Why You Should Never Rescue Stray Demons Chapter 159

**OZ**

One minute I’m standing in the ruins, watching Kacia fight her way through the knot of her magic. The next, everything goes black. Silence. Then stone against my shoulder blades, and the air hits warm and thick, saturated with roasted spices and slow-cooked herbs. The ghost of coffee grounds hiding under it all. Home sinks into me through scent first, fast and vicious.

I open my eyes to red-gold light slanting across familiar counters. Uneven tiles under my palms. The battered wooden table with its constellation of knife nicks. The scorch marks on the far wall from my younger brother’s infamous ‘experimental stew.’ Every detail is exactly the same, which should be a comfort. It isn’t. I push myself up, sitting there for a second as I try to figure out what the hell just happened to me. I never portalled to the human realm, I was summoned there by Alhwin and bound in place. With that connection severed, the spell snapped me back to where I belonged, like a rubber band returning to its anchor. A soft, shocked sound slices the quiet. Metal clatters to stone behind me. I crane my neck around to see my sister staring. 

“Oz? You’re… You’re okay!” Her voice cracks on my name. Then she’s on me. Bounding and fierce. Her arms locked around my neck before I can brace myself. The impact drives the air out of my lungs, but I don’t complain. Alyssa smells like citrus oil and smoke. When she pulls back, I get a proper look at her. My sister with the eyes like silver stars. Bright, polished-coin silver that seems to gather light and throw it back at you. Two neat pairs of horns curve from her hairline, elegant rather than menacing. Her skin is a paler grey than mine, a moonlit shade that makes every expression read a little too honest. She’s younger than Kacia, twenty, and somehow manages to look both feral and soft at once, all quick hands and kinder intentions.

“Where were you? Why were you gone so long? Are you hurt? You didn’t send anything. Do you have any idea-” She freezes, eyes skating down my shirt. 

“Why are you covered in glitter?” She asks, baffled. 

“It’s… A long story.” I say, dragging a hand over my face.

“It had better be.” She fires back, the words edged in relief and something rawer. Her mouth goes flat, but her lashes flash wet, Alyssa, who always cries when I’m away too long and then pretends she didn’t. She inhales hard, resets her spine, and the dramatic flair clicks into place like armor. 

“Honestly, the audacity to return like this with no warning, looking like a festive crime scene. Sit down before you fall down. You look like a cursed disco ball.” She complains. I huff a laugh despite myself. She catches the sound, narrows her eyes, and fusses harder, pressing at a bruise on my temple, checking my pupils like she’s a doctor or something, and then marching to the cupboards.

“Food.” She declares, already rattling jars, the silver in her eyes bright with purpose. 

“You’re eating whether you like it or not. And drinking water. And then explaining yourself until I am satisfied.” She leans around the door with a look. 

“Which I warn you, is a long distance from now.” She says grumpily.

“Alyssa-” I start.

“No, no, don’t Alyssa me.” She sets a glass in front of me hard enough to make the water jump. 

“You were gone for weeks, Ozraed. Weeks. Not even a note. I checked the door every time the house breathed. I imagined you-” She cuts herself off. Swallows. When she speaks again, the sarcasm is thinner, the worry bleeding through. 

“I thought you were dead.” She admits. Guilt fills me. I take the water if only to do as I’m told for once. 

“I’m fine, really.” I say softly. She tips her head, studying me with that infuriating talent she has, seeing straight through people’s bravado. 

“Mostly.” She corrects, gentler now. Then, because she’s Alyssa, she reaches for humor like gauze. 

“And glittered. Did you lose a fight with an enchanted craft store?” She teases. 

“Something like that.” I say, and the corner of her mouth lifts. She sets bread on the table, tears it in half, shoves the bigger piece at me. 

“Eat. Then talk. In that order. Or I swear by every spice in this room I will personally sit on you and force-feed you.” She threatens. 

She would, too. She’s good like that, kind in a way that involves action and consequences and never letting you get away with your own nonsense. She helps. Always. Even when the help looks like a scold and a plate. I chew, because she’s watching. The kitchen hums with the faint static of magic, all the familiar noises and scents moving through it like steam. It should be enough to steady me, to anchor me back into myself. It almost is. But the place where the comfort should settle is hollow. Home feels off without Kacia’s laugh cutting through it, without the weight of her tucked under my arm, without the stubborn set of her jaw when she decides the impossible is merely inconvenient. Lyssa watches me think and sighs. She softens, reaches out, flicks a fleck of glitter off my shoulder like it insulted her personally. 

“You’re not fine.” She says, but there’s no accusation in it. Just fact. 

“You will be. But you’re not.” She adds. I meet her eyes. The worry in my chest spikes sharp. I left Kacia, alone in the ruins, watching me vanish. She’s going to think I left without a word. After everything we went through. 

