Scarlet didn’t sleep much that night. She intermittently flitted in and out of consciousness, her thoughts a constant, unintelligible stream in her state of exhaustion. At first light, she disentangled herself from Dante and retreated across the hall to her own room. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked as tired as she felt and her hair was a matted disaster. She grabbed the brush sitting on the vanity and began the frustrating process of untangling her hair.

At least it was something she could do without thinking. She wasn’t ready to dig into her knot of emotions. It was too raw right now. Or sometimes, it was just dull, her feelings a monotonous tone that she couldn’t interpret. It took a while to get through with her hair, cringing as she pulled the tangles apart. In the end, when she looked in the mirror, the process had only made it worse. Her hair was frizzier and even wilder than usual. She sighed.

There was a tap on the door. It hadn’t been closed all the way, so it swung open with the touch.

Dante stood, precariously, in the doorway. “You’re up.”

Scarlet put the brush down. “Yeah.”

“I need to talk to you about something.” He came in and sat across from her, on the end of her bed.

The knot in her chest pulled tighter. Whatever he was going to say, she wasn’t ready for it.

“That dream I had last night,” he said. That wasn’t what she expected. She forgot he had dreamed. “I didn’t lose my sight afterwards, like I do after visions. But I don’t think it was a normal dream either.”

“So what was it?”

“I’m not exactly sure. But there was a girl. A young girl. She was in a dungeon, here in Deianira. She said Death put her there.”

The dungeon? Scarlet tensed. “What did she look like?”

“Kind of like my sister, honestly. She looked Saridi. Blonde hair. Her eyes were two different colors.”

“Well… if that was a vision, we need to find out what’s going on. Or, uh, what will go on?”

“I think she’s there right now. But what are we supposed to do, just ask Death about her?”

“What? Gods, no. We should go down to the dungeon.”

Dante looked uncertain. “She did tell me to come find her.”

“So, let’s do it.”

“I can’t imagine Death would be happy with us poking around down there.”

“She won’t be.” Scarlet scowled. “But what’s she going to do about it? Most of her emissaries are dead. She needs us right now. And this could be a lead, maybe this girl knows something. Even if she doesn’t, we can’t leave her down there.”

From the look in Dante’s eyes, Scarlet was sure he’d say no. But he nodded. “Alright. Then we’d better go before Death comes looking for us.”

They hurried through the halls. Bronwen couldn’t wait forever, and Death would be impatient for Dante’s answer. Anxiety and dread ran high in Scarlet’s blood as she led Dante to a dark metal door on the first floor. She had barely been conscious when Death took her to the dungeon, but she thought this was the way down. Most of the doors in Deianira were simple wooden doors, but this one was heavily reinforced.

Dante tried the doorknob to no avail. It was locked. He turned to her. “This is it, for sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“How do we get in, then?”

“Unless you have a history of thievery that I don’t know about, I’m going to have to melt the hinges off.”

Dante’s eyes snapped over to the bulky metal hinges. “What? How long will that take?”

Scarlet shrugged. “Have any better ideas?”

Dante shook his head and gestured for her to go forward. She took a breath and pulled her focus inward. She summoned a small, concentrated flame from her pinched fingertips, as hot and angry as she could make it, and set to work.

Her brow was soaked with sweat by the time she finished melting through the first hinge. She shook out her cramped hand before crouching down to get to work on the second. “How long did that take?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dante said. His back was to her, watching the hall. “You’re doing it as fast as you can.”

It would be better to do it faster. She tried to power more energy into the flame as it slowly cut through the metal. What seemed like an eternity later, the door clanked down from its hinges. Dante jumped in and caught the door before it fell onto her. Scarlet helped him lower it to the floor. Then, they stared down the steep steps leading into darkness.

Scarlet’s head spun. I don’t want to go down there again.

Dante summoned a light orb for them. Its orange light was strangely comforting. “Are you ready?”

“Let’s go,” she said.

The stairwell into the dungeon was narrow, so they took it single file, Dante leading with his light. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they descended at least a couple flights worth of stairs. The darkness and confined space pressed in on her.

Dante glanced back at her. “You’re sure we should be doing this?”

“Yes.” She felt like puking. Her feet didn’t want to keep taking her deeper below the castle. But the idea of leaving someone down there was unconscionable.

The bottom of the stairs led into the narrow hall with cells on either side. They began to work their way through the dungeon, peering through the bars.

“Hello?” Dante called as they ventured further. “Is anyone here?”

There was no answer.

“Maybe it was just a dream,” Scarlet said. “Like, a regular one.” She shivered. Maybe they could leave.

“No.” It was the first time Dante sounded at all confident since they had started this adventure. “This is the place I saw.”

