"Where've you been," Jack demanded without a second to waste. "Why didn't you—why did you just let all that happen, how did you—"

"Brother," I repeated under my breath. "Oh, that...okay. That makes sense. God, Darla would know more about this..." I winced and rubbed my forehead. Just lifting my arm took too much out of me; I remembered with haste that I'd almost gotten my soul stolen today. The circle on my chest still stung, though the pain was beginning to ebb away. Jack's hand found mine and we intertwined our fingers by second nature.

I lifted my head to at least grant some respect to this Belobog, whatever kind of intentions they had.

"The entrance is still blocked, isn't it?"

"If you are referring to the mess behind you, then yes."

"Can you let us out?"

"Certainly."

There were a few tumbling noises and metallic screeching behind me—the same sort of sound I'd heard when my shield spell came undone. They weren't just clearing a path through more destruction; they were reversing whatever twisted thing Chernobog had done to the surrounding walls to seal us in...

Chernobog. Dark god. A couple questions during the Halloween party with Darla had revealed his name's true meaning.

Was I talking to the light god?

"Answer me," Jack said desperately. He sounded more confused than angry, grappling for any kind of truth he could hold onto. "Y-you said I was your child, you said something about...why? That can't be it. That can't be true, that would mean that he was just—"

"Lying."

Belobog sounded somber. Ashamed, even. Ashamed of their bitter, out-of-control other half. I could feel Jack's disappointment, his boiling resentment and hatred towards his boss from where he stood. I wanted to reach out and comfort him, but something was stopping me.

"The demon was able to claim you before we could. After you died, you, Jack Gordon, were to join us; the more merciful lot, you could say."

They said it so plainly that it didn't come off as smug or prideful. It was simply a fact to them. I wasn't about to argue, but I had a feeling Jack was.

"But how could he—why?! I'm not some amazing soldier, or an angel, or a prophet, or whatever dumb shit he believed. I-I'm not special. I died. That was it. I'm just me. You...you can't be serious..." He gulped audibly, like he was about to be sick. Belobog remained patient; I realized with a heavy heart that I'd never witnessed this before. A being like them, patient with Jack.

"You died as an unrightful sacrifice to a dark god."

"I—well, yeah! What about that makes—"

"Jennifer Smith was mistaken in choosing you. As a follower of Chernobog, her soul is likely being either tortured or cast into nothingness as we speak. You, however, were never affiliated with such evil. Our brother had no just claim to you; you belonged someplace better than...this," Belobog said, trying unreasonably hard not to sound disgusted with their surroundings.

So that's it. It's either Heaven or Hell when you die, light or dark. Something sank in my stomach, and though it was a stupid question, I could help but think of it. Where am I going to end up?

"Why didn't you do anything?" Jack asked, his voice trembling slightly.

"You greatly overestimate our power compared to that demon's, Jack. There was nothing that could be done. And there was no use dwelling in affairs that had already come to pass—though, we admit, we became selfish at times." A small trace of playfulness crept into their tone. "We meddled when we could afford to. Making sure you were never led too far into the darkness, healing you as best we could when they had not such a...severe hold on you."

We both seemed to understand around the same time; Jack's hand fell from mine, wandering to what I assumed was a spot on his chest. The spot where his hoodie had been roughly torn in half, that nerve-wracking night when I first met his boss.

"You...you reversed his damage. The wound, whatever happened to me that night he found Sawyer, I-I thought I was going to die for good."

"And so you were. But they were weakened, if only temporarily. You are our child. Their magic, thanks to the...shortcomings of humankind, is far stronger than ours. That—what do you call it, 'holy water'?" Belobog sounded amused.

"I'm pretty sure it was just regular water, if I'm being honest," I muttered.

"It froze them. There was not enough by far to do any real damage, but you managed to block their power. Jack was healed quickly; the demon's magic no longer infected his wound."

They paused, as if considering laying one more hard truth on him.

"Had you truly belonged to Chernobog, you would have died after the rampage they sent you on. The one that cleared you of their controlling essence. They needed a means by which to keep you tied."

"Bastard," Jack hissed at the ground. I shook my head and placed my hand on his shoulder again.

"Hey. He's gone. He can't—"

"Sawyer."

I flinched at that, unsure why it struck me as it did. Belobog hesitated.

"That is your name, is it not?"

