He lost consciousness soon after that.

I got plenty of curious, rude, and plain murderous stares as I made my way to Nyx's "office," not bothering to stop. I blocked out everything in my peripheral vision, my gaze becoming laser-focused until a small creature passed by and tugged on the hem of my pant leg. I broke out of my tunnel vision and looked down.

It was some childlike demon with huge eyes that blinked vertically and charmingly huge overalls. I was certain it was the same one I'd seen the first time I came to this place, the one whose mother gave Jack a few strong words before he decided to start a brawl with her. They stared at me, all innocent, until I came to a stop to find the nicest possible way to tell them to fuck off. Before I could say a word, though, their gaze flickered to the body I had in tow.

"Where's Jack going?"

I blinked in surprise. "You know his name?" My voice was astonishingly hoarse, and I could feel dry tears holding my skin in place like set clay. The kid didn't answer. I sighed and started to walk again.

"I'm taking him to a healer's office. She'll fix him up, and you can say hi to him later, or whatever."

"What happened to him?" They kept pace with me, never breaking their stare. I clenched my teeth and kept dragging him along.

"Things got a little out of hand." Despite everything, I shot them an irritated glance before looking forward again. "Shouldn't you be with your mother right now? I bet she's looking for you."

"I don't have a mother. You're a human," they remarked, nothing teasing or malicious in their voice. It was just a factual statement. "Can I come with you? My name's Lucy."

I swallowed down the urge to start crying again and shook my head, preparing to give them a firm no. But something stopped me—I began to process what they'd really just said.

"...you don't have a mother?" I halted, Jack's body leaning into me from behind. I flinched at the sudden contact; it felt too much like a hug. "But I thought you were with some woman before. You...you called her 'Ma'."

"Yep," Lucy chirped. "She's not my real Ma. I get nannies and fake moms...something called an 'oh-pear,' for humans?" They tilted their head curiously. I nodded, my heart filling up with inconvenient sympathy.

"Au pair. So you really don't have one?"

"No. I'm fine on my own, though. Can I come with you?" they repeated, standing on their tiptoes to get a look at Jack's face over my shoulder. I gazed at them, then at the path ahead of me, then at our surroundings. There were no other demons around, just us, a series of walls, hallways, doors, and the muted darkness of the realm's sky. I blinked back tears and sighed again.

"I'm sorry, you can't. Maybe you can drop by when it's all done...do you know the healer, Nyx?"

Lucy nodded, still chipper and oblivious.

"Wait about an hour, Lucy, then stop by her door if you want. I don't know if she'll let you in, but..." I cleared my throat and rearranged my grip on Jack, hoisting him up further onto my shoulders, maybe in some weird attempt to make him seem more alive. "...he's going to be okay. Okay?" I mustered a reassuring smile, though I wasn't exactly sure how much they needed it. They nodded again, not seeming the least bit upset that they couldn't tag along.

"I know he is. He's Jack. If he isn't okay, who's gonna tell my Ma to shut up when she yells at me in the street?"

I furrowed my eyebrows and gave Lucy a tiny nod of my own. "Yeah. That's, uh...that's a good point." I'd be happy to do the honors if he doesn't make it. Which is not going to happen. Because he will make it.

As the kid skipped away, ever so unaware, I kept dragging Jack by the arms to Nyx's door and knocked as quickly and loudly as I could. My hands were still shaking, and covered in dried blood. The door handle twitched once before I heard a sigh from inside the room.

"I told you, I've nearly finished it, I just need a couple more days—"

"It's me. I need you to let me in, now." My voice broke slightly, but I couldn't get preoccupied with something like that. Nyx paused.

"...Sawyer? Are you—"

"Now."

"Okay, okay!"

She unlatched something from the other side and opened the door, freezing when she spotted Jack in tow. "What's he doing here?"

"Let us in. Please. I don't know what's going to happen or how much time he has left—"

"Are you asking me to heal him?! Sawyer, you know that we..." She trailed off at the look on my face, though I couldn't tell exactly which one I was making. It seemed to shut her up, anyway.

"Nyx. My friend is dying. Your sister made him like this, she ruined his life. So get over this whole rivalry thing, get over yourself and help us."

