September 11, 2025
Hugo Verran, 25.
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It was 7:12 a.m. EBN Local cycled through traffic, weather, and a minister's press conference about zoning. Saint Lewis never appeared on the ticker. The silence felt curated.
I kept flipping through them, my thumb tapping the remote faster than thought. My heartbeat had its own rhythm, outpacing the voices on the screen. Every time the image changed, I half expected to see it — a house on fire, flames climbing the walls, smoke cutting through the night. But nothing. Not a single mention.
"This doesn't make sense," I muttered.
Behind me, Corvian's reflection wavered in the glass of the TV. He was standing with his arms crossed, half in shadow, his skin catching the dull light. "I don't know why you're panicking so much," he said calmly. "There's nothing on there. Literally nothing. I think you should chill, for real."
I turned to look at him. "No, there were people inside. I saw them. It has to make the news. Unless—unless the fire didn't really spread."
He shrugged, the motion fluid, unconcerned. "Why don't you call Henry, then?"
"I can't." My voice cracked around the words. "I'm scared to call him. What if the fire didn't spread? What if he finds out I failed? You know how he is. He'll send me back again, or punish me, or do whatever the fuck goes on in that twisted mind of his. I can't—"
Corvian cut me off, voice even, steady. "You have two options. Face him and call, or turn the fucking TV off and calm down. You'll never know if you never ask. And Henry—" he paused, stepping closer, "Henry is very capable of dragging you through whatever he wants. Hiding from him won't change that."
I stared at the screen again. The anchor was laughing now, teeth too white under the studio lights. My own reflection sat beside hers, ghostlike and motionless.
"Yeah," I said finally. "Yeah, you're right."
I reached for my phone, then stopped halfway, realizing what I was holding wasn't even the same one. "I broke my burner last night." I let out a laugh that didn't sound like one. "I don't even know how to call them. Maybe I should just wait until they call me."
Corvian nodded once, a quiet tilt of the head. "Suit yourself."
He walked toward the window and leaned against it, the glow of the city spilling across his bare shoulders. The air inside the apartment was warm, the kind of summer heat that clung to everything.
I turned the volume down, but not all the way. The silence felt worse than the noise.
Somewhere, a reporter's voice carried through the static: and in other news tonight...
I shut my eyes for a second, wishing they'd say it — the address, the fire, something — anything to make it real.
But all I heard was laughter from the television, and the soft whisper of Corvian breathing behind me, patient as sin.
Corvian's reflection shifted in the glass again, his voice cutting through the quiet. "You do realize he can't harm you while I'm here, right?"
I let out a dry laugh. "What, you're my bodyguard now?"
But when I turned around, his expression didn't carry a hint of humor. His eyes were steady, too calm, like he was stating a law of nature.
"Oh," I said slowly. "You're serious."
"Yes," he replied simply. "Just focus on your upcoming performance with Igor. That matters more than Henry."
I blinked at him. The ease in his tone made the words almost tender. "Thank you," I said quietly.
His mouth twitched into a grin. "Wow. That's probably the first time you've ever thanked me."
"Don't get used to it."
He chuckled, a soft, strange sound — something between amusement and weariness. "I promised myself a long, long time ago not to get used to anything." He paused, his gaze holding mine, something almost human flickering there. "But you're kind of making it hard."
I frowned. "What did I do now?"
He didn't answer right away. He just looked at me — not the way he usually did, not like I was his project or his entertainment, but like I was something fragile he couldn't quite name.
"You're here," he said finally. "That's enough for now."
Before I could respond, he turned and walked toward the hallway, his steps unhurried, leaving the faint scent of heat and stillness behind him. "Get dressed," he called over his shoulder. "We have to go to Morrison's."
Then he was gone.
I stayed where I was, the TV still whispering nonsense behind me. The words he'd said hung in the room like dust caught in sunlight. You're here.
