for their son, and a part of him knew, if he pressed, they’d cave.
The mother wrung her hands and glanced at the demon male. Casiel’s father tapped his claws against the chair. It was intense, a warning of what he’d like to do to Zarathos—and would do if he found a way around the threat.
“We will comply,” the human woman said.
“We can’t. Think of the consequences.” The demon rapped harder, his wings spreading as he watched Zarathos with a hostile stare. “I say we crush this puny boy into the earth before he draws another breath.”
But the mother held firm. “It is our child. I won’t abandon him. I don’t care about the consequences.”