After a moment, she puffed up her cheeks and nodded, stooping down to help me carry Jack inside. She dropped him somewhat carelessly on the floor once the door had closed behind us, but I didn't have the energy to point it out. I laid his upper half down as gently as I could and sat next to him, resisting the urge to cradle his face again.

Nyx knelt down beside me and frowned at his still form. "What happened with you two, anyway? I thought everything was going fine—"

"It wasn't about us. It was your boss and..."

I cut myself off and shook my head. "N-no. Nevermind. It doesn't matter, just find a way to fix this. Please."

Nyx seemed to sense the poorly disguised desperation in my voice, because she looked at me with sympathy before patting my arm. "Alright." She turned back to Jack with a quirked brow and traced two fingers over the corner of his mouth.

"What is that around his...?"

She took one glance at the white ash she'd collected and her face went white as a sheet.

"Sawyer," she said weakly, "did you see this ash coming from his mouth before?"

"He coughed it up when...when it happened." I attempted to answer as vaguely as possible. It proved pointless.

"This came from something powerful. Maybe the Highest himself. O-or even—no, that's ridiculous. They don't exist," she muttered to herself. She shut her eyes, drummed her fingertips on her knees and stood up. "This needs to be stopped as soon as possible."

She walked over to a drawer above her levitating desk and opened it, producing the bowl of sand she'd used to practice with me. A warm sense of familiarity flickered in my chest. Maybe this wouldn't be as complicated as I thought. All we needed was the sand and our hands, right?

She set the bowl down and sprinkled some on the floor in a circle near Jack's body. Blood had begun to flow steadily from him and onto the ground, staining the circle red. As Nyx prepared the spell, I leaned over to place one of my hands inside.

"Here, let me help."

She pursed her lips and gently pushed me away from the circle. "I'm...not sure if you can. This will require more than what I've taught you so far."

My breathing turned quick and heavy. I tried scooping more sand out of the bowl, but was blocked by her hand. "Come on, there's got to be something I can—"

"I'm sorry, Sawyer, it's just not that simple this time!"

"Why not?! It's not the same as mending a broken pencil, but it can't be that different—why do you need anything more than your sand?"

Nyx spared me one fleeting sideways glance before saying, "Well, this is one of those more serious cases we talked about, right? This isn't just a wound, he's practically being torn apart from the inside. I need to make an appeal to a higher power. Luckily..."

She rubbed her hands together and laid them inside the binding circle, an unusual air of confidence about her.

"We have one right here."

My stomach churned as I realized what she meant. She started loudly:

"O, Great Chernobog—"

I grabbed her hands and ripped them from the ground. "No. Not him. Those demons, their tie to Jack is broken, they've basically disowned him—"

"They what?!" Nyx's eyes grew owlish and she shifted back as if he had a contagious disease. "Then who do I make the prayer to? I-I need to draw my power from something, I'm only human, I'm useless on my own!"

"Tell me about it later, just figure something out! Is there anything in the demon realm that can help us? Anything that isn't connected to..." I waved my hand vaguely in the air. "That?"

Nyx took a few breaths. "Okay. Okay, alright, we can still work with this. Uh—" While my gaze was focused on Jack, she placed her hands back on the ground and gulped.

"...I call upon any willing demon. Whoever you are, be you merciful enough to grant your own power..." She drew in a shaky breath. "Great, nameless demon of our realm, I draw from you."

We waited. And waited. Longer than we could afford to, but seeing as we had no other choice, we waited, until one of the farther walls of the office began to crack—at least, that's what it sounded like.

My gaze snapped to the source of the sound, a dim line of light made from the corner of the room farthest from us. It creased like a sheet of paper and eventually opened, an infinite and ominous darkness inside. My mind jumped to the obvious, the juvenile; a portal to hell. But we were already here.

Something started to crawl out.

The word crawl does this demon's action injustice. It was definitely a crawl, but also something more graceful. More smooth and instinctive, like it had crawled its whole life and happened to be the best at just that, excuse you. I leaned back by reflex as it extended itself to full height, the hellish door closing behind them as if it had never been open in the first place.

The demon was a good foot taller than me and dark gray, with glowing cracks rampant through its body like lava seeping through stone. It had two ridged goat's horns protruding from the sides of its head, and a single eye socket which was empty save for a ring of light serving as the iris. It looked around the room with a blank expression, though based on the way it drew one of its arms in as it grazed a wall, I could sense its disgust with this place.