It shouldn't have meant anything. It shouldn't have felt like anything. Yet something in my chest shifted, quiet but unmistakable, like the slow crack of thawing ice.
If he meant he'd gotten used to me, then it was the same for me, wasn't it? The thought unsettled me. How could the illness be the cure?
I ran a hand through my hair, staring at the reflection of the living room in the black screen. Corvian's shadow wasn't there anymore, but it felt like he was.
How come I didn't hate him after everything? After the manipulation, the threats, the way he pulled at every thread until there was nothing left but want?
Maybe because he was the only one still here.
Ever since that night —that brief, disarming hug— something in me hadn't been the same. It wasn't just the comfort of being touched; it was the way his arms had closed around me, uninvited, unearned, and still I hadn't pulled away. I'd broken down like a child.
And since then, I kept remembering it— the weight of him, the steadiness, the quiet. I didn't even realize how much I'd missed it. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had held me before that. Maybe it was Riley. Maybe it had been that long.
The thought hit hard, like a bruise that had been waiting to be touched.
I never realized how much I craved it— human connection. Contact. Warmth. A reminder that I still existed outside of all this power, this chaos, this hunger to be seen.
Now that I'd felt it again, I couldn't stop wanting it.
And that was the cruelest part.
Because I knew better than to think devils hugged without reason.
We were halfway down the stairwell when I saw it— a black car parked in front of the building, its windows tinted, engine idling low like something breathing in the dark. The sight rooted me in place.
Corvian stopped a step behind me, his voice low against my ear. "I think this is for you."
The back window slid down, slow and deliberate, the glass whispering against its frame.
Helena sat inside. Her hair was immaculate, not a single strand disturbed by the breeze spilling through the window. The streetlight caught on the sharp edge of her smile as she leaned forward.
Her window slid down an inch; the air that spilled from the car smelled faintly of antiseptic and warm plastic, like a clinic that never closed. "Open the trunk," she told the driver, and the hinge obeyed like a trained animal.
Then, turning her gaze to me: "Hugo, thank you for your service. You can take the suitcase in the back."
My throat tightened. "So... it happened?"
Her smile didn't move, but her eyes softened as she gave a small nod.
Something in me sank and lifted at the same time.
I walked around the car, my steps unsteady. The trunk clicked open with a muted thud. Inside, a single black suitcase waited. I gripped the handle and pulled — it was heavier than I expected, the weight of it unnatural, solid like a secret made physical.
Helena rolled down her window a little farther and extended one pale hand. Her nails were the color of dried blood. She waved once, elegantly, like a queen acknowledging a subject. "Goodbye, Mr. Hollands."
The window slid up. The car pulled away without sound.
I stood on the curb, the suitcase beside me, the exhaust fumes curling through the heat. The night around us seemed too still.
"What the hell was that?" I muttered.
Corvian stepped up beside me, his eyes following the receding car. "She's dangerous," he said, almost admiringly. "Feisty. I like her."
I let out a small huff, unimpressed, and dragged the suitcase toward the door. The wheels stuttered over the cracked pavement, each bump louder than it should've been.
Inside, the hallway lights buzzed dimly overhead. I hauled the suitcase up the stairs, the sound of my own breathing harsh in the narrow space. When I finally reached the apartment, I pushed the door open and pulled it in behind me.
The suitcase landed on the floor with a dull thump. My palms were slick.
I crouched down, clicked the locks open, and lifted the lid.
Money. The paper smell turned my stomach before it sweetened into awe.
Stack upon stack, crisp and orderly, bound in neat paper bands. The sight of it should've thrilled me —a reward, proof that I'd succeeded, that I was worth something— but instead, it felt like the air had thinned, like the bills themselves were consuming oxygen. The longer I stared, the tighter my chest became.
Corvian entered quietly, his shadow stretching across the floor until it joined mine. He looked down at the open suitcase, then at me.
"Wow," he said softly. "You were worried for nothing."
