Chapter 31
After that, Nick sequestered me in the office, putting me through a crash course of aethersmithing. It made me finally understand why they'd chosen such a massive house. Being locked inside for days at a time? Yeah, a few extra rooms kept me from wanting to kill someone. Even worse, no one around me could die, which took all the fun out of my threats. Thankfully, Nick found something to help me vent my frustrations. He taught me how to create weapons, tiny little things that looked alive and acted sentient. They called them sprites, and they were a lot like the drawings I'd had turn real.
Trusting the wards to prevent any of my creations from leaking out, I made many. We found most of my sprites could only last two hours before they simply dissipated on their own. My mind preferred the fanciful and pretty while Nick's minions were efficient and often horrifying. When we set them on each other, mine were stronger, but not by much. Unfortunately, his were smarter.
It wasn't only life I learned to create, but also objects and patterns. Lots of patterns. He taught me how to ward against unwanted power by creating a shield of aether that would bind where I placed it – a room, my skin, or even a bubble around us – and how to destroy someone else's wards. He didn't instruct like the teachers I was used to. Instead of giving me a step-by-step tutorial, he explained the idea then encouraged my mind to run wild. I learned through trial and error instead of repetition, supposedly, so nothing would inhibit my creativity.
After five long days of creating things, destroying them, and reabsorbing the aether, I was as ready for the next step as I could be. There was only one thing left to do before I could start learning how to cross between worlds. We had to make the binding stones he'd talked about. That way, if I screwed this up, he'd be able to save me.
Opening the top drawer of his desk, Nick turned serious as he pulled out something. His large hands blocked my view, but I saw a chain dangle between his fingers before he gathered it to his palm. Without a word, I lifted my hand. When he finally opened his fingers, a knot of jewelry slipped into my palm.
Two necklaces. Both were large, circular gems mounted plainly on chains made like dense cables. They weren't extravagant, but the stones looked real. One pale blue on a gold chain, the other a deep, vibrant orangey-red hanging from silver. Their surface was cut flat and smooth.
"Where did you get these?" I asked.
"Ordered them. Poppy topaz for you, blue diamond for me. The color is a near perfect match to our aether." He moved to sit beside me. "There's one last thing to do before I can teach you to walk in the corridor," Nick said.
"Bind the necklaces. And then you can show me how to gather more aether, right?"
His jaw clenched. "That will not happen until you are perfectly stable between worlds. After you can prove that to me, our deal still holds. Just one soul, and then you will wait."
I nodded, excited to be doing something new. "So my first task is learning to walk again. I can do that."
"Yeah." He passed across the large, reddish topaz. "Which means you finally get to seal that."
I took the stone, in awe of not just its beauty but also the price tag I was pretty sure it had come with. "Just imagine my seal and push aether deep into the gem?"
"Into the pattern of the gem," he clarified. "Crystals are a lattice that can be organized. Watch."
He closed his eyes and gripped his pendant tight between two fingers. It took concentration. Nick's mind was locked on the stone, his breathing slow and steady. Tendrils of aether wove through his fingers, centered around the gem in his hand. The colors swirled from almost white to a dark midnight blue. He didn't need to explain. I could tell exactly what he was doing. With the strength of his will, he pushed his life force into the stone, reorganizing the crystals to match his own pattern. The gem had just become a separate part of himself, like DNA left behind at a crime scene. It was him, but not tied to his body, like he'd sculpted it with his mind.
When he was done, he opened his eyes and met mine. "Now make that one match your vision of yourself."
My vision of myself. That sounded so nice and simple, but it wasn't. All my life, my vision of myself had been layered with responsibilities, impressions others had of me, and a litany of things I'd never quite measured up to. But that wasn't what he meant. He meant the way it felt to be me. The knowledge of my space, my form, and my crazy way of thinking. That silence we have when we aren't quite asleep and aren't yet awake. That was what I felt like and, with everything I'd learned so far, I pushed it toward the gem, keeping the swirling pattern of my seal ever at the front of my mind.
In my hand, I felt the stone warm as the molecules shivered to realign. It was still a topaz, but deep in the heart of it, I could feel the space where my symbol was growing and the trickle of my own life surged to fill the gap left behind. Smiling, I leaned back and opened my eyes.
"I think I did it."
"Yes," Nick agreed in a soft purr. "You did it beautifully."
I pushed my topaz toward him on the desk. "So now, I get yours and you get mine?"
"If you're still ok with that?" Catching my hand, he dropped the pale blue diamond into my palm. "This is the key to my aether, Sia."