"Somebody called," it said in a voice dripping with irritation. It lifted its head to fix its gaze on me, curious. "You."

"Uh, yeah. Me. Sorry, do I know you? We're kind of trying to heal someone here—"

All of a sudden and without warning, its face split open, like...

A blooming flower.

My eyes widened in animosity while Vickson simply reverted back to their true form, tilting their head, a morose expression overcoming them.

"Oh. It is him."

"You mean Jack...?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly as they pushed past me and Nyx to get a good look at him.

"He will not live long if nothing is done. His connection is severed. But...not just to the Highest." They narrowed their eye and turned to me with a claw-like finger raised. "I wouldn't otherwise do this, handcuff girl, so be thankful."

"Thankful that you're being decent for once?!"

"Do not talk to me about decency, human. I am a demon. This doesn't involve you."

"I think it—"

Nyx grabbed my shoulder and pulled me further back from them. "Sawyer. Just stop. Vick's right, we need to get out of the way."

Vickson blinked at her with what I could only assume was some sort of reverence. "Good. The healer is talking some sense into her." They looked back to Jack and carefully traced portions of his face, as if trying to etch his image into their mind. "Jack is very unique. He is the only of his kind, a specimen. Even the Highest have not been able to categorize him. So they draw him in close and hope he never leaves their sight. He might as well have become their child, either way."

My eyebrows knit together. "You...knew?"

"It was an unspoken truth among us. We were threatened with banishment and worse if one of us let slip that Jack had been fully human all along. Of course, such secrets are useless now. Stand back." Their body became eerily still, and the air within an inch of them seemed to simmer with black fire. They were absorbing the light around them, slowly drawing it from every inch of the room, until their core started glowing white and their body flickered at the edges. I looked to Nyx, eyes still wide.

"Have you seen them do this?" I whispered. She shook her head.

"I don't think any of the demons have ever been willing to do it. They're taking twice the power they can hold in their body and transferring it to Jack, bit by bit."

I held my breath, noticing how her office now seemed exceedingly dull and lifeless. "What's going to happen to them?"

She didn't answer me. I furrowed my eyebrows and grabbed her shoulder.

"Nyx, what's going to happen?"

She shook her head again, eyes wide like they'd been stretched open. "Maybe look away for a bit, Sawyer—"

I turned back to Vickson and immediately shielded my eyes; they were glowing far too bright right now, emitting a blinding light that almost felt like it was burning my skin off.

"Hey! What are you doing?! Are you—"

"Look away, human." It sounded as if they were using the last drops of energy in their body to growl those words. There was something more than anger that was pushing them to say that, something like fear. Last-minute desperation.

Despite my frustration, I turned away from the light and let them do fuck-all with their energy, or whatever Nyx said it was; I'd forgotten already. But something worried me about the way Vickson was wheezing and muttering foreign curses, maybe even reciting an incantation under their breath. It sounded like they were about to die.

After what felt like ages but was probably about ten minutes, the blinding light subsided bit by bit until the room was illuminated only by a few candles' dull glow.

Vickson took their hands off Jack, heaved one final sigh and collapsed, arms going limp and making an awful clacking sound on the floor like a wooden doll.

Maybe their body really is made of stone.

I shifted forward tentatively on my knees.

"...Vick?"

They didn't answer. My gaze traveled to one of their fingertips; it had started to crumble into dust, forming a small pile on the ground that led to their hand. I almost reached out to nudge them, shake them awake, do something.

"Vick."

Nothing again. My stomach dropped. Nyx brushed one hand over mine.

"They..."

She didn't have to say much beyond that. I knew. I knew.

Something started pouring from the various cracks in their body, as well as their snuffed-out eye socket. Something akin to blood, viscous and completely black; I didn't need auras or color to figure that out for myself. I didn't move as it flowed across the floor. I could barely bring myself to care if it got on me. The liquid was ice cold and soaked my palms, fingertips, shins, feet.

I wanted to cry. I had too many reasons to. Somehow, that's exactly why I didn't.

"Well," Nyx said, her voice an unsteady lilt, "no use getting upset over things that...that have passed."

Oh, that is such an obvious fucking lie.

