A part of me felt like this had to be a dream. This whole thing- from waking up downstairs, to finding Caelan dancing in the chapel with Lucius, to standing here staring at Josiah - felt like some kind of twisted, awful dream and yet I knew that it wasn't. Everything was too sharp, too in focus. From the taste of Caelan's blood on my lips, to the sting of my wounds, to the memory of Lucius' stricken face. Everything was just too damn real.

A clatter of footsteps behind me made me flinch as if I expected Caelan to have risen from the dead but it was just Harper who appeared in the doorway, his face switching rapidly from alarm to rage when he saw the chains and shackles dangling from Josiah's hands.

"Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me," he snarled, clenching his fists as he started towards the seer.

"Wait, Harper!" I grabbed his arm, stepping in front of him and pushing my palm up against his chest.

"Tell me you didn't do it?" he growled through gritted teeth, jabbing his finger at Josiah who remained slumped on the bed, despite the imminent threat looming. "Tell me you're not that fucking stupid?"

"Harper!" I said sharply. "Go back downstairs, look after Lucius, please."

His gaze flickered towards me, narrowing slightly as he registered my words. "Megan, he let her go. She could have killed you. She could have killed you both."

"I know." I heard the tremor in my voice. Inhaling deeply, I moved in closer, wishing I could just hold onto him for a moment longer, needing something tangible, needing an escape from the madness that had taken over this place. "I know, but Lucius is down there all alone and he needs you. I'll be fine. I've got this, okay?" I locked eyes with him, urging him to listen.

"I'm not sure about this," he said hesitantly. "If he...."

"He's not going to do anything," I replied, shooting Josiah a cold glare. "Please Harper."

With a shake of his head, Harper leant down and planted a kiss just above my hairline. "Fine, but if you need me...."

I nodded and flashed him a brief reassuring smile that felt anything but reassuring. When he turned and walked out, I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that he had listened or petrified that I had to stay in this place that still smelt of her. She hadn't died here but the stench of death hung in the air, stagnant and suffocating. Or maybe it was just on me, tainting my clothes, hair, and skin. Waiting until Harper disappeared out of sight on the stairwell, I closed the door and leant up against it, biting my lip in an effort to stop it from trembling. My eyes swept around the room, taking in the assortment of objects on the dresser, still out of place from my earlier visit. It seemed strange to be in here without the gramophone scratching across the vinyl but I was glad of the silence. I wasn't sure I could hear that music now without seeing visions of Caelan dancing around the room, draped in red voile, her mouth stained with my blood.

"You knew I'd do it, didn't you? You knew I'd kill her."

Josiah nodded, but didn't look up. A tear fell from his cheek and hit the floor by his feet.

"When did you see it? When I got here? Before? How long have you known, Josiah?" I was struggling to keep my anger in check. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shout. I wanted to fill this room with my rage until the walls shook, but I knew that I couldn't. I needed answers and the only way I was going to get them was by staying in control.

"I never saw it." His voice was croaky and cracked with an echo of anxiety that I wasn't used to hearing from him.

"Liar!" I spat. "All that bullshit about not being able to see my future, I can't believe I even fell for that! Was it all a lie? Even the story about Sister Agnes?"

"None of it was a lie," he said, raising his head. "I never saw what you would do, but I knew you would do it." He gave me a small sad smile. "Woe betide the person who gets between a mother and her child."

"H-he's not my..." I stammered, my back stiffening.

"Oh you claimed him as your own some time ago," he said. "Even when you were protesting otherwise. I saw that when we first met. When I connected with you, I could see it clear as day. It was like a seed, germinating through your blood, its roots entrenched in your very soul and every day it bound you too him tighter and stronger than the day before. Everything centred around him, and Cain of course, but your feelings for the boy were very much tied to events in your future. I told you then, don't you remember? I told you it would do you no good to follow that path and I was right. You sacrificed yourself to Vanagandr in your attempts to save the child. You knew what you were risking and yet you went back to the Asylum anyway. The actions of a true mother."

"So you manipulated me? You manipulated this whole thing!"

"Yeah and I'll guarantee that I won't be the last one to use your love for the boy against you. And again, that's nothing I've seen, it's just a fact. He's your weak spot, Megan. He's your Achilles Heel. The thought of losing him terrifies you, in fact I think it terrifies you even more than the thought of facing Lucifer does. Your love for Lucius has become more powerful than your fear of the Devil himself and that's how I knew you would go through with it. I knew you would never let Caelan live if you thought she was a threat to him."

The pain pulled on my spine, the tension curling in my stomach like a clenched fist ready to strike. "You used him as bait. You used him to lure me in, hoping that I would kill her. Why, Josiah? I thought you brought me here to save her from Purgatory, not to kill her?"

"I did but things changed!" he said angrily, hurling the chains to the floor. "Because as soon as she saw Cain, everything changed. She wanted to live! I couldn't let that happen, I just couldn't."

