The air in Hell did not burn, not in the way I had imagined. It was thick, cloying, like the scent of oversteeped herbs left to rot in a jar. The sky, if it could be called a sky, hung low and dark, it was perpetually night in hell.
I had expected fire. I had expected screams.
Instead, I found myself standing before a door.
It was an unremarkable thing, really—dark oak, worn at the edges, the kind of door that might lead to a backroom in any apothecary. But I knew better. Behind it waited him. The one who held the keys to my fate. I had sneakily asked the keeper to show me to his chamber the night before.
My fingers trembled as I raised them to knock. I had spent my life mixing remedies, coaxing life from roots and leaves, bargaining with nature itself for cures. But this? This was a negotiation of a different kind.
The door creaked open before my knuckles could touch the wood.
Inside, the room stretched far beyond what the exterior suggested—a cavernous hall lined with shelves, each stacked with jars. My breath caught. They were my jars. The ones from my shop. The ones I had filled with tinctures and salves, with crushed petals and powdered bone. how did he get all of this brought here?
And at the center of it all, lounging in a chair,
He looked like a scholar. A man of letters, not of brimstone. His fingers steepled beneath his chin, his eyes dark and depthless as a midnight brew.
"Ah," he said, voice smooth as fine wine. "The little apothecary."
"I'm glad you came to seek me out this early . ." A smirk played at his lips. " Is there something you need? I have no intention of making you feel like a prisoner ."
My knees threatened to buckle. I locked them in place. "I want to go back."
He tilted his head, considering. "Do you?"
"I wasn't finished," I whispered. "There were people who needed me. Cures I hadn't perfected. Lives I—" My voice cracked. "I wasn't done."
The Devil sighed, long-suffering, and rose from his seat. He moved like smoke, circling me. "Everyone thinks they're unfinished," he murmured. "But the ledger must be balanced, Sylvia. You knew the risks when you dabbled in things beyond mortal hands."
I had. Oh, I had. But desperation makes fools of us all.
"What if I could offer you something?" I asked.
He paused. "Go on."
"My knowledge," I said quickly. "Every recipe, every cure, every secret I've ever learned. You could have it all. Just let me go back."
The Devil laughed, soft and terrible. "Knowledge? My dear, I already have it. "Try harder " he whispered.
My heart sank. Then—
"Then take my hands," I blurted.
Silence.
He turned fully to face me. "Your hands?"
I held them out, these tools of my trade, still stained faintly with the ghosts of herbs and oils. "Without them, I'm nothing. You know that. So take them. Let me keep my soul, but take my craft. Let me go back, even if I can never work again."
The Devil's gaze burned into me. For the first time, I saw something like curiosity in his eyes.
"...Interesting," he murmured.
And then he smiled wickedly.