Page 113 of The Devil's Canvas

“You think she’s in danger?” Owen asks.

“I don’t know what this is,” I answer, gaze still locked on the name seared into the parchment, “but I’m not waiting for a second notice.”

The air tears open around me, heat pressing at my back as I step through the portal. Smoke trails behind my coat, the contract still gripped in my hand, burning faintly at the edges like it knows what it’s about to do.

I glance down at the scroll, expecting confirmation of what I already feared.

Her name is slashed through in thick, final ink.

And beneath it—another. One that shouldn’t be here. One that rewrites everything.

My chest goes tight. My heart sinks, hard and sudden, like it’s dropped straight through me. This isn’t possible. There are no names left in this bloodline. No terms active. No reason for the contract to shift. Except it has. And now it’s binding.

I don’t speak right away.

The others are already watching—Ophelia, her family, Cassius with that slow-spreading smirk like he’s known something all along.

“Right on time,” Cassius says, teeth flashing through the grin.

“What is that?” Melanie asks, folding her arms.

“The contract,” I say, my voice low. Tired. “The last clause is active.”

Ophelia’s eyes are on me now. Searching. Already knowing.

“Who?” she asks, and it’s not just a question—it’s a prayer.

“Julian…” she says, soft—like she already knows.

Our eyes meet, and it hits me all over again. The contract has chosen. And no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many loopholes I chased or seals I reinforced, it was never going to let go. Not without blood.

“I tried to stop it,” I say, and the words barely make it past my throat. “But the contract has to be fulfilled.”

I can’t look at her anymore. My gaze drops, my grip tightening around the scroll as if I could crush the outcome just by willing it.

“It’s not your soul I’m here for,” I say, and my voice barely holds. “It’s hers.”

Ophelia steps forward before anyone else moves. She takes the scroll from my hand, too calm at first—like denial still shields her from what she’s about to see. But the moment her fingers touch the parchment, it pulses with heat. Magic recognizes her, even as the contract tries to resist her grip.

She tears it open anyway.

The scroll unfurls in her hands with a crackle, ink bleeding across the page like it's trying to rewrite itself. Cassius’s name burns first—sharp, bold, final. Next is hers. Written in blood.

She exhales once—too sharp, too fast.

ere it is. A single, brutal slash through her name.

And beneath it, glowing freshly, impossibly, irrevocably.

Arabella Arden.

Her breath catches. She doesn’t speak at first, just stares. Her hands start to shake. Her throat works around words that won’t come out. When she finally does speak, it’s thin and cracking.

“No.” She blinks, like the page might change if she just looks again. “No, that’s wrong. That’s not— That’s not supposed to—”

She presses her palm to the bloodprint, trying to rub it away like it’ll come off. Like it’s just ink and not a signature carved into the bones of Hell.

“Julian,” she says, her voice rising now, breaking apart. “This was mine. The deal was mine. How is this—how is this happening?”

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