Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)

by Leigh Bardugo

“You need to accept that hell is going to try to keep one of us,” he said. “It will be me, Stern. I was never meant to leave.”

He had lost track of who was Dante, Virgil, Beatrice. Was he Orpheus or Eurydice?

“So after we fought and bled to drag you out of hell, you think we’re going to just bring you back like a foster dog who shit on the carpet?”

“Fuck off, Darlington.”

You know your problem?”

“A predilection for first editions and women who like to lecture me about myself?”

“An unhealthy respect for the rules. Ge...

“Call Darlington,” Alex whispered. “I did!” “Try again. Tell him not to come back until—” The front door swung open and Darlington strode in. “Morning,” he said. “Turner—” Alex and Dawes waved frantically at him to shut up. But it was too late.

Alex could lie as easily as she could speak, but at that moment, she was at a loss for any words, let alone believable fictions. She hadn’t even thought about how they were going to explain Darlington’s reappearance. Instead she and Dawes were standing there looking like they’d just been doused with ice water. Well, if she was already playing shocked, she might as well lean into it. Alex summoned all her will and burst into tears. “Darlington!” she cried. “You’re back!” She threw her arms around him. “Yes,” Darlington said too loudly. “I am back.” “I thought you were dead!” Alex wailed at the top of her lungs.

“Should I poison his soup?” Dawes whispered as she passed. “You’ve had worse ideas.”

“Lethe sees me as a nuisance and a pedant. It has ever been so. But I hold the Ninth House to a higher standard than those who make a pretense of governing it. I believe in the institution that Lethe might be, that it should be. We are the shepherds.”

“There are places we were never meant to trespass, no matter that we may have the means. Be careful out there, Miss Stern.”

walking Darlington through what to expect from the descent. Alex was happy to leave them to it. She didn’t want to think of Darlington as he’d been last night in front of the fire.

A predilection for first editions and women who like to lecture me about myself.

A joke. Nothing more. But that word kept sticking in her thoughts—predilection, precise a...

“You’re up to something, Stern,” Darlington said as they packed for the wolf run later that night. “I can tell.” “Just keep your head down and don’t let anything try to kill me.”

“We can debate this when we’re done. Dawes will take notes. We can bind them up and put them in the Lethe library. Stern’s Daemonologie.” “Arlington’s Daemonologie. Aren’t you going to valiantly offer to stay in hell in my place?”

“I did miss you, Stern.” “Did you?”

She hadn’t meant to ask, but the words were out before she could stop them. “As much as an unholy fiend without human feeling could.” That almost made her laugh.

But she wasn’t leaving Darlington down there again.

or the disturbing comfort it brought her to know she could call and he would come running.

Gentleman demon. A creature even the dead had feared.

“Just a man,” Darlington murmured, and Alex knew he was remembering his fight to give them clues to the Gauntlet, his demon wiles at war with his human hope. But she saw delight in his face as they made their way through Sterling, wonder and bemusement.

“Darlington thinks he’s not coming back,” Dawes said. Alex could feel her eyes on her back. “I won’t let that happen.” They stopped in front of the original entrance to the courtyard emblazoned with Selin’s name in gold letters. “What about you?” Dawes asked. “Who’s looking out for you, Alex?” “I’ll be fine,” Alex said, surprised by the wobble in her voice. She’d known Dawes couldn’t bear the thought of losing Darlington again, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Dawes might give a damn if Alex came back too. “I’m not leaving you down there,” Dawes said fiercely. Alex had said the same thing to Darlington. Promises were easy in this world. So why not make another? “We’re all coming back,” she vowed.

Alex hesitated. “Dawes … if this doesn’t go the way we planned … thanks for taking care of me.” “I’m fairly sure you’ve almost died several times since we met.” “It’s the almost that counts.” “I don’t like this,” Dawes said, her eyes darting again to those golden letters. “It feels like goodbye.”

Dawes still wore the scholar’s robes, but now they gleamed golden like the loris’s eyes. Turner’s cloak of feathers was woven with coppery oak leaves. The prince’s white armor suited Darlington better than it had Tripp, but now he wore a horned helm. And Alex? She held out her arms. Her steel bracers were emblazoned with snakes.

