The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  “Name?”

  “Grace.”

  “Grace what?”

  “DiAngelo.”

  “Parents’ names?”

  “Rachel and Tom DiAngelo.”

  “Ah, yes.” Mary Bachum sat behind the desk. She smirked at my file and then looked up so she could smirk directly at me. “I have not seen them for quite a while. But I remember hearing their names before the Fall.”

  I looked at her, not knowing what to say. I was not exactly adept at quick, clever comebacks, and who knows what she would have done if I had said anything like that, anyway? I was curious to know why my parents’ names were known to the Old Spirits before the Fall, but I didn’t know if she would answer any questions if I were to ask them. Besides, I was really scared; my sweating palms were clasped together, and I was trying to keep myself from shaking too noticeably. So I just didn’t say anything.

  Which, of course, I would kick myself for later.

  “Crime?”

  Like she didn’t know.

  “Running away when I was supposed to get married.”

  “Oh? Who was the unlucky fellow?”

  Like she didn’t know that, either.

  “Caspar Elohimson.”

  “But he’s so gorgeous!”

  This woman was old enough to be Caspar Elohimson’s mother, maybe even his grandmother. Mary Bachum, despite being married to Rich Bachum, and despite how coveting was an Offense, always seemed to be on the prowl, and young men seemed to be on the prowl for her, too. She was still considered beautiful even though her face was heavily scarred on one side, and I could imagine her and Caspar finding a mutual interest in one another. But to hear her practically moan over Caspar’s physical attractiveness was disturbing, to say the least.

  Plus, Caspar’s physical attractiveness didn’t make up for the fact that he was a terrible person.

  “But he is difficult, I grant you.” She continued, “But wouldn’t you be, if your parents were like his?”

  I didn’t answer, because my parents were nothing like his. His parents were demonized, especially his father. Tyre had told me after the arrangement of mine and Caspar’s marriage that Caspar’s father had rejected him the moment his gift had made itself known. Adam had a special hatred for the Dionysians, because he had made the stupid decision to trust one too freely when he was younger. Adam had sent Caspar away, to an active warzone, where his gift would be of more use. He had only been sixteen years old. And his mother, Tyre said, was just a whore. Wouldn’t I be slightly “difficult” if I had been raised in a similar way?

  I honestly did not care how Caspar had been raised; he was a bad man, and I did not want to be married to bad man, not matter how handsome or damaged he was. So, my parents had packed us up, and we had tried to run, but we had been caught, and they were dead now. My mother and father were dead.

  I hated myself because tears were suddenly running down my cheeks. They tended to take hold of me with no warning; I never felt the moisture creep into my eyes, nor did I feel my throat tighten until it was too late. The only sign that tears were incoming was the feeling of them streaming down my cheeks, so, obviously, after they had already come and it was too late to stop them. It was going to be a weakness, I knew. Instinct, which spoke in my mother’s voice, told me that I could not afford to show any weakness there. The Old Spirits had told us horror stories about the brutality of the inmates on the Lapsarian. Only through utterly terrifying us would we fully appreciate just how crucial it was to our survival to stay out of that place. New inmates were targeted, and the weakest ones were killed first. You had to have something to keep you safe, and that something was strength. Which I didn’t have. My parents were dead, I had been taken from my home (in a place that I had grown to dislike, but it was my home, nonetheless), and I was alone, facing countless violent criminals whom the Old Spirits had deemed unworthy of a place in normal society, whom they had deemed Irredeemable.

  My dad, when we had played card games, had always told me, when he was sure he was going to win, that I was “toast.” He’d laugh to himself and growl, “Oh, you’re toast!” And generally, I still beat him at whichever game we were playing. I never understood the origin of the phrase, but it always made me laugh. Now, I could hear a voice that was not his growling the same phrase at me, and I was crying in response to it. I was crying both because it was true, and because some foreign, unfamiliar voice was saying words to me in a threatening growl that my father had said to me in jest so many times.

  “Oh, Grace…” Mary Bachum said, and her voice was purring again but not in that same sex-starved way she had purred when she had been speaking of Caspar. She was purring at me because she was pretending to pity me. She came around the desk and kneeled in front of me, and out of reflex, I pulled my hands away when she went to clasp them in hers. I expected her to take that as a sign that I did not want her comfort, but instead, her hands attacked mine and held them so firmly that it caused me pain.

  “That will gain you no friends here.” She said, and one of her hands released one of mine so she could slowly run her finger up the trail of tears on my cheek. I jerked away, and I must have scowled or something, because she hit me. Her closed fist whacking backwards across my cheek left me stunned and slightly dazed, and the pain came on just as suddenly as her fist had struck me.

  “You won’t last long.” She said, and she stood up and moved back behind the desk, “But then, who knows? People are put here because they allow their demons to guide them up a path of darkness out there in the world, where they have every opportunity to embrace the light, and their demons do not leave them once they are here. So, maybe, if you are lucky, your demons will save you. Well, they will save your life. Your soul is already lost to you.”

  My fingers dabbed at my lip and came away red and dripping. She threw a box of tissues at me, and I took one so I could clean up my face. My bloody lips were murmuring a question, and her perfectly penciled eyebrows raised in interest.

  “What was that, Grace?”

  “Is the Queen here?” I asked tremulously, even though I was unsure why I was asking.

  “The Queen? Tyre’s wife? The Sancta? What on Earth would she be doing here? And by the way, didn’t you know? She does not call herself a ‘queen’ nor does he call himself a ‘king.’ They are just like us. They do not need to elevate themselves, because they are not elevated. The one King is the One God. Tyre is the Sanctum, his wife is the Sancta, but those are only titles. You should know this, so it is truly no wonder that you are here.”

  It didn’t matter. My mother had spoken to me once about the queen, and I had built a whole fantasy about what she was like. What did it matter if she was there? She wasn’t the Queen anymore, and she would never be the Queen again, nor would King Adam ever be the King.

  The guard came to take me away, and my heart pounded even harder against the wall of my chest at the thought of leaving that office. I by no means wanted to stay there with that woman, but I did not want to be placed amongst Purissimus’s most brutal inmates, either. I was dizzy because of the anxiety attack that had been roaring inside of me since I had first stepped foot onto the ship, so when the guard took my arm and pulled me onto my feet, I fell into him. I didn’t expect to knock him over or anything, but I did expect him to stumble at least a little. Instead, he caught and steadied me, and let me stand, for just a second, with my hands grasping his arms until the dizziness cleared. While my eyes were closed, my fingers squeezed his arms, trying to keep their grip, and found that the muscles under them were quite large and ridiculously hard, though I was not quite sure why that mattered, and when I looked up at him, I saw that he was this very, very handsome man. But just like with Caspar, once I got past his physical attractiveness, I saw into who he really was; I saw his black guard’s uniform with the Old Spirit crest on the sleeve—a watchful eye and a strong hand, both of the One God—and I knew that regardless of his momentary kindness, he was someo
ne to be feared.

  “I suppose the Queen to whom you are referring is the one married to the former King.” Mary said behind me, “You will want to watch out for that one, my dear. She loves the newcomers. She eats the weakest ones first.”

  Her eyes fell on the guard, and I could have sworn that the look that came over her face was one of great distaste.

  “Take her away.”