"What?" I gasped. "I don't understand. You stopped her from committing suicide Josiah. You admitted yourself that you stopped her countless times and that was before you and I met, before you knew what I was. The only reason you were finally going to let her go through with it was because you hoped I would help her find peace. If she changed her mind and decided she wanted to live, why on earth would you want to kill her? Why would you want your own sister dead?"

"Because I couldn't do it anymore! I just couldn't do it..." The seer's face crumpled in agony and he slipped off the edge of the bed and slumped hard to the floor, clutching his head in his hands as he sobbed.

I waited, not daring to speak, not able to move as he cried. He held his palms against his eyes and inhaled deeply, before wiping the tears away roughly and lifting his head to look at me.

"I'm tired, Megan. I'm so bloody tired. Over seventy years I've cared for her, protected her, lied for her. Everything I've ever done has been about her and for her. Everything. Can you believe that I even burnt our parents' bodies to hide what she did? I went back to the house - our family home, the place where we grew up - and I set fire to my own mum and dad's corpses to try and hide the fact a vampire had drained them practically dry. Can you even begin to imagine what that was like? It felt like I was killing them all over again, just to protect her. My whole life has revolved around Caelan and I was just pure damn tired of it."

"Then why do it? Why put up with it all these years if it was that terrible? All because of a promise you made to your dead parents!"

"What else was I meant to do? She is....w-was my sister. She was my responsibility."

"Then you should have killed her yourself!" I shouted, feeling the control slipping away from me.

"You think I didn't consider it a hundred times?" he retorted, his face twisting with pain and anger. "Even before you came along, I thought about it. Hell, I thought about it before the whole deal with Garrick and before what happened with Cain. After she was turned, she was always dangerous, unpredictable...she'd have periods of complete calm, normality even, and I'd think maybe things will be different now, but then she'd switch and everything would degenerate into chaos again. It was this constant back and forth, this constant Jekyll and Hyde thing that made me doubt myself every time I had decided that the best thing would be to just kill her. I came close once, not long before I met you. I held the knife to her throat and I was going to do it, I really was. I pressed it down against her neck, I even remember breaking the skin with edge of the blade and do you know what she did, my sister who had done nothing but threaten suicide since Cain rejected her? She begged for her life. She looked me in the eye and told me she loved me and she begged me not to do it. What was I meant to do? I loved her, even then, I loved her." He broke down into strangled sobs again, before looking up at me, his eyes pleading. "Megan, please. I never wanted it to come to this, I swear to you I didn't. It's just I saw that glint in her eye again, I heard the way she spoke about him and I knew if I didn't do something, then we would end up on this bloody rotating wheel for eternity and I just couldn't stand the thought of it. I wanted it to be over but I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. She would win, just like she did before. She always won."

"Am I meant to feel sorry for you?" I scoffed. "You could have ended it, but you didn't. Oh no, because you didn't have to, did you? You had me to do your dirty work. The job you were too fucking cowardly to do. Better that the blood is on my hands, instead of yours, huh Josiah?" I stepped towards him. "Do you have any idea what you made me do? I had to kill her in front of him. I had to listen to Lucius' screams as I did it. And all because the great Josiah Hope didn't have the fucking guts to do the right thing for once."

"Could you do it?" he said, his white eyes boring into me. "Could you kill someone that you loved? You think it's that fucking easy? What if it was Harper you had to kill in order to save him from something worse?"

"If it was the merciful thing...."

"Mercy!" he sneered. "Don't give me that crap about mercy! You might have been created by Michael himself, but you're a long fucking way from being an angel, darling. Right now, you're more of a Garrick than some kind of Heavenly being capable of dishing out mercy to those who deserve it and trust me, Garrick's aren't known for their mercy. I hope you're never in this position, I really do, because your sanctimonious bullshit won't help you."

"And your efforts to justify what you did aren't helping you."

He stared up at me, his face calm. "Are you going to kill me now, Megan? Go on then, I won't stop you."

With a howl of rage, I launched a kick, hitting the bedstead by his head and chipping the wood with the toecap of my boot. Josiah flinched as my boot made contact, but he didn't attempt to move out of the way, although his eyes watched me warily. Frustrated, I crumbled to the floor, falling to my knees, surrounded by a sea of red voile. I balled the fabric up in my fists and exhaled a long exhausted sigh.

"Damn you, Josiah," I whispered. "Damn you for making me do this. It should have been you, not me. She wasn't my burden."

He sat there for a moment, his head hung low, staring at a point on the floor, seemingly lost in some memory that haunted his features.

"Megan..." he began, his voice breaking.

"Don't," I said sharply. "Don't tell me that you're sorry. I don't want apologies, it's way too bloody late for that. I just want you to say this will be over soon. I want you to say that our contract will be done as soon as I help her."

He stared at me, his eyes wide. "You're still going to do it? You're still going to save her?"

