She did not turn or lift her head, afraid to face him or, worse, to find he wasn’t truly there at all.

“I have lingered too long in Goetia,” he said, his voice a whisper. “It has changed me in ways I do not recognize.”

“Abraxas…” she began.

“Please, Celeste. Let me speak. We are not so different, you and I. I blamed you for clinging to Mariel, but I think I am guilty of the same. I have stayed here for eons, watching over a corpse.”

“Mariel left me,” she blurted, unable to hold the grief of it back.

“Ahh…”

She turned to face him. He was only a shadow in the dark room, less than a sliver of the moonless night.

“That means we can be together,” she said, sounding more eager, more fervent, than she meant to. “There’s nothing to come between us now, Abraxas. I am yours, body and soul.”

The rain beat against the roof, steady as a heartbeat.

“Sometimes we cling too tightly to people whom we should let go,” he said.

Her heart sped up, and she dared to hope. She rose to her feet and moved toward him, her arms outstretched.

He stepped back. “I am speaking about myself.”

She let her arms drop, her face hot with shame. “I know that I have done the unforgivable,” she whispered. “And yet I ask your forgiveness.”

“Demonkind do not forgive, Celeste.” White teeth flashed in the darkness. “You should know better than that.”

“I will make amends,” she offered, words tumbling from her tongue in desperation. “To you, Hypatia and Zeke, Lilitha, too.”

“Lilitha is mine,” he said, voice dark. “She bargained. It is out of your hands now.”

“I will take her place.”

His look was reproachful. “Trade? When I already have you both, should I wish it? I don’t think so.”

“Abraxas?” She did not recognize him like this. Cruel and unbending.

She heard the scuff of his feet against the floorboards as he paced away. “The problem, Celeste, is that what you’re offering? I don’t want it anymore.”

She flinched at his viciousness, but she would not beg.

“Then what do you want?” she asked, chin raised.

“I am leaving.”

What was left of her heart buckled in despair, but she swallowed the pain. “Where will you go?”

“Hell, if it will have me. But if not…” He shrugged. “The world is a wide place.”

“Then one day, I will see you in hell, Abraxas,” she said, as challenge and threat and vow.

Thunder rolled, somewhere nearby.

He touched a long-nailed finger to his brow and inclined his head. She caught the edge of a satisfied smile.

“I await the day, Celeste.”

And then he was gone.

After a while, she walked to the bed, took the blanket Abraxas had given her, and wrapped it around her shoulders. She went to sit on the edge of the porch.