Page 114 of The Devil's Canvas

I don’t have an answer. Not one that would matter. The contract has chosen. It’s binding.

And she knows it.

Her chest heaves. Panic spreads in her eyes like wildfire—fast, feral, uncontrollable.

“I was supposed to pay for it,” she says, more to herself than to me. “Not her. Not her. I was the one who made the choice—”

The scroll curls in her grip as magic settles into place, final and absolute. Her hands drop. Her body doesn’t collapse, but something in her expression does.

I reach out to Owen. Maybe he is able to get more information from the council.

Julian:Do you know anything?

Owen:Yeah. She was added to the list. Aunt Selene says there's no such thing as loopholes. So she went to the archives and looked to see how Arabella was added to the contract.

He sends me a telepathic link to what she found. All of this information. It's all coming to light.

"How could this happen?" Ophelia begs me for an answer. Unfortunately, now I have one to give her.

She looks at me like I’m the only one who can make this make sense. A telepathic surge hits me—raw and fast. It's the trail she found, the pieces she didn’t know she was collecting until now. Headlines. Reports. Data. Rhys’s article. The awards. The case. Bella. It's all there. And as I sift through it, the truth clicks into place with brutal precision.

I look around the circle—at the faces waiting for me to fix this, to lie maybe, to say there's still a way out.

“There was no loophole,” I say quietly, my voice low but heavy. “There never was.” “The deal was simple,” I continue, my eyes locking with Ophelia’s. “The most famous would be taken. That was the clause. That was the price. At the time, it was you.”

She stiffens.

“Even after you stopped painting for yourself—even doing the ghost commissions—you were still everywhere. Your name carried weight. Your work kept you at the top, whether you wanted it to or not. But you disappeared. You vanished from the scene. You stopped producing. You stayed in Hell for too long.”

She swallows hard, but doesn’t interrupt.

“In your absence,” I say, turning slightly to the others now, “your name faded. You lost your clients. You dropped out of the public eye. And while all of that was happening…” I glance toward Bella, my chest tightening. “Arabella cracked the trafficking case.”

Cassius’s jaw ticks.

“She exposed something massive. Rhys wrote the article. It went viral. Her face—her name—was everywhere. She won awards. Gave speeches. Became internet famous overnight.”

Ophelia’s lips part in horror. “No…”

“She became the most famous Arden,” I say. “And when Melanie fell, the deal didn’t dissolve. It adjusted. It took the next in line.”

I glance down at the scroll in her hands. The blood signature still burns there. A record, unchangeable and absolute.

“It had to be fulfilled. And since I spared you…” I force the words out. “Someone had to take your place.”

The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s thick. Devastating.

Ophelia turns to Bella—who hasn’t spoken, hasn’t moved, frozen in disbelief. And for a long moment, no one knows what to say.

Ophelia is already at Bella’s side, her fingers digging into her sister’s arms like she can anchor her to the world. “There has to be something we can do,” she says. “Say there’s something. Please.”

I want to. I want to tear the sky open and rewrite the laws myself. But I’ve already read the contract. Already seen the ink shift. Already felt the pull of Hell binding itself around a new name.

And Bella knows.

She’s not asking questions. She’s just… still. Her expression isn’t blank, it’s resigned. A quiet kind of understanding that looks far too much like peace.

“I’ll go,” she says.

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