Page 34 of Can't Bite This Feeling
I smile tightly. “I need your help.”
She frowns, and from the shadows near the poetry section, Gordy rises like smoke, his beanie twitching faintly, alive with the snakes coiled inside.
“What are you planning?” he asks.
I tell them everything that happened last night, about Cassian and my newfound magic and waking to find Rapha gone. “So…I need to go to the Below,” I explain. “I need to find Lucifer.”
Alice drops the ancient text she was holding with a thud. Gordy’s brows shoot up.
“Absolutely not,” Alice says flatly.
“I’m not asking for permission,” I reply, steadying my voice even as my heart pounds. “I need to talk to him. Rapha’s slipping away, and Lucifer is the one pulling the strings.”
Alice circles the counter slowly, like she’s debating whether to hug me or slap me. “Do you even understand what you’re walking into? The Below isn’t hellfire and brimstone anymore. It’s temptation. It’s cruelty dressed in silk. If Rapha’s down there, it means he’s already losing the fight.”
“I know.” My voice trembles despite myself. “But I can’t stand here and do nothing.”
Alice shakes her head hard. “No. No way. This isn’t some love story where you kiss a monster and he turns back into a prince. This is Lucifer. He doesn’t make bargains, he makes ruins. You go down there, and you’re playing his game on his board. You’re just one more toy for him to twist.” Her voice cracks at the edges, the cool detachment giving way to something rawer. “You don’t come back the same—if you come back at all.”
For a moment, I falter.
Then Gordy steps forward, his green eyes softening as he looks at me. “We need to help her, Alice.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s asking.”
“She knows exactly what she’s asking,” he says gently. “And I know what it feels like to fight for someone everyone else thinks is lost.”
Alice’s jaw clenches. “That was different.”
“Was it?” Gordy murmurs. “You were stone for weeks. I tried everything to find the curse that could undo it. Everyone told me it was pointless. That you were gone. That I should let you go. Everyone except Verity and Gideon.”
Alice closes her eyes and breathes slowly.
“But even if Verity and Gideon hadn’t stepped in to help, I would never have stopped fighting for you, Alice,” Gordy continues. “Because I knew who you were. Even when you couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, I knew who you were and what you meant to me.” He turns to me. “Just as Drusilla knows who Rapha is.”
Alice’s lips part, then press together again. She and Gordy exchange a look, one of those silent conversations that happen between people bound by love, magic, and trust. She exhales a shuddering breath and shakes her head. “Even if we wanted to help you, we wouldn’t know how. We don’t have access to the Below.”
“Um. Gordy looks sheepish as he rubs the back of his neck. “That’s…not exactly true.”
Alice turns to him sharply. “What do you mean?”
He winces. “You remember all those different spells I tried to bring you back?”
She narrows her eyes.
Gordy chuckles nervously. “Right, well, Imayhave cracked something open. Just a little rift. I thought I closed it. Mostly.”
“Youwhat?” Alice’s voice pitches higher, her hands flying to her hips. “You opened a rift to the Below and didn’t think that was worthmentioning?”
“It wasn’t ariftrift,” he insists. “More like a magical paper cut.”
“A paper cut that bleeds sin and hellfire?”
“I fixed it! I think.” He glances at me, then back at Alice. “But maybe it’s still… faintly there. A residual echo. If we coax it open, she might be able to slip through.”
“We’re not dragging Dru into the Below through some cursed trap door you left in ourbookstore,Gordy. We don’t even know if it’s stable.”
“But I have to go,” I say quietly. “I’m not afraid.”