“Maybe you saw the future then. Or the past.”

Then, further down the dungeon, a light blinked into existence. They rushed over to the cell it came from. Inside was a small blonde girl, sitting on a straw bed, a light mote in hand.

“Dante,” she said. Her voice was small, but bright like a bell. “You came.” The girl’s gaze flitted to Scarlet. Though Dante told her that the girl’s eyes were mismatched, the stark difference between them caught Scarlet off-guard. “You brought a friend.”

“This is Scarlet.”

The girl nodded. “I know.”

Scarlet stared at her. “Who… who are you? How do you know who we are?”

“I’m Ange.” She stood and came up to meet them at the bars of the cell. “I see things, sometimes.”

“Like me,” Dante said.

“A bit like that, yes. That’s why I could reach you in your dreams.”

“How did this happen?” Dante asked. “Why did Death imprison you?”

“She hates me. She hates me for what I’ve seen. What I won’t see. Don’t see.” The light of the motes made the tears welling in Ange’s eyes glisten. “She was angry that I wouldn’t help her, so she threw me in the dungeon to rot. Please, you have to get me out of here.”

“Don’t worry,” Scarlet said. “We’re going to.”

“You’re an emissary,” Dante said. Scarlet glanced at Ange’s hand and spotted the two intertwined circles.

“I was.” Ange held up her hand, so they could see the marks better. The tattoo was faded, and broken in places.

Scarlet had to stifle a gasp. “Your emissary bond is broken? How?”

“If you get me out of here, I can help you break yours.”

“Of course,” Scarlet said.

“Scarlet.” Dante’s voice sounded like a warning.

“What?”

“Just—come down the hall for a minute.”

She followed him a few cells down, out of earshot of Ange. “What?” she repeated, harsher this time.

“I don’t know if we can trust her,” he whispered.

“Dante. She’s a child. She can’t be more than what, twelve? And Death has her locked away in a dungeon. She can’t possibly have deserved this.”

“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“What doesn’t feel right is that Death is cruel,” Scarlet snapped. “I don’t care what you feel or what you think or what you do, I’m going to help her.”

“We don’t know for sure that Death didn’t have a good reason—”

“No! Death has no good reasons. She’s petty and destructive. You can try to defend her, you can throw away your empathy in an attempt to convince yourself that becoming an emissary is a good idea—because you think you have to submit to her in order to save Bronwen. But if Ange is telling the truth, I’m not surprised, and you shouldn’t be either.”

Scarlet stomped past Dante, not caring if he was going to follow her. She was going to free this poor girl, and find a way to free herself from Death.

“I’m going to cut through the lock with my fire,” Scarlet said. “It might get hot, you’ll want to take a step back.”

“That won’t work,” Ange said. “The cell is warded with magic.” To demonstrate, she sent a small bolt of energy towards Scarlet. She almost jumped back, but the bolt was absorbed by a field surrounding the cell that briefly became visible, a thin membrane of magic rippling as the energy hit it.

Dante had sheepishly followed Scarlet back to the cell. “I thought only protection mages could make long-lasting shields.”

“This isn’t the same as a force shield,” Ange said. “Death manipulates pure energy. That’s what that barrier is. Don’t touch it, by the way. It’ll give you a nasty shock.”

Scarlet grimaced. She’d almost managed to forget the barrier that had been around her own cell.

“Is there even a way to break it?” Dante asked.

Ange nodded. “If we all focus our magic at the barrier, we might be able to overload it.”

“It’ll have to be you and me,” Scarlet told Ange. “Dante… he has to save his energy right now.”

They staggered themselves so that if the barrier shattered, their magic wouldn’t hit each other. Dante stood well out of the way and looked on with his mouth twisted into a worried frown. Ange powered bolts of energy at the barrier, while Scarlet poured a concentrated streak of flame at it. The barrier vibrated wildly with the assault.

Scarlet’s rage grew and her flames became larger and wilder as her emotions intensified. How dare Death do this, to Ange, to me? Dante felt helpless, but he wasn’t the one bound to a selfish god. Scarlet was a stronger mage than him, but what did that matter if she never got a chance to fight? She should have been sent to Riordan’s realm with the rest of the emissaries. Maybe she could have made a difference. But she was held back, protected from the dangers she wanted to face, kept in the dark. Her mother had been traded away for her magical education and a new set of blinders. Even though I’m a proper mage now, I’m still useless.

Dante had to take an extra step farther away as the heat rolling off her flames became more unbearable. Scarlet stood fast. The barrier became more visible, and it glowed brightly for a moment, then gave an audible pop as it broke. Scarlet’s flames set fire to some of the straw from Ange’s bed before she could reign in the stream of immolation.

