But we’re arguing about my time. My suffering. And I can’t  do a decade. There wouldn’t be enough of me left to rescue.

“A year. You’ll be paid more than you can  possibly imagine, and you’ll continue to collect  from Avari for years,” I point out. “Decades, maybe.” If a hellion’s memory  is infinite, who knows how long he can hold a grudge?

“Little flame, I have quite a capable  imagination, as does your hellion of avarice. But if I am to protect your  loved ones on your behalf, you must suffer on mine. For years. That is how  this works.”

My heart races in panic. This will fall  apart if I can’t secure Ira’s help. My father will die. He will suffer for  eternity because I couldn’t save him. My friends will be hunted, one by  one.

I have no choice. “Fine. Three years. As  measured in the human world.” I can already feel the promised years slipping  away from me, and I am terrified of what my time  in hell will bring.

“Five. Not a day less.”

“Four, and you can feed from them, too.” A  last-minute stroke of brilliance on my part. “While you protect my friends  and family, you can have their anger. Their grief for me. Take it. Feed from  it in my absence.” A reciprocal relationship that would surely benefit  everyone.

Ira thinks for several minutes, staring at  me until my skin begins to crawl in discomfort. Have I messed this up? Have  I forgotten something?

Then, finally, he nods. “Shall we seal it  with a kiss?”

“If I must. But there’s one more thing. I  need you to make me forget about this. Take the memory of our bargain, so  Avari can’t find it.”

“That will be my pleasure, my little  roaring flame....”

* * *

When he pulled away, the world stopped spinning so fast that I almost fell over. I blinked. I licked the inside of my lip and tasted my own blood. Then I looked down at the dingy scrap of linen—maybe white, once—wrapped loosely around me like a towel.

I was dirty and bruised, but not scarred and no thinner than when I’d arrived. Avari must have just put me back together, intending to rip me apart all over again.

I glanced at the filthy room around me, and I almost asked how long I’d been there. Was it four years to the day? The memories felt numerous enough to fill a century, though they were eerily hollow now, without the pain and anger he’d drained from them.

It worked. I hardly dared to believe it. What if this was part of the torture—what if Avari was letting me believe I was free, only to pull me back into hell, where I would suffer anew? He’d certainly done it before.

My toes curled in the dirt on the floor. “Is it over?” I looked up at Ira andfound him smiling the smile of the thoroughly intoxicated. He was drunk on my pain and fury. On the insanity he’d slurped from my soul, leaving me only the bits I could handle.

So far, so good.

“Ira, is it over?” Candlelight flickered over the scrap of my clothing, and he finally looked down at me.

“Almost, little flame. Your knight has arrived.”

“You’re not my knight.” Please say you’re  not my knight....

“No, that was a temporary role, and one that has never fit me well. Knights appear to work for honor, a concept I’m not sure I even fully understand. I work for profit.”

Of course he did. He was a hellion, and hellions were evil. He hadn’t helped me—he’d performed services in exchange for payment. Years worth of payment. Could it really have been only four? It felt like eternity....

“Your knight is fairer than I, and less powerful, but much more determined on his mission. Did I mention that he’s here?”

He’s here. Tod had come to say the words I’d left for him. Words he’d had no way of understanding until Ira delivered my second letter to him. Until he’d read—in my handwriting—that Levi had lied, and that I wasn’t gone.

I stood up straight and buried the memories, ignoring the desperate impatience nipping at the edges of my miserable existence. “Let’s go.”

The hellion held his hand out, and I took it. A second later, we stood in another room, so fast I had no time to process the change. This room was larger, and populated with dozens of terrifying species I didn’t quite recognize, but didn’t find unfamiliar, either. Had I seen them during my torture?

My bare feet were silent on the dusty stone floor. Linen whispered against my skin as I moved. Avari’s voice was like needles shoved through my ears and into my brain.

“Just because I cannot hurt you does not mean that no one in the Nether will. I cannot decide if you are flaunting courage or idiocy today, reaper.”

Reaper!

My heart jolted back to life when I saw him, standing alone among monsters, feet spread, fists clenched. His curls were golden like pure sunlight, which had surely never shone in the Netherworld. He looked the same. Like time had stood still around him while it had stretched monstrously around me.

“Neither. I’m flaunting words.” Tod’s voice touched places inside me that had not felt kindness in...longer than I could even comprehend. I had to bite my tongue to keep from calling out to him through the crowd. My hands itched to touch him. My mouth longed for a taste of him. But I couldn’t let Avari see me until the formalities were over. Until he knew he was bound by his own word to let me go. “Specifically, the ones she said to you.”