Page 142 of A House of Gold
"Will you?" His hand finds mine, desperate.
I don't have an answer for that.
Because honestly? I don't know.
Seven years is a long time. Seven angels is a lot of influence. Seven sins is a heavy burden to carry.
And by the end, I might not be the woman standing here now.
But I'll try. For him. For Luna. For myself.
I'll try to remember who I was before all of this.
Even if it kills me.
31
We end up meeting before the time limit though, with an urgent summons from Lysander.
The cathedral smells like decay and old incense. Broken stained glass crunches under my boots as I follow the seven angels deeper into the ruins, past rotting pews and crumbling stone columns covered in centuries of grime.
Divine power presses against my skin, old and angry and still potent despite the building's decay. This place remembers what it was. What it housed. And it doesn't like what it's become. I wonder if the place will tell me that as strongly every time I arrive.
"Here," Kael says, stopping in front of what used to be the altar. Now it's just broken marble and blackened stone, but there's a person lying there, an old woman, maybe ninety, breathing in shallow gasps.
"She's dying," I say, moving closer. I can see the contract wrapped around her, golden chains that pulse with each fading heartbeat. "Lust. This is one of Lysander's."
"Was mine," Lysander corrects, leaning against a pillar with forced casualness. His purple eyes are fixed on the woman with unusual intensity. "Eighty-three years ago, she made a deal.Youth, beauty, desire, all the things a young woman thinks she wants. The contract should have ended when she died naturally, and her soul would come to me."
"But someone's been taking them before you can collect," I finish. Through the contract, I can feel the lust, decades of accumulated desire, compressed and concentrated into something dark and hungry. "How did you find her?"
"We've been tracking the pattern," Seraph says from where he stands near the altar, his mirror eyes reflecting candlelight from the few candles still burning in the cathedral. "Your grandmother's research gave us locations, dates. This woman, Margaret Rousseau, is on the list. She should die tonight. And when she does, whoever has been stealing souls will come for her."
"Unless we get there first," Croesus adds. He's standing beside me, close enough that I can feel his warmth through our binding. "You need to break the contract now, before she dies. Before they can collect her."
I look down at Margaret. Her eyes are closed, her breathing labored. She's unconscious, maybe hours from death.
"She can't consent," I say. "She doesn't even know I'm here."
"The contract is fulfilled," Dorian says gently from near the back of the cathedral. "She's lived her full life. Had her youth, her beauty, her desires. The terms are complete. You're not breaking an active deal, you're severing the collection clause."
It's a technicality, but he's right. The contract is done. All that's left is the payment, her soul going to Lysander when she dies.
"If I break it, she goes free?" I ask. "Her soul goes wherever it's supposed to go naturally?"
"Heaven, probably," Lysander says with a slight grimace. "She was a good woman, despite the vanity. Led a decent life. Hurt no one but herself in her obsession with beauty." His voicesoftens. "She deserves better than being stolen by whoever is collecting our souls."
I kneel beside Margaret, place my hands on either side of her head where the contract's chains are thickest. The lust is overwhelming even before I touch it, eighty-three years of desire, of wanting to be wanted, of hunger for admiration and touch.
"This is going to be strong," I warn the angels. "Lust this old, this concentrated, I'll need to purge it immediately. I won't have time for ritual."
Through the binding, I feel Croesus's understanding. His acceptance.
"I'll help you," he says simply.
"We'll all watch," Seraph adds with a slight smile. "Consider it educational."
I want to argue, but there's no time. Margaret's breathing is getting shallower. If she dies before I break the contract, whoever is stealing souls will come, and we'll lose our chance to catch them.