“Free.” Ange dropped to her knees, breathing heavily. “Free. Thank you.”

“Not quite yet.” Scarlet set to work cutting the lock with a precise blaze. She was getting lightheaded from the unrestrained amounts of energy she’d been outputting, but she was so close to freeing this girl. The lock clanked to the floor and Scarlet swung open the cell door.

Ange got up and smiled as she crossed the threshold of her prison.

“What now?” Dante asked. “I mean, Death—”

“Will know she’s free?” All three of them spun to see Death standing in the hall. Red orbs of light danced around her, casting an angry glow across her face.

“You’re… you’re heinous, do you know that?” Scarlet spat out.

“You would not say that if you had any idea what you were talking about. Sit.”

Scarlet’s tattoo burned as she dropped to the stone floor. Unable to even form words in her frustration, a growl worked its way through her throat. Dante took a step in front of her, as if to protect her from Death.

“Eva,” Ange said. “I would say it’s good to see you, but…”

“I think it’s time that they saw you.” Death waved a hand. When Scarlet looked back to Ange, the girl that had been standing there was gone. Instead, a woman was before them. Blonde, with half of her hair sheared close to her scalp. Two mismatched eyes. It was Ange, but— “She isn’t what she appears. She used an illusion to make herself seem more innocent, vulnerable, trustworthy. Angelise is none of those things.”

Dante turned to Ange. “Wait—so…”

“I am sorry for lying to you,” Ange said. “I did what I had to, to ensure my freedom. Regardless of my trespasses, Eva cannot be trusted. She really did throw me in here just because I couldn’t help her as much as she wanted. I tried, you have to believe me.”

Death snorted. “You’re the traitor. A manipulator.”

“You hypocrite!” Ange snarled. She pointed to Dante. “Tell him. Tell him what you did. Why he’s here.”

“He knows why he’s here.”

“But not how it happened. Dante. Eva—Death—told me she would set me free if I helped her with something. I didn’t really believe her, but I had nothing better to do, so,” Ange shrugged. “So I did it. She told me Bronwen had scouted a mage that she wanted to bring here. But Death knew you would never just leave your home. So she had me disguise myself as your friend—Milo, is that right?—and tell your parents about the last time you did magic. That way, she could have Bronwen swoop in and save you. Of course, then you’d be grateful for having your life saved, and all that.” Ange glanced at his hands. “You’re not an emissary though. Good. One less bond to break.”

Dante looked to Death. His voice wavered. “You had me banished?”

Death fidgeted with her braid. “I did what I had to.”

“Does Bronwen know?”

“No.”

“I thought my friend betrayed me. I had to leave my sister behind to get captured. My parents will never forgive me, if they’re even alive still.” Dante pressed his hands to his forehead and leaned against the stone wall. His voice was quiet, not in a calm way but in a deadly one. “It didn’t make sense that he saw me, but…”

A heavy silence fell over them. There was a bonfire of rage in Scarlet’s chest. Death had ruined everything for Dante. But he responded with ice, not fire. He was frozen against the wall, like he was hewn from the very same stone.

Ange clapped her hands together. The sound echoed down the dungeon. “Well, I’m leaving,” she said. “You two should come with me. I can take you far away from Eva.”

“None of you are going,” Death said. Scarlet’s tattoo flared, and the compulsion glued her to the ground.

Ange’s hands clenched tight. “You can’t make me stay. Not anymore.”

Scarlet could feel energy gathering around Death. Then suddenly, the tension faded. “Fine.” Death waved a hand. “Then go, already.”

“Scarlet. Meet me in Cascara’s realm, if you can. You set me free, and I’ll repay you in kind.” Ange looked to Dante, still slouched against the wall. “Dante? Are you coming?”

“I can’t.” His voice broke. “I have to help Bronwen.”

Ange shrugged. “Your choice. Thanks for the help.” She pushed past Death on her way out. She looked over her shoulder at them before getting too far. “If you change your mind… I’ll be waiting.”

“What now, Dante?” Death asked once Ange had left. “Are you too proud now, to become an emissary? Are you going to let Bronwen die because I forced your father’s hand? He was going to catch you, eventually. I may have sped the process, but it was always going to end the same for you.”

Scarlet saw a spark of rage finally reach Dante. “Shut up!” Dante tried to storm past Death, but she caught him by the collar, choking him into stopping.

“You want to keep the rest of your friends alive? Then you had better listen to me.”

“No,” Dante said. “I’m done with you. Scarlet thinks I can save Bronwen without you, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Death let out a bitter laugh. “Cute, how she believes in you.” She gave Dante a little shove as she let him go. “Once Bronwen is gone, you will leave. No more dead weight is allowed in this castle.”