I rubbed one part of my face that had gone slightly numb from laying on the ground. "I-I...yeah. It is. Sorry, I'm just not used to ghosts—angels, whatever you are—uh. Not really used to being called that, so..."

Swallowing my pride, I glanced around the room, still trying to find the source of their voice. That seemed to tip them off.

"Oh...they took your sight, human, didn't they?"

My shoulders tensed and I quickly bowed my head, looking down at nothing. "Well, yeah. What's it to you?"

"We can't have that happen again. Face us."

Based on everything I'd picked up on about them so far, there wasn't a direction I could look in that wasn't technically facing them. But I lifted my head again and turned to where I figured they meant.

My vision turned pure white. I staggered back.

"What are you—?!"

"Sawyer...?" Jack's voice was far away, drowned out by whatever was taking root in my head right now. I felt like my eyes were going to burn up and fall to the floor in ash. I couldn't make the light go away by closing them, in fact, that almost made it worse. Are they trying to make me go even more blind?!

After whole minutes of waiting in pain, the whiteness subsided, and I blinked a few times to see that everything was still black. Tears started building up behind my eyes. I was just about to lose it.

"And what was that for, if I may ask?" I said, my voice shaking with frustration. "I still can't see! I thought you were going to either fix me or kill me, and I get nothi—"

"Impatient human, let us tell you what that did. Jack, will you kindly look at your friend's face and tell her what you see?"

After a couple seconds, he touched my shoulder and sighed with disappointment. "No, not...there's got to be more you can do than this, it's basically—"

"A demon's magic has more hold over a human's soul and body than anything we could ever do. She has been granted new means of sight; however different they are from the average human, she has them."

"But I've seen this before! This doesn't do anything, it's just some weird mark near the eye, maybe once in a while she'll see the outline of something—"

"Can somebody tell me what's going on, please?" I muttered, folding my arms and relishing every second of my new "sight." Jack tried speaking again, but was interrupted.

"You will be able to see again, Sawyer. You, unlike the many others Jack has met with a second means of sight, will know how to operate it. 'Activate' it, so to speak. Close your eyes."

Annoyed as I was, I did what Belobog said.

"Repeat the phrase in your mind: 'diffe hoc aspectu.' Until your friend begins to notice something, you must keep thinking it."

What kind of witchy bullshit am I hearing right now?

"That is not the phrase we told you to repeat."

"Fine, fine, I'm doing it. Uh, what was it again?"

"Diffe hoc aspectu. Do not break it until he says so."

"Roger." I took a deep breath and thought. Holy shit, did I think that weird, Latin phrase into oblivion. It took a lot longer than I expected for Jack to pipe up, his voice more nervous than I remembered ever hearing it.

Diffe hoc aspectu.

Diffe hoc aspectu.

Diffe hoc aspe—

"Um. Hate to interrupt this, but your eyelids are kind of glowing...?"

I almost broke my silent chant of sorts and said, "what?" But I wasn't sure if they wanted me to stop now. Either way, I wasn't opening my eyes until I knew this was done.

Diffe hoc aspectu.

Diffe hoc aspectu.

Diffe hoc aspectu.

"You may stop thinking, human, the process is complete."

"Good. Now, is there going to be a real change this time, or...Jesus Christ, what—?!"

As I opened my eyes, another blinding light hit me and I nearly fell backwards this time. I felt Jack's hands on my back, prepared to catch me, as I blinked and squinted in a more patient attempt to see. The whiteness wasn't as painful now, moreso an inconvenience. Everything started flickering with gray light. I saw flashes of color in the darkness, sporadic and unpredictable, almost like my eyes were attacking me. As I looked frantically around, wondering what had gone wrong now, I caught the outline of something's face. My vision was a single vertical stream of light, scanning the area for anything of importance.

Then the world melted back into place. Gray nothingness over a blank canvas, covered in sharp, jutting pieces of drywall and the broken glass wall and what looked like a cluster of ghosts and I could see Jack's face—

I could see.

"If there is a problem in the future, for instance, if your vision starts flickering—"

"Oh my god," I breathed, looking down at my hands. Just the fact that I could do that, look at my hands and actually see them, was enough to send my heart racing. It took me a good minute to even realize there was no color to anything in the room; not the walls, the pale monstrosity that was Belobog, not even myself. Still, I let out a quiet breath of a laugh. Then another, and another, and they kept going until they got so loud I was sure I sounded crazy. But I couldn't stop laughing—I was probably crying, too, at that point. I could see again.

