He was free to return to her.
The stupid, stupid boy.
"I know who the Silver Blood is," Dylan had said that night he crashed through the window. "It's you."
And right then and there, she had changed his memory. Made him think it was Schuyler.
A small, sad voice inside her began to cry.
I loved him. I loved Dylan.
We love no one.
No one but ourselves.
Forsyth had known all along. That's why she could never bring herself to ask him about Dylan, because somewhere in her subconscious she knew the reason why her father was keeping things from her. Because part of her could not accept who she really was.
She watched as she left the burning house, taking a car that had a body stuffed in the trunk. Dylan. She had taken him to the mountaintop, where Lawrence and Schuyler were waiting. Taken him to Corcovado, where he would be a sacrifice. There, she had shaped him in his image.
She had brought him to his death.
It was Lawrence's blade that struck, but it was she who had killed him.
As she had killed so many others. She heard the voices of everyone she had taken. They were all there, inside her head, screaming, crying. SILENCE! Nan Cutler was part of it, she realized. Nan was the Warden who had checked for the Mark of Lucifer on her neck. She'd been the one who had cleared Bliss of suspicion during the investigation. Bliss suddenly had an idea, and lifted her hair from her neck and touched her fingers to her skin. She felt it at once. She turned to the mirror and saw it. A small star-shaped scar that branded her as the devil's own.
But why? the small, sad voice asked.
Is that the one who calls herself "Bliss." Is she still there?
Yes, said the same tiny voice. It was the voice of Bliss Llewellyn. The same voice of Maggie Stanford before her. It was always the same way. Every cycle. They never wanted to accept the truth of their heritage.
I did not know.
I do not want this.
Your desires are immaterial. Now pick yourself up and walk toward your friends. Not everything went to plan. Some of us were killed. We must bide our time again.
I know who you are now, "Bliss" said.
You are Lucifer.
Lightbringer.
Morningstar.
The former Prince of Heaven.
Her true and immortal father.
Lawrence was dead. Schuyler felt as if her heart would shatter from the loss of her beloved grandfather. How was this allowed to happen? What had he been talking about? Her sister? Who? What?
The first rays of dawn lit the mountaintop. A figure walked up the steps.
"Someone's coming," Oliver warned.
"It's just Bliss," Schuyler said as their friend reached them. "Thank God you're okay."
"My sister is dead. My stepmother too. I don't know where my father is," Bliss said in a flat, strangled voice. "There was black smoke. The Conclave...they've been...What's happened here?" she asked, seeing the prone bodies of Lawrence and Dylan on the ground.