Page 124 of The Devil's Canvas

One soul. One return. Equal exchange.

“You sure?” he asks, voice quieter now.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” I whisper.

He hands me a dagger. It’s elegant.

I press the blade to my palm without flinching. Drag it down in one clean line. The blood spills freely and as it hits the contract, the ink glows, the letters sealing themselves with every drop.

The mark flares once on my collarbone—so bright it hurts. The contract vanishes in a single breath, smoke curling into nothing.

Owen doesn't say anything at first. But then… he smiles.

“Good choice,” he says, almost gently. “We’ll make sure your boxes make it to his house.”

The floor beneath me splits. The room dissolves. And in the next heartbeat, I’m standing in the middle of Julian’s bedroom.

Alive. Whole. And staring at the man who gave everything for me.

Chapter Twenty-One

Julian

Iusedtowatchher.

Even after the bond began to unravel, when the mark on my forearm dimmed from gold to ash, I kept reaching. Every breath she took echoed inside me. Her grief throbbed like a phantom limb. I’d hear her whisper my name, so faint it felt like a dream. But the bond doesn’t hum anymore. It doesn’t burn. It flickers now, like the final breath of something sacred.

The mark remains. Faint and quiet—a memory carved into skin. My soulmate’s mark. But it no longer connects us. She’s gone.

And I’m left powerless. Disgraced. Still immortal, but nothing like the creature I once was.

My power is gone. My blood is silent. The shadows refuse me. Fire won’t rise. Everything that once defined me—magic, rage, control—has gone still. Dormant. I can’t shift. Can’t conjure. Can’t feel anything but the cold.

They locked me in this house for protection, they said. Truthfully, it was to protect the name. The Duvain legacy can’t be seen bleeding. If anyone in Hell knew what I’d become, they’d circle like vultures.

So I rot here. Alone.

Some days I scream until my throat gives out. Her name is always first. Other days, I make no sound. I sit in the solarium, surrounded by the flowers she once touched. They wilt now, no matter how I tend them. Even the garden remembers.

I trace the mark like it still belongs to her. Even though it doesn’t. Not anymore. But I can’t let go.

They visit. The ones who used to define my world.

Owen arrives first. Always first. Quiet, like he knows words can’t touch what I’ve lost. He stares at the mark like he’s willing it back to life. But it stays cold.

Seth fills the silence with fury, politics, plans. Lucas leaves food. Damian watches me like he’s waiting for a version of me that’s long gone. Caleb reads poetry meant to stir something inside me, but it doesn’t. Adrian screams, calls me a coward. My mother rages against the dust in the halls. My father nods once, stoic, like dignity will keep this house standing.

Selene stays the longest. She brings tea, her quiet presence, and a warmth I don’t deserve. I never speak. She never asks.

They come because they have to. Because appearances matter in Hell. Because weakness isn’t allowed. They visit the ghost of who I was, say words they no longer believe, and leave.

And I stay.

A prisoner in a house without fire. A shadow in a body that forgot how to burn. I lost her. And with her, I lost everything.

Hell was never the punishment. Losing her was.

I finish the last chug of whiskey. I’m officially out. The bottle is empty, the silence too loud, and my eternity stretches out like a punishment without end. But this isn’t just my sentence. It’s hers too. Ophelia is immortal now, bound to the deal I made and the cost I paid. None of us—not even the Infernal Council—know what to do with that. The loom of fate is unraveling. Threads slip loose one by one, everything falling apart before we can catch it.

---