Before I got the chance to look up at Jack, he'd crushed me in a hug and started planting kisses in the area between my neck and shoulder, letting out one shuddering breath at a time. I laughed once more, for real this time, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Okay, real rude of you to hug me when I can actually see your face for once."

"Sorry," he muttered, his face pressed into me, sounding like he hadn't quite processed those words yet. "But—I-I mean, you can see again. Right?"

"Yes."

"That's...amazing." He gripped me just a little bit tighter, and I heard the sliver of pain in his voice more than anything else. I realized why, but before I could say anything—and really, what could I have said?—he let go, held me at arm's length by the shoulders and furrowed his eyebrows, a shy smile edging forward in the corners of his mouth.

"...you look cool."

I furrowed my brow right back at him. "What do you mean? Do I have, like, crazy dark circles under my eyes, or...?"

"Just—hold on."

After a quick scan of the floor, he picked up a piece of shattered glass and held it to my face. At first, I didn't notice anything particularly different. It was just me. But then something started glowing, right around my eyes, and I saw what appeared to be a layer of white film covering my pupils. The corners of my eyes were surrounded by two paint-like streaks that were growing brighter by the second, and I let out a soft chuckle.

"How about that. I look like...an alien. No, a rock star—no!" I grabbed the shard of glass and tried taking a closer look. "An alien rock star."

"You will see this way for the rest of your life, if you choose to at all. The color that you are used to seeing is concentrated into exceptionally strong auras; ones that only appear in a powerful being, or in those who experience particularly strong emotion. Most humans are not significant enough to harbor a permanent aura."

"So, like how Jack's glowing blue right now."

He froze in place, eyebrows disappearing into his hair as he processed that. The words really just fell out of me, but as soon as I heard them, I realized it was true; Jack had a soft, comforting glow about him, the color of the sky and the ocean when there's white, pearly sand underneath...no sooner than I'd started thinking of all those cheesy things you associate with the color blue, he immediately shifted to a fiery magenta, running a hand through his hair like he'd been caught in a fib.

"Oh. This is bad."

I laughed again. "What? It looks nice."

"I-I mean, it's more of the fact that I probably can't lie to you anymore...?"

"Particularly strong emotion," repeated Belobog, almost like a broken record. They turned their head—really, all 100 of them—to face me, and extended a knife of a fingertip to trace the marks around my eyes. "This may not be as permanent as you'd like, human. Wait a century or so, and the spell will have worn thin—"

"Oh, that's more than enough, don't worry."

"—but in the case that it fails you before then...if your vision flickers, as we mentioned, or if you find you can only see a faint outline in darkness, simply repeat the phrase we taught you in your head. As many times as it takes for your new means of sight to work again."

"So...it's renewable?" I hesitated, suddenly aware and conscious of how stupid I might sound to these spirits. One of them tilted its head, while another few blinked without any discernible emotion; it was like watching a hologram of an alien council, or the ghostly rendition of a couple hundred people who had their faces grotesquely stretched out.

"Is that the word humans use? How curious."

Jack's aura turned orange—no, a light pink now—as he looked at Belobog, an awkward sense of fondness softening the edges of his face. He stole one more glance at me, almost as if asking permission to do something. I quirked one eyebrow. Whatever it is, go the hell for it.

That seemed to be the answer he was looking for.

"I...uh, I guess this would be the time to catch up, huh?" he said, turning back to the cluster of spirits before us. He was tapping his foot nervously on the floor, fingers picking at the hems of his sweater sleeves.

"I mean, if you can even be that normal. Totally not judging, by the way," he added hastily with his hands raised.

"Catch up," Belobog echoed, like the phrase was foreign to them. They said it with such a detached sense of wonder, I couldn't be sure if they'd even considered it before—sticking around just to stick around. Making sure he was okay. Acting like he really was their "child," whatever that meant at this point. A sweeping sigh rippled throughout the room, and I had a feeling they would have been smiling condescendingly at him if capable.

"What is that lovely phrase...British, I believe," one of them mused. They said collectively,

"Would that we could, Jack. But it is not possible. There are more important matters to attend to, more of our brother's plans to halt. This is goodbye."

"I—but what about—?"

"We hope you understand."

"Hold on, I still—"

"Goodbye."

