All Chapters of THE DEVIL'S LEDGER : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

VITTORIASalvatore is still locked in the east tower when I go to see him, two days before the Festival. I don't fully understand why I need to look at him one more time before everything changes.Maybe I just need to hear him say it out loud. Maybe I need to see if there's anything left of the man I used to admire.He's sitting on the narrow cot, his hands folded like a man praying for a mercy he doesn't believe he deserves.The room is cold and bare. No windows. Just stone walls and a single lantern that flickers weakly."You came to gloat," he says, not looking up."I came because I keep asking myself if you actually love this family," I say, "or if you just love the idea of it staying exactly the way it's always been."He's quiet a long moment. "Both, maybe. I don't know anymore.""Then why did you do it?" I ask, stepping closer. "Why did you betray Dante? Why did you sell us out to Cassia?""Because I watched your father destroy himself for this family," Salvatore says, and his v

SERAPHINAThe factory roof is packed with people by the time I reach it. More than I have ever seen crowded into one place.All of them laughing, pointing up at a sky that's finally, after a whole year, showing them real blue instead of grey. Children are running between their parents' legs.Families are spreading out blankets. Some are even dancing.None of them know what's under their feet.I push through the crowd, heart hammering, scanning every face for guards, for anyone who looks like they belong to Cassia instead of the Enclave.The crowd is too thick. The noise is too loud. I can barely think.Julian's voice crackles faint in my ear through the little device Lena rigged up before we split. Barely working. Full of static. But enough."Seraphina. Talk to me.""I'm on the roof," I say, low, careful not to draw attention. "Crowd's huge. No sign of Cassia yet.""She's not there," Julian says, and something in his voice makes my stomach drop. "She's at the Vesperi estate.She was n

---VITTORIAI hear them before I see them. Footsteps in the hallway. Slow. Uneven. One person half carrying another. My heart stops for a second.Then I'm on my feet, running before Julian even gets the words out."They're back," he says.But I've already pushed past him. And there's Dante. Pale. Leaning hard on Seraphina's shoulder.Blood soaked all the way through his shirt. For one horrible second my whole body goes cold with the thought that I'm too late, that I already lost him tonight the same way I almost lost myself.He's alive. He's standing. But he looks like he's been through a war."I'm fine," Dante says, the second he sees my face. "It looks worse than it is.""You're lying," I say, already reaching for him, already shouting for the healer down the hall. "You always lie about that.Every single time. You've been doing it since we were kids.""Vittoria—""Don't," I say, my voice cracking despite everything I'm trying to hold together. "Don't you dare tell me you're fine r

DANTEThe bell won't stop ringing. It's loud and it's wrong for this hour, and I'm up and moving before it even finishes its first ring."Julian!" I shout, grabbing my blade off the table. "Talk to me.""East wall!" He's already running ahead of me down the hall. "Someone's inside the perimeter. Guards are moving in, but Dante—" He stops at the top of the stairs, out of breath. "It's just one person.""One person got through my wall?""One person." Something's wrong with the way he says it. "And she's not running from the guards. She's walking straight at the tower like she owns it."My stomach drops. "Cassia.""We don't know that yet.""I know," I say, already moving faster than I mean to. "I know exactly who's got the nerve to do that."SERAPHINAI'm awake before Dante even makes it back to the room. He's pulling his boots on fast, and his face has gone hard and still, the same look he had the night his men dragged me out of the Enclave."What's going on," I ask, my heart already ra

DANTE"Say that again," I say. "Slowly."Seraphina looks up from the journal, and I can see she doesn't want to repeat it, doesn't want to say the words out loud a second time like saying them twice makes them more real than they already are."If Cassia's chain breaks first," she says, "and it's tangled with dozens of others the way every Bloodline's is, then it doesn't stop with her. It pulls the next chain loose. And the next. Your chain is one of the oldest in this city, Dante. One of the most tangled. If the break gets anywhere close to you—""Then it doesn't just take me," I say. "It takes everyone tied to me.""Everyone tied to you," she repeats, quiet, and I watch the weight of that land on her the same way it's landing on me.I sit back in my chair, staring at the ceiling, trying to make my mind hold still long enough to think clearly. Two years I've spent fighting the Ferrum Blood like it was the only thing trying to kill me. Two years, and it turns out that's the small probl