"I-I'll have to inform the Highest of this, of course. Maybe leave out the part about..."

She didn't continue, but I could guess what she had been about to say. Jack and me having to do with Vickson's death in any way would have set that demon off with no way of stopping him. He'd see it as a plot, or twist the truth to make it seem like one to everything else that lived here. There would be a witch hunt, banishment, Nyx might be fired for even agreeing to heal Jack...

My mind went off on about a thousand tangents, each one more ridiculous than the last until Nyx's voice pulled me back to reality.

"I don't think he's going to be up for a while. He needs rest...ungodly amounts of rest."

I half-processed Nyx's words and stared blankly at Jack's face. It held no life, new or old. None of Vickson's transferred power, nothing that really made him Jack. He was empty. At least, as far as I could see.

Something clicked inside of me, looking at him like this. No mask, no defenses, nothing. I found myself starting to call his lie. Well, half of it. He definitely wore the mask for anonymity. First to escape the bonfire where Jenny and the rest of Chernobog's followers died, then to keep himself, Jack Gordon, hidden from the media. But he also did it to remain guiltless—kept it on and became something else so that he didn't have to face what he did. Because it wouldn't have been him, it would be Eyeless Jack who was killing and gorging itself on human flesh and following Chernobog's orders like they were gospel. He could disconnect himself from all that. As long as he had the mask.

Now he didn't, and I had no idea how he would continue to cope with these things.

Not that it matters anymore.

Nyx patted me on the shoulder, breaking my tired spell. "Hey. I-I really think it's going to be okay. If he means that much to you—"

"And what if he didn't?"

The question came out a lot more coldly than I'd intended; I bit my tongue and bowed my head some more. Nyx didn't seem to mind.

"Then I still think he'll make it." Silence held the room for a good few minutes. Finally, she let out a tiny sigh. "You were right. About our grudge, I mean. My sister has not seen paradise, I know that now. If Jack wasn't even the child of..."

She almost choked on the demon's name, then sighed again.

"He's right to be angry. What Jenny did to him was horrible. And I've been defending her all this time, not just because I believed Jack was a rightful sacrifice, but because she was my sister. She looked up to me. And now she's gone. It's pointless holding all of that against him."

I took a moment to process that, then nodded. "Was," I said, so quietly I wasn't sure if she could hear me.

"Come again?"

My arms started shaking the slightest bit. "He...was right to be angry. Was. I don't know if he's anything anymore. For all we know, he—"

"Sawyer, please, you need to stop talking like that, and this is coming from me. Jack is going to be fine. He's gotten out of worse than this."

"Has he?"

"Of course! Going about every day, eating human organs, having—uh, the Highest constantly over your shoulder...I'll be honest, he should have gone crazy at this point. But he hasn't. I know he'll pull himself through this. He's just gained incredible power, Vick sacrificed themselves for him to stay. That can't have gone to waste."

"But what if it—"

Nyx turned me by the shoulders and gave me a reassuring but stern look. "Sawyer. Listen to me. You are going to carry him home. In the mortal world, it would be 1:00 in the morning right now. If you receive any stares, ignore them. You will keep him well for a few days, check up on him, do as you would for any patient in a coma. If all doesn't work out, then..." For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw tears beading up in her eyes. "...then we will have at least tried. But you have to get through the trying first." Her gaze turned from piercing to fond in a split second, and she looked like she was fighting back a smile. "You love him. I can see that. You were scared for him, so you came to me and asked for help with his body in tow. But now your fear is paralyzing you, instead of driving you to act. You're only seeing the worst-case scenario."

Before I could respond, she held my face and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

"Go. There's a chance that once you leave, you won't be able to come back."

I said nothing—really, what was I meant to?—and frantically gathered Jack in my arms again as Nyx instructed. He felt heavier this time by far; maybe it was Vickson's gifted energy, maybe I had just grown weak over the past several minutes. I took a deep breath once he was comfortably in my hold, at least as comfortable as it could get, and started out the door without a goodbye. Nyx didn't shout at me from her doorway, either, not a corny "good luck!" or anything of that nature. It was like she knew how much worse that might make me feel. Or maybe she knew that I wouldn't be able to hear it, anyway, over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears as I dragged Jack and myself out of the demon realm.