Not even an "until next time," but goodbye. Finality.

That didn't seem to hit Jack too well.

"Wait!"

To my surprise, they listened. They waited. Jack's breathing was uneven, heavy and slow. The whole room seemed to hold its breath. He sure was taking his sweet time, looking at Belobog.

"I don't get it," he finally said.

The spirits didn't seem to have a response to that. The longer they stayed silent, the more desperate he became.

"I don't get it! Tell me why you're just going to...leave me here. You're supposed to care."

"We are—"

"You're supposed to care!" He tried to move forward, but it was almost like some invisible force was holding him back. He frantically punched the air and his fist stopped cold, hitting a flat surface I couldn't see. His aura was starting to turn a bloody red.

"No. No, no, stop, you can't leave! Why did you bother finding me if you just wanted to leave me all alone—"

"Of all things, we thought you'd be grateful. You have your freedom now. You can go wherever you please, do anything that comes to your mind—"

"At least those demons were pretending to help me. They pretended to care, pretended to be my..." He choked on his words, swallowing them down and looking up at the fading spirits with fury.

"Okay. Fine. Just go on, leave like everything else—"

"You are acting like a child. You—you are selfish," they said, as if coming to a horrible realization. As if realizing that Jack was only human, and that humans could want things sometimes. Did they think that he was coming to represent all the "shortcomings of humankind," or whatever it was they said? So much for patience.

Belobog's aura turned a dark, faded red like dried blood, and a strong sense of annoyance started building up in my chest.

"Oh, don't say that like you're so high and mighty! Did you even try talking to him, just once while he was under Chernobog's control? You practically abandoned him—!"

"Shut your mouth, human, and speak not of our affairs as if you knew the first thing about them." I'd clearly struck a nerve with these spirits. "It was beyond our power to contact Jack while the demon—"

"Well, the demon isn't here anymore, is he? At least...help him get back on his feet, for fuck's sake! He's been tortured and abused for years now, you can't just leave him here!"

"Help him get back on his feet?" Belobog sounded beyond insulted. "We were under the impression that you would take that job, human. You call yourself his anchor, his 'girlfriend,' why should—"

"I never signed up to be his parent," I said in a low growl. You heard all of that, the "anchor" part, while we were being torn apart and tossed around and you did nothing?! "That was all you. You act like you can just swoop in, clear a couple of things up, then leave like your job's all done. It's not." I stepped forward, past the invisible wall Jack had been fighting against.

"You're all-powerful, right? You can split up, your pieces can think for themselves, just like Chernobog—"

"Do not compare us to—"

"So find a way to help him. Unless you're just as—"

"Just as useless as my boss!" Jack spat, that one word seeming to tear him apart from the inside out. This was what he'd been taught to fear, all these years since he'd been under the demon's wing—to be alone. Unloved. Useless. He had me, and he knew that; but this wasn't about our kind of love.

"Enough."

I winced and covered my ears. The sound seemed to blast a hole through my skull now that I'd stepped closer to Belobog. Their voice was shaking with fury; I guessed they'd never been criticized this badly by one and a half humans before.

"This is ridiculous. This is beyond the sort of insolence we bargained for—"

There was that word again. Insolence. Like we were such horrible, spoiled people for wanting more than the bare minimum of help.

"You are past saving, Jack. You have been damaged, damaged far too badly for us to help you now." They sounded more disgusted than pitying.

"Jesus Christ, is it really that hard to take care of him, for real?!" I threw a glare upward to them, my already-loosened filter disappearing completely. "Were you even telling us the truth? Did you—were you just hanging back on purpose?! Just so you wouldn't have to deal with—"

"You, human, understand nothing of our kind. Your ignorance will be forgiven; we are the merciful ones, after all."

You really expect me to believe—?!

"As for you," they said in an annoyed drawl, about fifty of their ghostly heads swiveling towards Jack. "We have been more than fair. You haven't so much as given us thanks for healing your friend—"

"That's what we came here for, dipshit," he snarled, his hands twitching and his knuckles bruised. "We're not going to thank you for—"

"Okay, calm down," I said in a frantic mutter. I stepped back and reached for his arm. Belobog's aura was growing darker and more intense by the second, regressing every now and then like a slow heartbeat. "You're just making them madder—"

"No need for that, human. If he must learn...he must learn," they said in an irritatingly matter-of-fact tone. My eyes widened in dread.

