This time when she crashed through the floor, it wasn’t as much of a surprise. Landing directly into Blackwell’s arms, however, was. Debris rained down from the ceiling of the dining room—the exact same place she had crashed before—causing her to sneeze and splutter.
“Hold on,” Blackwell said, cradling her to his chest before transporting them both away to her room.
“Did you know I would land in the same place?” she asked, stunned.
“I made an educated guess,” he told her as he set her on her feet. “Are you alright?”
“Um… yes?” she breathed. “Maybe?”
“You summoned the Whispering Gate again,” he stated.
“Yes.”
“What did you find?” he asked.
“I found… my mother.” Ophelia’s hand flew to her mouth in disbelief as this fully sank in.
Blackwell’s expression gave nothing away. “She must have been waiting for you.”
Ophelia’s breath hitched. “What do you mean?”
“When souls or Devils are on the Other Side, they summon the Whispering Gate to be able to communicate with each other across the different linear planes. Because you are a Necromancer—and a Specter—your soul has always been tied between life and death. I’m guessing that is what gives you access to the gate—as long as there’s a strong enough pull from someone there who wants to speak with you.”
“Does that mean I could see her again?” she asked, hopeful. “If I ever found a way back?”
He shook his head. “That, I don’t know.”
Now, Ophelia looked down at her hands, unsure how to approach what she was about to say next. “I told her everything. About Phantasma and my fight with Genevieve and about… us.” She looked up at him now. “She was pretty adamant that we stay away from each other. I’m sure she fears the same fate for me that she and my father faced.”
Blackwell was unfazed. As if he had been expecting this. “She’s right.”
Her heart dropped, and she stepped closer, lightly gripping the lapels of his overcoat. “I know I panicked after what I said in the drinking parlor. About repeating history. But I’m my own person. We won’t have the same fate—”
“You’re right, we won’t,” he said, tone solemn as he gripped her wrists and gently pried her hands from his coat. “When Jasper revealed what happened to your parents, when you said we were repeating history, I realized you were right in asking for space. There can be no ‘we’. We’ve been flirting with danger a little too much. It’s my turn to try and be the responsible one.”
She narrowed her eyes. “After Jasper interrupted us, you are the one who said we’d be finishing what we started later.”
He closed his eyes. “I changed my mind. This game is too dangerous to keep playing.”
I changed my mind.
Those words cut through her like a blade.
Not even the dead want you. The Shadow Voice laughed.
“Think of us as”—he winced at what he was about to say—“business partners. If I wasn’t as selfish as I am, I would tell you to leave Phantasma altogether, but I still need you to set me free.”
“Business partners,” she parroted, her tone numb.
“Yes.” He swallowed. “I once warned you that beings in Phantasma wouldn’t have good intentions or motives… we look out for ourselves first and foremost. I need to look out for myself before we run out of time and I fail this quest yet again.”
“Excuse me for thinking that maybe all the times you were in my bed—my body—would make you regard me differently despite what you said then. We tried the space thing. It didn’t work. Because we find each other, remember? That’s what you said.”
His eyes were missing their usual wicked spark as he stated, “I can’t, angel. And you should understand that, because failing this quest would mean I have to take a decade of your life away. And I don’t want to have to do that—I really don’t—but I will. You need to remember that.”
Her lip curled in utter disdain as her pride took the brunt of the blow his words just landed. “You’re just as much of a bastard as Sinclair. The two of you hate each other, but you’re no different. Selfish, egotistical. I’ve never once suggested that you needed to care for me—or that I cared for you any deeper than I would a friend. But I thought you respected me enough to at least refrain from reminding me—as if I were a naïve child—that I stand to lose ten years of my life to you. I promise I’m well aware of the stakes between us.”
“A friend?” He lifted a brow. “Do you fuck all your friends like you’ve fucked me? But you’re right—a child you are not. Naïve, however…”
“Go to fucking Hell,” she spat.
His smile was tight. “Are we not already here, angel?”
“Don’t ever, ever, call me that again,” she ordered. “You want to be business partners? Fine. But we are going to keep this strictly professional. You can call me Miss Grimm from here on out.”
“And you, Miss Grimm,” he said, “can call me only when it’s absolutely necessary to do so.”
“Probably not even, then.” She glared at him. “Feel free to go now.”
Without another word, or even a semblance of regret, he vanished.
She curled up beneath her covers, desperate for the sweet nothing of unconsciousness. When she finally fell asleep, however, she didn’t find peace.
The nightmare had always been the same.
Ophelia was standing in the large, open den of Grimm Manor. In front of her stood three faceless suitors while her mother and Genevieve stood off to the side. Looming behind her was the Shadow Voice, no longer a figment of her imagination but a smoky entity made of writhing, ebony-colored wisps. Shadowy tendrils were wrapped around her wrists and throat, like she was a macabre marionette, the Shadow Voice her puppeteer.
“Why would I want her?” the first suitor said. “She can’t even control herself. And I’m not living with that thing in my house.”
“Imagine having to share a bed with such a freak,” the next one snickered. “And not the good kind.”
“Too high maintenance,” the last one agreed. “If she were normal, she wouldn’t be so hard to look at, though, I suppose. If she broke free of that creature, I would take her into consideration…”
Her mother sighed in disappointment and exchanged a loaded look with her sister. “I guess she’ll have to continue being our burden.”
I don’t want to be a burden, she tried to scream, but the Shadow Voice tightened its hold on her throat.
Hush, girl, it said. We won’t let them treat you like this.
A knife suddenly appeared in her hand.
If they cannot live with both of us, they must perish.
“What? No!”
Kill them.
“No! I won’t.”
You don’t have a choice, you belong to me. The tendrils around her wrist tightened and yanked her forward. Make them pay.
She approached the first suitor and watched in horror as the Shadow Voice manipulated her limbs and made her plunge the knife into his heart. Blood splattered across her face as the faceless person slumped to their knees.
The Shadow Voice cackled. Next. Slit their throat.
She reached up and dragged the sharp point of the blade across the second suitor’s throat, blood pouring to the ground as they joined the first suitor on the floor. By the time she turned to the third suitor, they were cowering, pleading for their life. The Shadow Voice only became more amused.
Cut out this one’s heart, the Shadow Voice demanded.
So, she did. She let the beating organ fall to the ground with a sickly splat.
Now, we take care of them. The Shadow Voice turned her toward her mother and sister.
This is when she dug her heels in. “No.”
Yes, it hissed. They think you’re a burden. They don’t want you around. Get rid of them.
“No!” she screamed as her feet moved forward involuntarily. Her mother and sister, clung to each other in fear, looking at her as if she were a complete stranger. A monster.
She cried as she tried to resist the shadowy restraints lifting her hand, preparing her weapon. As she brought it down, a shriek ripped from her throat and—
She jolted awake. Chest heaving, the locket around her throat was hot to the touch, pulsing steadily. She glanced around to see what had awoken her from the nightmare, but there was nothing except the feeling of familiar static lingering in the air.
