The back of my throat burned as I took a wobbly step forward, lifting my arm.

“You bring nothing but death to those around you,” she continued. “You should’ve never been born, because you will kill the ones you love, one way or another.”

Those words dug in deep, shattering in the depths of my heart. Without saying a word, because I knew it wouldn’t matter, I brought the blade down.

It swept clean through her. There was a dull flash of light, and then her form faded away as if she was nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Within seconds, it was like she’d never been there, and only the cruel, punishing words lingered.

“Well,” I said a bit unsteadily. “Can’t get any worse than that.”

And it did… within a heartbeat.

Two forms appeared beyond the broken foundation, quickly taking shape. Having no idea what or who the gate was going throw at us now, I stood by Aiden and waited as the ghostly shadows became two people.

Aiden sucked in a breath and went ramrod straight. I didn’t realize the significance at first. The two shades were strangers to me, a male and a female. Both were tall and elegant-looking, carrying the air of pure-bloods. The woman had springy, curly hair the color of spun corn silk, and the man was dark-haired, with shockingly familiar silver…

I had seen them before… in a photo frame back in the room in Aiden’s home—his parents’ home.

The man and woman were his father and mother.

“Oh, Gods,” I whispered, lowering the sickle blade.

Seeing Aiden’s parents—the appearance of our deceased loved ones—suddenly made sense. It wasn’t a physical fight that guarded the gates, not like with the guards and hellhound. This was on an emotional and mental stage—a different tactic to get us to turn away, because if we didn’t, we had to face the unthinkable.

Aiden said nothing as he stared at them. I’d never seen him so still—not even after the first time he’d seen me cleaned up, after I’d punched him in the face, and then kissed him. Or even when the furies attacked the Council, or after he realized I’d killed a pure-blood. Not even when he stood above my bed, waiting for me to wake up after Linard had stabbed me.

I’d never seen Aiden like this—his face utterly devoid of emotion, but his eyes churning in gray and silver. Tension radiated from every locked limb. After witnessing what I had just gone through, he knew this wasn’t going to be good.

And I wanted to stop it before it even got started—spare him the pain of brutal, hurtful words that would lance open old wounds. But when I stepped forward, he snapped alive.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice thick. “I want to hear this.”

I stared at him like he was crazy.

“Of course he does,” Aiden’s father spoke. “My son is no coward. Foolish, but no coward.”

I jerked toward the sound of his voice. I couldn’t get over how much he sounded like Aiden.

His mother’s smile seemed warm enough. “My son, you do not want to do this. The answers you seek do not exist where you wish to tread.”

“I have to,” Aiden replied stonily.

The father tipped his chin up. “No. What you have to do—the right thing to do—is turn around and leave this place.” When Aiden didn’t respond, his father drifted closer and his voice was stern, relentless. “You must do the right thing, Aiden. We raised you to always do the right thing.”

Aiden nodded stiffly. “You have, and that is why I have to do this.”

The man’s eyes narrowed, and I knew I was about to witness some epic family drama. “The right thing would’ve been to take your place among the Council, as you were raised to do.”

Oh no…

A muscle popped in Aiden’s jaw.

“Do you think you can accomplish anything as a Sentinel?” his father asked, and I wondered if he’d been this way in real life. Cold. Disciplined. Was that where Aiden’s near-rigid control came from? But Aiden had never let on that was the case.

His father wasn’t done. “You’re wasting your life, and for what? A sense of revenge? Justice? You shirk your duties while our family’s seat remains empty?”

“You don’t understand,” Aiden said. “And… none of that matters right now.”

The change that came over his mother was nothing short of dramatic. Gone was the warmth and elegance. “You shame us, Aiden. You shame us.”

I blinked. “Wait a second—”

“You have no control.” Disgust dripped from his father’s voice. “We taught you to never take advantage of those who are under your charge. Look at what you have done.”

The mother clucked her tongue. “You risk her, knowing she could be harmed because of your lack of control. How could you be so reckless? How could you do this to someone you claim to love?”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh, now that’s not—”

“You can’t protect her.” His father gestured toward me. “You couldn’t protect us. You’re a failure. You just don’t see it yet, but you will just keep on plowing forward until you can’t go any more.”

His mother nodded. “I’m surprised that Deacon has made it this far. But then again, look at my baby boy—a drunk and an addict, all before eighteen. I’m so proud.”

I whipped toward Aiden and pleaded, “You don’t need to listen to this! You can stop this.”

She smiled coldly, continuing as if I hadn’t even spoken. “And her—look at what you did to her. Placed her on the Elixir, stripped her of her will. You’re less than a man.”