"Wait, what are you—"

"Ow!" Jack sank to the ground for about the fifth time that day. He heaved and coughed and spat up something, the same way he did when Chernobog was unleashed his demonic side. The shattered glass on the ground started to shake, piece by piece, until the air was filled with a light rattling sound that contrasted starkly with all of Jack's wheezes and pained groans.

"We wouldn't suggest staying here much longer, Sawyer."

I whipped back around to face the petty, thousand-headed prick.

"We've had plenty of our brother's antics for these past hundred years. It is about time this rat trap of theirs was...cleaned out, one might say."

"No, wait—!"

Belobog vanished, leaving me alone with a choking Jack on his hands and knees.

"Agh...shit!" He cursed under his breath, a few small whines forcing themselves out from the back of his throat. "Oh, they really got me, didn't—Jesus Christ! Is that...?"

I fell to a kneel by his side and propped him up, a warm, thin liquid coating my hand when I touched his chest. I brought it back out from under him, darkness flooding the cracks in my palm.

"Blood," I breathed. No tar this time? No smoke?!

Jack clenched his teeth, trying to at least stumble forward but unable to make it a few feet. "Real...human blood? B-but that means that I'm alive again, that they're trying to..."

His face went blank for a second before he let out a loud, hoarse, mirthless laugh and held himself up on a shaky elbow.

"Oh, you sick son of a bitch! Some 'angels' you are, huh? You're not supposed to swing this low, that's my boss's job!"

I started to hyperventilate, grabbing his shoulders and laying him down on his back. They want to kill him. Kill him for real.

"Okay. Okay, okay, let's just—let's just see what's wrong," I whispered, trying desperately to shift into my "I'm healing someone and it's going to be okay" mode. This should have been second nature to me, but looking at him now with that pained expression on his face did wonders to throw me off. Jack shook his head.

"C'mon. Don't kid yourself with that." He scoffed, energy seeming to drain by the second along with the blood pouring out of his body. "Merciful, my ass. These angels want me dead. Not sure why they'd go the 'thousand cuts' route, but..."

"Jack, please, stay with me, I-I can get help. I've been training for this, I—"

He cut me off and placed a shaky hand on mine. "Stop. You've—you've done a lot, really, I think maybe it's time you rested a little. It's been...amazing, honestly, with you. But it's over."

I felt a bubble growing in the space between my throat and chest, and frantically shook my head. "No, no, no, don't say something like that. I-It's just some wounds, I can fix this! I did it before, I can do it again."

"No, you can't." He smiled weakly. "Trust me, Sawyer. Even if you were the greatest healer in the world, you can't save everyone."

"I can try. I have to try."

"The..." He took a shudder of a breath before coughing up what looked like white ash. "...the great S-Sawyer Rafael has a heart, now, does she?"

"Stop it. Please. This isn't a joke, you could really be—!"

"I am. It's going to be okay." He tightened his grip on my hand. "Hey—we got what we came here for, anyway."

Now I was really starting to cry. Words turned to mush in my mouth, and all I could say was, "But you're my best friend." I wanted to move, kiss him, do something, but it wouldn't happen.

"I love you," I whispered. Even then, my voice couldn't keep itself steady. Goddammit, I didn't get my eyesight back to trade you in!

Jack narrowed his eyelids.

"...you can go. Save yourself. You can start living without me." He said it like he was double-checking something. I shook my head again. I felt like I would never stop, as long as I kept seeing this.

"I'm not going to do that."

His mouth formed a thin line, and he tried propping himself up on his elbows.

"In that case, have this."

And he hugged me as tight as possible, shamelessly as a person like him could. I could feel the intent in his arms, his chest, how he buried his face in the crook between my neck and shoulder.

A goodbye hug.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged him back, trying to breathe in his scent until I'd be able to live in it the rest of my life.

No. Don't you dare fucking think like that. This isn't goodbye. This can't be goodbye.

As we broke apart, my brain's gears started turning with a vengeance.

"I'm getting you back to the edge of the forest. There, at least."

"I won't make it. You know that. It's okay, I'm—"

"No. I'll make sure you can stay alive. I know what to do."

Without giving him a chance to answer, I hoisted him up by the torso, wrapping his arms around my shoulders from behind and half-carrying him to where I was certain Nyx would be.