I nodded, still kneeling there, my fingers brushing the edges of the bills. They were cool to the touch, soft and sterile, as if untouched by the fire that bought them.
But all I could think was that somewhere in Ebonreach, ashes were still cooling.
And now, their worth sat folded neatly in my living room.
I turned around, and Corvian was there — so close I could see the reflection of myself in his eyes. The space between us had disappeared, leaving only the uneven rhythm of my breathing against his stillness. He stood slightly taller, his shadow spilling over mine, and for a moment it felt like standing before a mirror that breathed differently.
"Corvian," I said quietly, the name leaving my throat as if it didn't belong to language. "I want to see how you actually look like."
He tilted his head, his gaze warm in that way that unsettled me. "Here you go again," he murmured. There was almost amusement in his tone, but it came wrapped in something gentler, almost... fond.
"I mean it," I whispered. "I really want to see you."
"Why?"
"I just... I need something to ground me. To remind myself that you're not another human like me. Because I'm afraid." The words trembled as they left me, half confession, half plea. "I'm afraid I'm going to a point of no return."
His voice was soft, almost coaxing. "What does that mean?"
I searched for an answer and couldn't find one that made sense. My thoughts kept slipping, unraveling into pieces that no longer obeyed order. "Do you feel things with your hand?" I asked suddenly.
His brow furrowed faintly. "What kind of question is that?"
"Can you feel pulse, texture, warmth?"
"Yes," he said quietly. "The hand works."
I took it before I could think. His hand was cold — not lifeless, but unnaturally calm, like water drawn from a deep well. I pressed it against my chest, over my heart.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The pulse beneath his palm stuttered, then steadied, as if uncertain whom it belonged to.
"I can't keep getting along with you like this," I whispered. "I feel like I'm tying myself to something that won't let me go. And I know how this ends for me — I've seen it. It's ugly. I'll burn everything, I'll lose myself piece by piece, until I start craving the very thing that destroys me. Until I start craving you."
His eyes darkened, a slow eclipse swallowing whatever light was left.
He didn't pull his hand away. Instead, his fingers pressed slightly into my shirt, into skin and heartbeat. "This," he said, "is an illusion, Hugo. You've been alone too long. That's all this is. You've drowned yourself in too much feeling, too much hunger, too much grief. You mistake the silence after the noise for peace. You mistake warmth for love."
He leaned in, his breath almost touching mine. "You're not in love with me. You're just exhausted. And this—" his hand still over my heart—"this isn't real."
His words moved through me like cold wind, but my body didn't believe him. It recognized something his voice tried to deny.
"I don't know what's real anymore," I said, and it came out small, almost childlike. "If this isn't real, why does it keep changing my pulse?"
He watched me, eyes ancient, almost sorrowful. "No, it isn't."
For a moment, I thought he might step back, that he would reclaim his distance and his divinity. But he didn't. His hand remained where it was, and I could feel his pulse beneath it — faint, uncertain, but there.
And I thought: How cruel that the devil should have a heartbeat.
That he should feel like something I could reach for.
That I should want him enough to mistake ruin for touch.
That, in his silence, I began to fall.
His hand remained where I had placed it, cool and steady over the violent rhythm of my heart. The silence between us stretched, deepened, began to breathe on its own. The room seemed to shrink around it — the light too dim, the air too still, every sound drowned beneath the pulse that trembled beneath his palm.
He should have pulled away. Devils should never linger this close. Yet he didn't.
His gaze fell on me with the slow precision of someone memorizing a confession. The gold in his eyes looked dull in the low light, like a dying sun folding in on itself.
"I said it isn't real," he murmured. But the words carried no conviction now. They fell apart somewhere between his lips and the air that carried them to me.
I swallowed, the sound catching in my throat. "Then why are you still touching me?"
He blinked once, slowly. "Because you asked me to."