Something in his voice made it clear this wasn't a casual gift from him. I ran my thumb across the jewel. It was larger than a quarter, the seal of Satanael visible under the surface. I knew how protective he was of letting anyone have access to his wards, but he'd already given me that ability. Strangely, my gut said that wasn't all.
"So not something you give easily?" I asked.
"To you, yes."
"But to others?"
"I've never given a binding stone to anyone," he admitted.
"Why?" I tilted my head. "I'm not being belligerent, Nick. I can see this is a big deal, and I don't want to make more of it than I should, or less."
He smiled and nodded, relaxing a bit. "I forget how little you know of us sometimes. Binding stones are only given to those you trust completely, without any reservations. It's the one thing that can compel an outworlder to obey. I can only assume the same will be true for a Muse."
"But it means more than that, doesn't it?" I could tell from his tone.
He nodded slowly. "Demons do not make relationships like humans. We have the ability to protect our friends and lovers, even provide for them beyond anything your society can imagine simply because we are not tied to a single world. Our promises are fleeting because your lives are so short."
"Ok?"
He looked into my eyes for a moment, then turned his gaze to the stone in my hand. "That? There's no bigger commitment I can offer you than to give you that. It's a promise that I simply cannot break, not while you have that stone. For as much weight as humans put on marriage, that is more. It's trust made corporeal and given freely. If there's anything in all the worlds that can force me to obey, it's that diamond."
I closed my fingers around the pendant as my stomach flipped and a wave of butterflies exploded inside it. "What are you saying, Nick?"
He blew out his tension in a quick breath. "For the first time in my very long life, I have nothing to hide, Sia. You do not judge me for things I did thousands of years ago. You don't even flinch away from the knowledge that I'm the Angel of Death or the supposed Lord of Hell." He wrapped his strong hand around mine. "You even like my horns." He smiled at that, daring to look up into my face. "You make me feel like a man, a very perfect, desirable, wonderful man, not a monster. And you are beautiful, intelligent, filled with a life that most humans could only wish to embrace. You are everything I have ever wanted, all wrapped up into one small, vivacious, and very powerful package." He licked his lips quickly, like his mouth had suddenly gone dry. "I'm giving you that stone because I have no reason to ever lie to you."
I'd heard men make romantic speeches before. Most had wanted to talk me into bed, some had believed it at the time, not realizing what love was, but none had said it with as much feeling and understanding as Nick did. I also heard very clearly the three words he didn't say, but could have, and it made my heart pound hard and heavy. All I could do was clasp his diamond close to my heart.
"Really?" I whispered.
He nodded, a hint of worry in his eyes.
I let my thumb swipe across the gem that proved he was falling for me even if he wasn't ready to say it. "So this is a really big deal?"
"It is." He flicked his eyes to mine. "Will you wear it?"
"Of course!" I twisted, simultaneously lifting the hair off my neck. "Put it on me?"
"Gladly." He took the chain and reached around my neck to carefully secure the clasp, then kissed the side of my throat. "You do know that both demons and angels will act as if I own you now, right?"
"Am I not yours?" I leaned over to the desk, grabbing my topaz. "You found me, protected me, have been training me, and showed this whole new world to me. I'm yours, Satanael, completely and totally, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Let them think of me as whatever they want. I know you don't." I let the pendant dangle from my hand. "You even designed my stone to look perfect on a man, so will you wear it?"
He nodded. "Until you ask for it back."
I giggled as I leaned around his neck, securing it to him. "Not for a million years, at least."
He reached up and caught my wrist. "Will you live that long with me?" he begged.
I shrugged, unable to wipe the girlish grin from my face. "I'm gonna try. There are a few angels who have other plans, but yeah, Nick. I plan to see the sun grow large and red, find a way to another planet that is perfect for life, and figure out if all these crazy rules apply there as well. And when I get bored? I'll just change the world, right?"
"Exactly, but first you need to learn to walk the corridors."
I nodded, the thought making me nervous yet excited while the thrill of Nick's declaration still bounced in my chest. "What happens if I, I dunno, fall or something?"
Nick touched the necklace he wore. "Then I'll save you. We'll start slow." He stood, holding out a hand to me. "And we will stay inside the house. The wards on this place extend into the corridor. I removed the ones for the winds so you could learn to do this without fear of angels, but you're only safe inside these walls."
"Ok." I took a deep, nervous breath then pulled myself up, my fingers touching his. "So how do I slip across?"
"That's the last lesson. First," he tugged, shifting us both between worlds, his hand firmly on mine, "you need to understand what this is."
"The corridor?"