“You bitch,” I spat, readying to throw my blade at her, ninja-style.

“Go now,” his father said. “Leave this place. Or her blood will be on your hands.”

Never in my life did I want to exorcise some ghosts more than I did right then. Anger hummed like venom through me. “Aiden, don’t listen to them. They aren’t real. What they’re saying is bull. You—”

“What they are saying is real.” Aiden swallowed hard, sparing me a brief glance. “But it’s not them saying it.”

I didn’t get it at first, because I so doubted his parents were such big douchebags in life, but then it sank in.

“What my mom had said… it’s us.” I turned to him slowly. “What they are saying? It’s what you really think?”

When Aiden said nothing, I think I was more horrified by that than anything else that’d happened so far. He thought those terrible, horrific things about himself? And how long had he been carrying that with him? Years?

“And your brother?” his father said, shaking his head as concern pinched his face.

I was going to gut both of his parents.

“He is unprotected right now,” added the mother. “You should be there, not here, chasing a fool’s errand. He will die, too, like us, and it will be your—”

“Enough!” Aiden roared, shooting forward.

I hadn’t even seen or felt him take the sickle blade from my fingers, but he had. The blade arced through the dark sky.

“You’ll be sorry,” his mother said, a second before the blade sliced through both his parents.

Like my mother, they broke apart into thin, wispy strands of color and smoke and then vanished, scattered into the air around them. And like with my mother, their words lingered.

Aiden stood with his back to me. Wordlessly, he hit the release on the sickle blade and with a soft, sucking noise it disappeared into the tube of the handle. There was no danger now. Three wards had come to pass—guards, hellhounds, and spirits.

But I couldn’t control my pounding heart. “Aiden…?”

His shoulders tensed and he turned his head to the side. His profile was grim, the line of his jaw hard. “I have thought those things for a long time. Becoming a Sentinel was the right thing for me, what I wanted and needed, but was it really the right thing?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. “But you’re not shirking your duties or whatever. You are still doing something so important, Aiden. And one day, if you wanted to take your seat… you could.” The words hurt to say more than they should’ve, and for a purely selfish reason. If Aiden took his seat, there’d be no chance of us ever being together. No future with the house, the dog, and the cat.

But I wouldn’t stop Aiden if he felt he needed to take his seat. And his parents or inner voice could be right in some sense. With a seat on the Council, he could do more in regards to changing things, but…

Hell, nothing mattered if Seth was successful.

“I could,” he said almost too himself, and I winced. “My brother—”

“Isn’t an addict.” I paused. “Okay. He was a bit of a drunk and stoner, but he’s not an addict. Seth’s an addict. A daimon is an addict. Deacon is at the cabin making marinated steaks.”

That brought a faint half-smile to his face. “He’s safe.”

“Yes.”

He faced me and exhaled roughly. “I really don’t think I’ll get you killed.”

“That’s a relief to hear.”

Aiden closed his eyes briefly. When they reopened, they were a soft gray. “I have to say, it was kind of nice to shut those damn voices up, if just for once.”

Stepping forward, I placed my hand on his arm and squeezed. “Are you okay?”

“I am.” He bent his head, placing his lips on my forehead. “Let me grab the bag and then we’ll enter the church together. Okay?”

I nodded, waiting outside the foundation. Aiden returned with the bag and knelt. Reaching in, he pulled out a dark, shapeless material and offered it to me. Another followed as I took mine.

“A cloak?” I slipped it over my head. “Where you’d get two of these?”

Aiden stood, throwing the backpack onto his back. “You’d be surprised by what Solos’ father has stashed away in his cabins. I actually picked these up when we were in Athens. Figured we might need them.”

“You’re so smart and organized.”

Laughing, he pulled his on and then reached over, grasping the edges of my hood. He tugged it up. “We have to hide that pretty face of yours.”

I flushed. “Same for you.”

“I have a pretty face?” Aiden pulled up his own hood, which cast his face in shadows. “I’d like to go with handsome instead of pretty.”

“Handsome” wasn’t a strong enough word, but I nodded. He extended his hand, and I took it, comforted by the steady, warm grasp.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Together, we moved down the line of the fallen stones and found the opening. Together, we stepped through where a door had once stood. There were no more warnings or wards. We moved through the patches of crumbling cement and overgrown weeds.

We waited.

After about ten seconds, a fissure of energy coursed down my spine. Aiden felt it too, for his hand tightened around mine. Anxious energy built in my stomach, forming tight balls of dread and even a little bit of excitement.