He saw Alex in the garden, a black-winged bird, night gathered around her like a silken shroud shot through with stars. His monstrous queen. His gentle ruler. He knew what she was now too. He returned to his writings. All is well.

Alex met Dawes’s eyes and said, “Find a way to shut the door behind me. I know you can.” Turner stepped in front of her. “I can’t let you do that. I’m not unleashing a tide of demons to feed on our misery. I’ll kill you before I let you doom our world for the sake of one girl.”

Darlington gripped Alex’s arm. “This was your plan? To give yourself up? This isn’t meant to be your sacrifice, Stern.”

“Alex,” Darlington said. “I won’t let you do this.” She let fire bloom over her body and Darlington yanked his hand back, his horns emerging. “It’s not your call to make.”

But Dawes and Darlington and Turner had arrayed themselves around her. “Protect her,” Turner shouted. “No one gets through!” His feathered cape looked less like a costume than actual wings, spreading wide. Dawes had raised her hands and words had appeared on her scholar’s robe—symbols, scrawl, a thousand languages, maybe every language ever known. Darlington’s horns glowed golden and he drew his sword. They had enacted their little play for Anselm’s benefit and now they were ready to defend.

She counted her friends—Mercy, Turner, Dawes, and Darlington, her gentleman demon. Their ramshackle army, all of them soaked and shivering, all of them safe and whole.

“She came to see me last night,” said Turner. “I didn’t want to do it. She was asking me to use my badge to set up a murder. Then I took a look at Eitan Harel’s record.” “That convinced you?” He shook his head. “No. I’m actually very fond of due process. But you know Alex—she sees an opening, she’s going to wiggle through it like a window.”

“And then?” “Then she said, ‘But what if I’m wrong?’” Now Darlington laughed. “That’s Alex Stern.”

“I’m going to be honest with you. That’s not really what changed my mind either.”

“I picked her up in Darien,” Turner went on at last, “the night Harel sent her to take on Linus Reiter. She was … I’ve seen her trade punches with a guy twice her size. I’ve seen her nearly get her skull split by a frat boy looking for revenge. But I’ve never seen her scared like that.”

“I will serve you ’til the end of days,” he promised. In the dream she laughed.

“And love me too.”

Her eyes were black and ful...

She was sitting in the parlor, one leg curled beneath her, still in Lethe sweats, a book of Hart Crane’s poetry open in her lap—reading for one of her classes, he presumed.

It pleased him too much to see her there, easy on the velvet couch, hair tucked behind her ears.

Blue flame had blossomed over her body. She glanced back again, looking for a signal from him. He saw the will in her gaze, the way she had shoved her fear down. I will serve you ’til the end of days.

Alex felt Darlington’s hand on her shoulder. “Put your head between your knees. Try to breathe.”

“Not anymore. You don’t get to go back to not returning my calls.” “Why not?” Because I think Mercy may have changed her mind about rooming with me next year. Because I don’t have many friends left and I need to know you’re one of them. “Because you’re a part of this now. You’ve seen through the Veil, past it. You can’t go back to pretending.”

“My people are right here,” she said. “You. Dawes. Darlington. Mercy, if I didn’t scare her away. You’re the ones who fought for me. You’re the ones I want to fight for. Lethe has nothing to do with it.”

“I just want to be allowed to live. Maybe … maybe I want to see this whole place undone. I don’t know yet. But you can’t go back to the way things were. No matter how much you might want that. You can’t walk through hell unchanged.”

“It changed you too, Stern. You may not care about good and evil, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You stole a man out of hell. You beat a demon at his own game. You’d better think about what that means.” “And what’s that?” “The devil knows your name now, Galaxy Stern.”

The bird dove straight for Darlington. Alex slid in front of him, dragging her tongue over her wrist and letting her snakes snap out.

“Tripp’s salt spirit did what it was supposed to do,” said Alex. “It tried to protect his life, and when it couldn’t do that, it stayed with him. It protected his soul.”

“Oh man, thank you. Thank you.” “But you’re going to have to change,” Alex said. “Of course. I know I haven’t been the most responsible member of the team, but I believe in transformative growth—” “Clothes, Tripp. You’re going to have to change your clothes.” “Shit, man! Absolutely. What did I say? You’re all right, Alex.” He put up his hand for a fist bump. “I just really want to eat you.” Alex nudged her knuckles against his. “I know, buddy.”