Page 50 of Bargain with the Demon King
Through the wall, Azzaron moves. Pacing maybe. Or just existing in that careful way he's maintained since bringing me back broken. He doesn't know I finally opened his gift. Doesn't know what it means that he stood in my world catching light for someone too broken to properly thank him.
But something in me answers the light in the vial. Not healing. Not hope. Just the bare, grudging admission thatbroken things can still hold light. They just don't have to shine for anyone but themselves.
I set the vial on my nightstand where I can see it from bed. Where trapped stars can remind me that someone paid attention to what I actually lost, not just what everyone assumes I lost. Tomorrow I'll go back to counting steps and avoiding mirrors and dying by degrees. But tonight, a vial of captured starlight sits beside my bed, proof that some prisons are meant to preserve rather than punish.
Chapter 17
Adraya
"The archives require attention." Azzaron delivers this with the same conviction he uses for actual demon law. "Centuries of records need reviewing."
"Thrilling. Death by paperwork instead of heartbreak. At least it's variety." I follow because following requires less energy than refusing. "Chad always said I read too much anyway. Guess I can put that useless skill to work cataloging demon bureaucracy."
The twilight necklace sits against my throat, neither warm nor cold, just present. Twenty-eight steps from my chamber to wherever he's leading me. I count because counting keeps me from thinking about other numbers—days since Chad, hours since I ate properly, minutes since I felt anything besides hollow.
"Do demons even keep records? Or do you just remember every soul you've stolen with perfect recall?"
"Both." He opens a door I haven't seen before, older than the others, carved with symbols that shift when I don't look directly at them. "Though stolen implies theft. I prefer collected."
"You prefer many things that aren't true."
The door swings inward, and my automatic response dies in my throat.
Not archives. Not ledgers or contracts or the bureaucratic nightmare I'd prepared for. Books. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Shelves stretching up into shadow, every surface covered in spines of leather and scale and materials that shouldn't exist. The smell hits me—paper and age and that particular scent of stories waiting to be read.
"This isn't archives."
"No."
"You lied."
"Yes."
My feet move without permission, carrying me deeper into the impossible library. My fingers trail across spines, reading titles in languages I know and languages I don't. Fiction. Poetry. Histories. Myths. Everything I used to disappear into when the world got too heavy. When Chad got too distant. When I needed to be someone else for a while.
"'The Maiden's Lament,'" I read aloud, surprising myself. The words actually register. "I know this one. The heroine dies for love, thinking it noble. Chad said it was stupid. Said dying for someone was the ultimate weakness."
The name doesn't strangle me. Just sits there, fact without feeling.
"Was he wrong?"
"No. But he was also the kind of person who'd say that while shoving me toward a sword, so his opinion lost some credibility."
I pull the book from the shelf, open it. The words stay still. They make sense. My brain accepts them without the forty-three attempts required by the soul-stone text.
"I can read these." Wonder bleeds into my voice before I can stop it. "The words work again."
"Stories are different. They have their own power. An agenda. They draw you in." His voice carries something that might be amusement.
I move down the row, muttering titles. "'Songs of the Shadowed Court.' 'When Demons Loved.' That one's definitely fiction—demons don't love."
"Perhaps you haven't met the right demons."
"I've met exactly one demon who matters, and he's currently tricking me into libraries pretending it's work."
My hands find books without conscious choice—romance where love conquers everything, adventures where heroines save themselves, poetry that makes pain beautiful. I gather them against my chest, armor made of pages and possibility.
"Take whatever you want." His voice stays carefully neutral, but I hear something underneath. Hope, maybe. Or calculation. With Azzaron, they're often the same thing.