"Yeah." Death's mouth smiled from beneath the cowl. "It still shocks me that you never flinch from the change of my skin." He reached up with one hand and pushed the hood back, revealing his demonic blue face, crowned in horns, with the stars of his eyes gleaming. "Now do you see why I wouldn't show you?"
"No." I bit my lip to hold in a giggle. "Could have saved us a whole lot of explaining. I still think you're lovely. Even better blue than all flesh-colored."
He chuckled, the sound so pure and perfect, and stepped closer. "Focus, my little dove. This is where the atoms of one realm mix with those from another and the strings change pitch. Matter leaches through the walls, tumbles against the material from the world beside us, and it all tries to stabilize. The feeling when you pass through is your body shedding everything from Earth, replacing it with the material from here. It is nearly instantaneous and painless. One carbon atom from Earth for one aether filled carbon from the corridor, and if you moved into Vesdar, it would change again to a carbon from Vesdar with the altered pitch native to that plane complete with aether-dense molecular components."
"Atoms are different too?"
His lips split wide enough to show that perfect line of teeth. "Yes, everything changes. Chemically speaking, Earth is the more simple world. The outer realms are complex, with isotopes and extra particles to balance the changes. Water acts one way on Earth, but behaves just a bit differently on Daemin."
"How?"
The stars swirled in his eyes each time he blinked. "It doesn't expand when frozen, as a start. The variables we live in – like gravity or the speed of light – are just slightly different in each universe, and that means the nature of reality has to change to compensate."
I nodded, trying to comprehend the altered physics. "So, why are there winds in the corridors, and why can't I really feel it now?"
With his free hand, he gestured around us. "The wind is a current caused by the influx of particles. Now, look at what isn't there."
Where his hand pointed, I saw it. At first, it was subtle, but once I noticed the difference, it got easier to see. Like those prints that had three-dimensional images hidden when your eyes were unfocused, the shield around us was the same. Pieces of the world had been asked to stand still, bracketed by hair-thin lines of nothing, giving the structure form.
"You made a pattern out of the lack of aether?"
"Perfect. Now, do you know why?"
"Not a clue!"
He laughed and spun me to face the world around us without letting go. "Look at the pattern, little dove. Don't memorize. Conceptualize."
I looked. It was complex and interlocking, buffering the wind like a screen would, letting some through, but not enough to knock him from his feet. I couldn't understand why it would only serve him, and then I saw what he meant. Over and over, the pattern was made of tiles. They locked together, twisted and angled in such a way as to make a whole, but each tile was the same. It was the symbol on the innermost circle of his seal.
"It only recognizes you?"
He made an affirmative sound. "Because it is me. Now, we need to teach you to do the same thing."
"How?"
He wrapped his arms around me. Each of his hands held one of my wrists and his chest pressed close to my back. When I turned to look at him, he laughed, tilting his head quickly to prevent his horn from catching the side of my face.
"Big, blue, and still very solid," he teased.
"I'll figure it out eventually."
"I know." He kissed my cheek. "Now, think of your seal and the symbol inside it. Yours is easier since it's so well balanced. Just lock the spirals of that symbol together so it makes links." His fingers guided my hands, one making a curve, the other drawing an imaginary swirl into the hook. "Imagine it in your mind, just like with the shields we worked on earlier, then relax and release it. Make it only large enough for your fingertips to touch."
It took a few tries before I managed to make gaps in the world around me, like glass blocks to buffer the current. The first time I succeeded, Nick waved it away almost immediately, telling me I had it backwards before forcing me to do it again. So I did it again, then one more time, and yet again, until he said it was finally good enough.
"Ok," he breathed, his voice tight. "That's good, dove. You ready to try it?"
I turned to look at him, careful not to hit his horns this time. "How many people fall their first time?"
"Most." His voice dripped with warning.
"And they were immortal, right?" When he nodded, my throat tightened. "So, what happens if I get blown away?"
"Then I will catch you," he swore. "It will take a few minutes, so do not panic, but I will catch you, Sia. Just keep that image in the back of your mind, like a buffer for the winds, and you'll be ok. I won't let anything happen to you."
I nodded, looking at the gaps I'd made. "How many people die from this?"
"Demons can't die, nor angels."
"K." I pulled my arm to my face, his hand still twined around my wrist, and kissed the back of his forearm. "Nick, you'd better not let me fall too far."
"You'll be fine. You can't do amazing things if you can't do this. Think of it as Muse puberty."
I laughed, feeling some of the tension drain out, and checked the pattern again. "Ok. So, do I just let go?"
"Yes." He turned me to face him, looking at the space around me, shifting his hand to rest inside mine. "Baby steps, my little Muse."
