Page 8 of Blood of Night (The Thorne Hill)

“They’d have to find you first,” Nicole tries. “I agree with Kristy. One more day. And if Lucifer doesn’t come back and give the all-clear, then…I don’t know. Let us try to seek out their power.”

“One more day here is one more day Lucas is down there,” I add pointedly.

“Is that necessarily a bad thing?” Naomi says and holds out her hand. “I know, I know. But think about it, Callie. The Horsemen are in the Underworld. Locked up andnotterrorizing earth. Someone had to say it, and I’m prepared for you to be mad at me all you want, but think, Cal.” Her brows push together, and she slowly shakes her head. “I don’t want Lucas gone and I don’t want to see you hurting. But he knew what he was doing when he got onto that horse. The Horsemen are out of the game. Maybe now we can refocus on Paimon. Lucas knew that, Callie.”

“And he also knew that I would come get him,” I hiss, not believing she has the gall to actually say this to me. “There isnothinggood about Lucas being a fucking Horseman!”

“I know,” Evander agrees, nodding as he looks at Naomi. “But she has a point. We’d been killing ourselves trying to find a way to lock the Horsemen back up and Julian came up with a solution.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be Lucas. And it won’t be.” I suck in a shaky breath. If I hadn’t knocked Famine off the horse, none of this would have happened. I ignored my gut feeling and am paying for it now. “I’m getting him back, and I don’t care what I have to do.”

Everyone exchanges worried looks and I know they think I’m close to going off the deep end. And this time, they might be right. But I refuse to live in a world without Lucas when there’s something I can do about it.

And I refuse to believe that Naomi has a point.

Not about leaving Lucas in the Underworld as a Horseman, but about using this time to come up with another plan and finally taking down Paimon. Julian making a deal with the God of the Underworld is the last thing Paimon would expect.

Unless he joins forces with Osiris.

But does Osiris want to burn the world? Maybe he wants out of his hell like Lucifer does. I blink and remember the images Paimon showed me of how the world would look if the Horsemen brought the apocalypse. Lucas didn’t want to raise his daughter in a world like that, and deep down, I know Naomi is right. Lucas knew exactly what he was doing when he got on that stupid horse and now I want to go to the Underworld so I can slap him for being such a stupid noble hero.

“Callie?” Kristy says in such a way I know it wasn’t the first time she said my name. Dammit. I really need to focus on one thing at a time. “Let’s get dessert and then maybe try to contact Lucifer.”

I just nod, not wanting to tell her that I have no fucking clue how to contact my uncle. For all I know, he distracted his brothers and sisters and then took another dose of potion, temporarily binding his powers so he can’t be detected.

Which is making me wonder if I bound just my angelic powers, would I be able to take on Paimon?

“Probably not,” I answer my own question out loud.

“What?” Kristy asks, eyeing me and then my friends, concerned.

“Nothing. I, um…I’m going to go find my baby.” I plow my hand through my hair and let out a breath.

“Good luck getting her back,” Evander chides, trying to lighten the mood. “Mom takes being a grandmother seriously.”

“That she does,” I agree, both thankful Tabatha has had Juliet for most of the day and missing my daughter at the same time. For the last two weeks, Lucas and I pretty much stayed home. My friends came over to visit and Eliza snatched her baby sister up any chance she got, but we wanted to focus on adjusting to parenthood together. The first few weeks are important for bonding, after all.

It’s late enough that most students are in their dorms, but a few are still in the common areas, talking and laughing instead of studying. The end of the school year is approaching, and I had mixed feelings about that when I was a student here.

Magic came easily to me, and I aced all those classes with minimal effort thanks to being a nephilim. We’re taught other stuff here as well, things you actually need to know to survive in the real world. And in those subjects, well, I was less than a straight-A student. I loved being a student and the Academy will always feel like home.

But summers? Summers were…complicated. At least in the beginning. I went from living with who I thought were my family to being sold like livestock to the highest bidder. I spent two years as a lab rat, forced to do horrible things just to see how powerful I was. Then I came here and didn’t even think about what would happen in the summer until Kristy asked me if I was going on vacation.

But the Greystones welcomed me without a second thought. I felt like a burden at first, and it took me a few years to get over the mentality that I was worthless, bad, and unwanted. Tabatha took me to therapy weekly for two years after she busted me out of the lab, and I continued meeting with the academy social worker until I graduated.

I had my own room in her house, and she let me decorate it how I wanted. Every Friday night in the summer, she would set up a “popcorn and movie night” for Evander and me, and we’d bicker like a real brother and sister over which movie to watch. She took us on vacations over spring break, and we visited different National Parks throughout our summers, both to relax and to appreciate the unique magic of each location.

And she did it all as a single, working mother.

She really set the bar high for my own expectations when it comes to my ability to take care of my daughter.

“Hey,” I say, stepping into her office. She’s sitting by a crackling fire, reading the original versions of fairytales to Juliet. “Is she asleep?”

“She’s resisting.” Tabatha looks down lovingly at Juliet. “I think she’s starting to get hungry.”

“She eats nonstop,” I say and Tabatha laughs.

“I remember those days all too well. You’ll miss it, I promise. It may not seem like you will now, but you will.”

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