“I…” The words snag on everything I’m not ready to say. I swallow. Try again. 

“I don’t know where to start.” I confess. Alyssa nods once. 

“Then start at the beginning. Tell me everything.” She says, softer now, and slides the plate a little closer. I exhale, the spice-warm air catching in my throat. There’s no way around it, the only way is through. I lean back in the chair, meet her gaze, and let the truth open like a door.

“Well, there’s this girl…” I say, a helpless smile tugging despite the ache,

Before I can even START to explain, footsteps scrape in the hall. A shadow fills the doorway and my brother leans there, all angles and attitude. Roth looks a lot like me, same black hair, same sharp jaw, same telltale darkness coiled behind the eyes, but younger, leaner, still growing into the breadth he’ll have in a few years. Twenty-three and already wearing his cynicism like armor.

“You’re back.” He says. Two words, flat as a blade. He’s keeping himself steady on purpose. I can hear the effort in the way his tail doesn’t move and his jaw works once, tightly.

“Yeah, I am.” I answer. 

“Where have you been?” He asks. 

“He’s about to explain.” Alyssa cuts in, tone bright and pointed as she shoves a glass of water at me like a prop in a play. She gives Roth a look that says be nice. He lifts both brows at her. That look says ‘when am I ever not?’ He then pushes off the doorframe and crosses the room. He doesn’t take a seat. He doesn’t pace either. He just chooses a patch of wall near the scorch marks and leans, arms folded, the picture of patience he does not possess. There’s a smear of iron-red dust along his knuckles, training yard, probably, and a small, smooth dark stone sits between his fingers, rolling back and forth as if keeping count of his self-control. Typical Roth, a pocket full of interesting rocks and a mouth full of knives. I talk. From the summoning to the binding to Kacia and the mess with her grandfather. The ruins, the glitter (Roth’s mouth twitches, he says nothing), the fight, the way the binding snapped me home when she released it. By the time I’m done, Alyssa’s watching me with stars in her eyes, chin propped on her fist, the picture of dramatic, delighted investment. Roth’s expression hasn’t moved much, but the rock in his hand is turning a shade faster, and that tells me everything. 

“So yeah, that’s why I need to go back. Just temporarily. I can’t stay there… But I can’t leave it like this.” I finish, rubbing the back of my neck. Alyssa nods immediately, fierce and warm. 

“Of course. She deserves to know you didn’t choose to vanish. Go.” She insists. Roth’s gaze sharpens.

“But you want to.” He interrupts. 

“Huh?” I echo. 

“You want to stay there, with this girl. If it were your choice, you’d choose her.” He doesn’t raise his voice, just slices the words cleanly. There’s a thin thread of hurt under the evenness. He won’t cry like Lyaas, he never does, but the meanness of worry skims the surface, a brittle edge to his mouth, the click of his teeth when he closes his jaw too hard.

“It’s not about favourites.” I say, keeping my tone gentle because anything else will just make him dig in. 

“It’s a different kind of bond. We’re siblings. That never changes. We’ll always be family. We’ll always back each other. One day you’ll find someone and want to expand what ‘family’ means. When that happens, I’ll still be here. Maybe not always under the same roof, but here.” I tip my head toward the kitchen, the spices, the scorch, the table. 

“This doesn’t stop existing because I love someone.” I remind him. 

“She better be worth it.” He grumbles. Alyssa shoots him a warning look. Roth rolls his eyes at me instead, there’s the mockery, familiar as breathing. 

“You do realise this sounds like the opening act of a tragedy, yes? Demon meets girl, makes promises, wrecks his life for romance.” He flips the stone in a neat arc and catches it without looking, like he practices this when he can’t sleep. “She better be worth it.” He comments rudely. 

“She is.” I say simply. That lands. He glances away, jaw flexing, meanness dissolving into something tired and too honest. When he looks back, his voice is rougher around the edges. 

“Fine. Go talk to this girl. Say whatever heroic nonsense you think will fix the look on her face. But if she loves you, a quick conversation isn’t going to mend it.” His mouth twists into something almost like a smile and not at all like one. 

“Feels like a waste of time.” He adds.

 “Do what you want.You always do.” He takes two steps, pauses, then he’s gone down the hall, shoulders stiff, pretending he doesn’t care. He’ll hover later. He always does, just out of reach, counting my breaths with a soldier’s neat precision. Stubborn idiot. I meet Alyssa’s eyes. She gives a quick, encouraging nod, silver-bright and certain. 

“Go on then.” She says. I manage a tired smile. The kitchen smells like cumin and clove and home, but my chest is a storm. I lift my hand and call the lines. Magic gathers, cool and sure, threading over my skin. Time to go back to the ruins.