I let go with my right hand first, but the world felt no different. My heart pounded from the warnings they'd repeated. Over and over, they told me to never let go in the corridor, that it was too dangerous, and that humans couldn't stand in the winds between worlds. I swallowed away my fears and loosened my fingers, focusing on the pattern, then gently lifted my hand free.
Once my contact with Nick was broken, I could feel the currents myself. They teased the symbols of my aether, my identity, but it held, flexing in the flow like a net. Slowly, I smiled, realizing I was doing it. I was standing on my own, touching nothing but the ground.
"Take one step," Nick said. "Just one, and keep the pattern with you."
I nodded, my mind fixed on the interlocked swirls, and stepped. When my foot left the ground, the world swayed, like someone had rippled the sheet of reality. The rules of the corridor were so different from that of time and space. I staggered, and Nick reached out, but I caught my balance before we touched. I heard him sigh in relief as I tried to walk again, feeling like a child trying out her legs for the first time.
First one foot, then the other, I took a pace forward, finding the ground and meeting it without the world floating away. Secure in my balance, I looked up and grinned, gesturing around me. "I just walked the corridor! It's like a spacewalk, but cooler."
"That it is," he agreed, offering his hand.
Feeling very proud of something that sounded so simple, I took it, not shocked at all when he tugged me back to Earth's reality. His blue skin tanned and his horns faded away, the cloak blending to a simple t-shirt, but I was excited enough not to care. Nick was beautiful regardless of his form, and I had just taken my first steps between worlds all on my own!
"So that's good, right?" I asked.
He sank into the chair and sighed deeply. "That's fucking amazing, Sia." He looked up, a twisted smile on his lips. "I just forgot to mention one little thing."
"What?"
"Never, in the history of humanity, has any human managed to walk in the corridor without being lost."
"What?!"
He nodded. "Luke and I talked about it a lot. We can think of three Muses who probably tried. All three knew about the other worlds and simply vanished one day." He paused, glancing up at my face. "The winds will tear a human apart if you don't have someone able to catch you. Without that stone, finding you to catch you would take a miracle. Distance doesn't work the same in the corridor as what you're used to."
"But..." I couldn't find the words. I didn't know if I was pissed, shocked, or horrified. "You..."
He tapped the necklace. "I could have found you. It's not that fast of a thing, and they didn't have a mentor. Humans last for months between the worlds, slowly wasting away. With this, I would have been able to catch you in minutes."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Shocked. That was the emotion I decided to go with.
He rubbed a shaking hand across his mouth. "Because you do better when you aren't afraid."
"And has that little theory of catching someone been proven?"
He nodded. "A few times. Any human can be caught in the currents. Luke slipped through the veil and saw a man tumbling toward him, so reached out and snagged his arm. It was a freak thing, and if he hadn't caught the poor soul, his body would have tumbled across the mirror of the world. So, he pushed back to his home, tugged him back to Earth, and started these crazy myths about zombies or some shit."
"How'd the guy end up in the corridor?" I was horrifically fascinated.
Nick lifted his eyebrow and looked up at me. "Do you have to ask?"
"Angels." I nodded. "Probably some punishment?"
"I'd guess. That, or he was just foolish enough to pull away when they tried to gather slaves."
I took a long, deep breath, feeling elated and worried all at the same time, probably like someone who'd just finished her first skydive. With a nervous chuckle, I claimed a spot in Nick's lap, wrapping my arms around his neck as I pressed my head to his shoulder.
"Ok. So I lived through that. No one's really done that before?"
A laugh barked out before he could stop it. "Human, you imp. I'm pretty sure I'm still someone!"
"You know what I meant."
"None that we know of."
"So why'd you let me try?" I leaned back to see his face, not surprised at all to find him smiling.
"Because you're stronger than any demon or angel I know. There's no reason you couldn't do it." He shrugged. "That, and you said you wanted to reap the dead. It's kind of an important part of that unless you want me holding your hand the whole time."
"I might." I cocked my head to the side. "I mean, since you're so worried about me killing off sick, old, and dying people."
"Then I'll hold your hand." He reached up to trace the line of my face. "But I hope you can do this. I don't ever want to see you hurt, but if you can reap?" He sighed, his lips lifting at the thought. "You can pull so much aether, my little dove, that you could raise a legion. All the legions. You could secure the veils. You could stop the atrocities the angels are doing."
"Why me?"
His eyes looked between each of mine. "I don't know. All I know is that you're like a Muse, an angel, and a demon, all at the same time. You do things I can't even fathom, and you do it unconsciously. You are the answer to every prayer we demons have dared for the last million years."
"But no pressure or anything," I teased.
"No pressure," he promised.