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CHAPTER 61

Schuyler

She was in the glo The de her down to the deep Down to the deepest dark center of the twilight world When Schuyler could finally open her eyes, she saw that she was chained to so on either side of it On one side was a beautiful nized him istar She never thought ait was almost too painful to see Like a knife that cut deep beneath the skin, his beauty exacted a price from the beholder She understood the difference between hiloith a pure inescapable light He stood upon a path ofwith steam, and Schuyler knew: this was a Path of the Dead They were standing before the Gate of Time, and Lucifer was held behind it

On her side of the gate stood Leviathan, her grandfather’s murderer A cloaked deli ember coals for eyes She should be afraid, but instead of fear she only feltto get out of this and she was going to make them pay It sounded absurd and weak, but Schuyler knew that as long as she was alive, as long as she had breath in her body, she would do everything she could to fight the white shining presence that stood before her, as beautiful as the sun on the surface, but as ugly as a pile of festering ots inside his immortal soul

Then Schuyler saw that there was soht with them to this dark shadowy place: a third man who lay sprawled underneath Leviathan’s foot

Kingsley Martin groaned

"Gemullus Of course I should have known," Lucifer said

His voice ru He sounded like a hed

"But you didn’t Not for a long ti your diet off of me? It’s rather uncomfortable down here"

In answer, Leviathan kicked hiasped and choked, and Schuyler winced

"Tell me, Gemellus Do the uncorrupted still have you on that choke chain? Still answering to Michael’s bidding, are we? Even when it was I who made you what you are today I who showed you howblood for our own"

Lucifer leaned against the gate, looking through the bars An anie "I had no idea I didn’t knohat you were offering," Kingsley whispered "I was only a boy The others I took, they’re still inIt is unbearable"

"You were the weakest of us! A disgrace to the va!" hissed Lucifer

"And now I asley replied

"A pity you think so You never did understand the scale of rant thatonly the intersection as a trap"

"Nice, right? That was ht so" Lucifer nodded, as if satisfied "Michael needed a liar of his own to coht deception A devil to think like the devil"

Kingsley chuckled "You always did have a ords"

Lucifer acknowledged the compli quite a long tiate at last Shall we open it?"

Schuyler realized as happening As Allegra had said, the gate was iels Carved by the Uncorrupted

It kept Lucifer and his star was ihed

"You know each gate demands an innocent life And I am far froht one," Lucifer said, and Schuyler saw Kingsley look up and notice her chained to the gate His face dropped, and all the fight went out of him

Then Schuyler understood why she was here