"I don't really have a choice, do I? We had a deal. And something tells me that despite discovering the small print isn't quite what I expected, I'm going to have to stick to my end of the bargain to escape this damn place. I'm right, aren't I?"

The seer hesitated for a moment, before nodding his head. "Yeah."

"Fine," I said, standing up, still clutching a piece of voile. "Then I'll do it, but hear me when I say that I'm not doing this for you, Josiah. I'm not doing this because I want to ease your pain and your suffering. I'm doing it because I need to get away from you and I need to get away from this place. It's tainted here, this whole stinking chapel is infected and the last thing I want to do is end up as crazy as you and your sister. I'll do whatever I have to do, and then I'm taking what's mine and I'm leaving and as far as I'm concerned, you can stay here and live with your ghosts."

I threw the red fabric at him and it floated lightly down around his feet which he pulled back quickly, as if the voile was some living, malevolent creature waiting to consume him.

"I hope they haunt you until the end of your days."

******

The boy sat on the edge of the baptismal pool, looking smaller than his supposedly-human years, a closed book by his side, his fingers idly tracing the title imprinted on the old cover.

Harper stood leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, legs crossed at the ankles. It was his typical nonchalant stance and yet his face bore a concern that told me he was feeling anything but cool and collected.

Caelan's blood still stained the floor where she had died, but her body was gone. I shot Harper a small smile of gratitude for moving her out of here, away from Lucius. It seemed crazy really considering Lucius had probably seen far worse things than a dead vampire, but I didn't want him to look at her and see me; to see what I had done playing over and over in his mind every time he looked at the dead raven-girl.

Cautiously, I approached the boy and lowered myself to sit beside him, my legs reaching the base of the empty pool, his legs dangling over the side.

"Lucius...." I said, trailing off, not knowing what to say; not having the slightest idea of how to fix this. Maybe I couldn't. Maybe the damage had been done but the thought of that just made my heart crack with a pain that seemed too agonising to bear.

"Lucius," I tried again. "What you just had to see....what you saw me do....I'm so sorry." My voice broke down into a hoarse whisper. "God, I'm so sorry Lucius. Please....I had no choice. I couldn't let her hurt you, you understand that don't you? I had to protect you. I had to protect us both. I....I never...."

The sob rose in my throat and I had to turn away, unable to look at him anymore as he stared directly ahead, as still as stone, locked in a world where I was now the monster. I couldn't blame him. I had caused this. Oh, Josiah might have set Caelan free, but I was the one who had taunted her, I was the one who had spun her round and around with my cruel words. No wonder she had laid waste to this place like a tornado, threatening destruction to everything in her path to get to me. I could hate Josiah all wanted but I knew this was my fault.

Lucius shifted beside me but when I turned to look, instead of getting up and walking away as I had expected, he laid his palm flat on the floor between us and stretched out his hand, fingers splayed like a starfish, moving it as close to my hand as he dared without actually touching me. His expression was blank as he looked at me, but I wanted to cry at the clear gesture he was making. Stretching out my hand, I copied him until our starfish hands were side by side, the tips of our little fingers just barely a couple of centimetres apart.

"It's okay, you know," he said and I wanted to smile at how quickly and easily he was always able to reverse our roles, where he made me feel like the child and he was the adult.

"How can it be okay? I know what I did, Lucius. I killed her. In front of you. You looked so frightened of me."

"I wasn't frightened of you. I was frightened for you," he said with a frown that wrinkled his brow.

"You thought she was going to kill me? Oh Lucius."

"No." He shook his head. "I was frightened for you. Because of what will happen now. Because of what you will have to do."

The hair tingled on the back of my neck, like little sharp shocks of electricity shooting into the base of my skull and buzzing down my spine.

"I don't understand?"

"You shouldn't go back," he insisted. "You shouldn't even try."

"I have to. I have to save her. I was the one that killed her after all, it's only right that I give her some peace."

The boy said nothing, but scowled darkly as he chewed on his bottom lip.

"I'll do whatever I have to do to save her, Lucius."

He looked at me then, in that way that always made me acutely aware that he saw me like no other did, burying deeper than even Josiah could. It was as if everything was stripped away and he could see directly into my soul, knowing my every thought and feeling, knowing my deepest fears and my greatest hopes. I could never hide from him.

"That's what I'm afraid of," the boy said grimly and covered my hand with his own.

Darkness fell and I plunged into the seas once more, only this time, I knew that the ever-consuming tide of lost souls was the least of my worries.

There you are, said the Smiling Man, his eyes alight with warmth. I was starting to wonder if our last meeting had put you off entirely. I'm so very glad to know that it didn't. Shall we begin again? Utterly charmed to meet you....Megan Garrick. Or is that Walden? All these names. It's so confusing, don't you think? Apparently I have a few myself. But you may call me Lucifer.

The Devil held out his hand and smiled.