Something in me shivered — not from fear, but from recognition. I searched his face, the sculpted calm that had always felt unreachable, and for the first time, I saw something behind it. Not warmth exactly, but awareness — the kind of quiet ache that belongs to those who once knew how to feel.
"I think I was wrong," I said. My voice came out softer than I meant. "About needing to be reminded you aren't human."
He tilted his head slightly, his thumb brushing the fabric of my shirt in a motion so light it almost wasn't real. "And what do you need instead?"
I looked up at him — the dark outline of his jaw, the faint sheen of sweat on his collarbone, the stillness he wore like armor. "To remember that I am."
Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it. His hand pressed gently against my chest, as if grounding me, as if measuring whether my heart could bear the weight of him.
"You won't come back from this," he said quietly.
"I know."
"Then why do you keep walking toward it?"
"Because everything else feels like dying slower."
The words trembled between us, small, honest, unguarded. I didn't know which of us they wounded more.
He breathed in — or pretended to — and I felt it against my skin, a ghost of warmth passing through the space that wasn't there.
"You don't understand what you're asking for," he said, and the way he said it was almost tender. "You're trying to touch something that was never meant to be touched."
"Then stop me," I whispered.
He didn't move. I stepped that last inch myself.
His eyes met mine, and in that gaze, something shifted. The calm of centuries cracked at the edges. The illusion of distance dissolved. For the first time, I felt him — not as a presence, not as a whisper in the dark, but as something living. His heartbeat was slower than mine, deliberate, ancient. Yet it was there.
The sound of it reached through me, steady and unholy, until it seemed to echo in my chest.
And in that instant, the world felt perfectly still — as though the city outside had stopped breathing, as though time itself bent to watch a man fall for something that could never bleed.
He was still touching me, and I knew this was the beginning of an undoing I would never recover from.
If this was an illusion, I decided I would live inside it.
Because at least here, something finally touched me back.
The world seemed to draw itself closer — the walls, the light, even the pulse of air. His hand remained where it was, my heart beating against it like something begging to be held. Every breath I took seemed to echo through him, to pull him further into my orbit, or maybe I was being pulled into his.
He leaned down slightly, close enough that I could see the way his pupils shifted — slow, deliberate, as if he were trying to memorize the shape of me. His voice came quiet, almost breaking. "You don't know what you're doing."
"Maybe not," I whispered. "But you do."
Corvian's fingers curled gently against my chest, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me he was there. His face was unreadable, caught between restraint and the faintest trace of wonder. The light from the window caught the corner of his mouth, the line of his throat, and the air between us vibrated with something electric and ancient.
For a moment, I wondered if I was still myself.
The silence filled with everything we weren't saying — his denial, my want, the quiet understanding that whatever this was, it was already too late to stop.
He moved closer. Not enough to touch more, just enough for his shadow to pass over me, like a tide rising quietly along the shore. His voice came low, a whisper that seemed to brush the inside of my skull. "You are trembling."
"Because you're not," I breathed.
He studied me, eyes sharp and searching, and then his hand slid upward — not leaving my chest but tracing the edge of my collarbone, his touch slow, testing. My skin burned beneath it.
"Everything about you is temporary," he said softly, almost to himself. "Even the fear. Even the pulse. It's strange... to be reminded what time feels like when it moves."
"I didn't ask to remind you of anything," I said.
His eyes met mine again, steady, unblinking. "And yet you do."
The air thickened between us. My mouth went dry. The sound of my heart filled the room — fast, desperate, alive.
Corvian's voice lowered, almost reverent. "You think you want to see what I really look like. But you don't."
"I do."
His gaze lingered on me, then softened in a way that made the ground under my ribs shift. "No one has ever asked that and survived wanting it."
"Then let me be the first."
He looked at me for a long moment, the weight of centuries pressing into his silence. And then he did something I didn't expect — he smiled, slow and sorrowful, the kind of smile that felt like the closing of a door.
"You're already seeing it," he said.