Serpent's Storm (41 page)

“Can I turn on the lights?” he asked. I nodded, not realizing I’d been sitting in the dark. He got up and turned on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with a pale yellow electric glow. He went back to sit at the end of my bed, the light casting shadows across his face.

“Calliope—” he began, looking down at his hands.

“I know,” I said, interrupting. “We need to talk.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his ice blue eyes neutral.

“I’m staying in Hell,” he began again. “It’s where I’m needed now that the Devil’s been deposed.”

“Runt said Cerberus had him and the Jackal Brothers guarding the North Gate.”

That elicited a hint of a smile from Daniel.

“Yeah, it’s kind of an amazing sight.”

I smiled.

“Okay, so
you’re
staying in Hell—”

“And
you’re
needed in Purgatory and on Earth,” he said. “You have some pretty big shoes to fill.”

I have the Ender of Death to deal with, too,
I mused—but I didn’t share that thought out loud.

“And things haven’t really been going that great with us lately. You’re not happy, Calliope, and you cheated . . .”

There. He’d said it. The thing I’d been dreading for the past forty-eight hours.

“It wasn’t really my fault,” I started to say, but he held up his hand for silence.

“Calliope, you’ve wanted to be a free agent for weeks now,” he said, his gaze returning to his hands. “I thought we had something important, something that was worth fighting for, but I was alone in that—and after everything that’s happened, I just don’t think I trust you anymore.”

It was like having a nail driven through my heart. I felt light-headed, and the dark spots that descended on my vision made it hard to see.

“Then I understand,” I heard myself saying. “If that’s what you really feel.”

Inside, I was screaming at myself, begging me to ask for Daniel’s forgiveness, to tell him that I loved him more than anything, that I just hadn’t understood that until he’d gone away.

But my internal pleas fell on my own deaf ears.

Daniel nodded and stood up.

“Then I guess that’s it.”

Nausea burbled in my throat and I felt faint. I took a deep breath to stay my racing heart and then I said:

“Thank you, Daniel. For everything.”

His eyes went dark, but then he shook his head, dispelling whatever emotion he’d been feeling.

“You’re welcome, Cal,” he said.

We stared at each other, drinking in the last dregs of what could’ve been, and then he walked to the door. I watched him go, but as the door closed softly behind him, I let the words that had been running through my head silently slip between my lips:

 

DEATH’S DAUGHTER
CAT’S CLAW
SERPENT’S STORM