Brimstone By Callie Hart - 43

“I’M SORRY. I’VE done my best, but I don’t see him anywhere. I’ve scoured the entire realm, and he’s nowhere to be found. But you know as well as I do, Fisher, this realm is full of dark spots. Just because I can’t find him doesn’t mean he’s not there. It just means that his blood is being shielded from me somehow.”

“You’re saying this is intentional, then? That someone has taken him and is hiding him?”

Iseabail was out of her room.

I hadn’t wanted to let her out, but what other choice did I have?

She’d refused to be questioned while under lock and key like some sort of prisoner . . . even though that was precisely what she was. I couldn’t have kept her in there forever, anyway, since half of the estate had already disappeared through the monstrous shadow gate I’d opened on the slope leading down to the forest. The other half were patiently waiting their turn to pass through and evacuate Cahlish. Soon enough, I would have to send her through, along with all the others . . . apart from Ren, because Ren was still fucking missing .

For now, we were in the drawing room. My father had used it as a study once upon a time, though I had no recollection of that.

“Quicksilver pools. Sprite colonies. The black markets in Dow and on Tarran Ross. There are so many locations that are either warded from external magic or contain so much powerful magic that they drown out all other energy. Scrying isn’t—”

“Yes, I know scrying isn’t fucking perfect.” The floorboards creaked as I paced in front of the window, dragging my hands through my hair. “Try again,” I demanded. Then, out of sheer force of habit, coupled with a pinch of desperation, I added, “Please.”

Lorreth, who had been standing by the door glowering sullenly at the witch for the past half an hour, shot me a filthy look that implied I had just personally betrayed him. “We should just throw her in the jail down in the basement and let the rot take her,” he said.

Iseabail had endangered Saeris. She’d also used Tal in the most horrific way, and we’d all nearly died as a result. She was probably my least favorite person in a two-hundred-mile radius right now, but I still wasn’t going to lock her up in a cell and let the rot infect her. That was a fate worse than death, and I just didn’t have it in me.

Iseabail bridled at Lorreth’s comment but didn’t say anything to him directly. Wouldn’t even look at the warrior. To me, she said, “Fine. I’ll try again for you, but you shouldn’t expect a different result. I’ve been staring at this map for so long that my eyes feel like they’re about to shrivel up and fall out of my head. If this was going to work, it would have done so five hours ago.”

What did she think I was going to do? Just say, Okay, then, I guess that’s it. We won’t look for him anymore, then? I gave her a reproving look. “Just . . . try again, Iseabail.”

I’d noted when she’d returned from Nevercross that she had been promoted to prioress. Only the ascended elders of the Balquhidder clan were permitted to wear their hair braided and pinned up the way Iseabail did now. Normally, a witch was hundreds of years old before she was even considered for the priory. Iseabail hadn’t even seen the end of her first century yet. The leaders of her clan had rewarded her prematurely for the spellwork she’d wrought at Ammontraíeth. It made perfect sense that they had. Iseabail had single-handedly eradicated thousands of high bloods in one night—something the Balquhidder clan hadn’t been able to achieve in all the years that had passed since they’d discovered the cure to the blood curse that was placed on the Fae.

But the witches were sticklers for honor and tradition. They were rule makers , not rule breakers. And they did not hold with dark magic. “I’m sending you back to Nevercross once you’re done here,” I told her, leaning back against the wall. Iseabail’s head snapped up. Lorreth’s shoulders tensed at the same time, utter disbelief in his dark eyes. “I’ll come and pay the high priestess a visit, too. I’m thinking about bringing Tal with me,” I continued.

The scrying pendulum Iseabail held swung wildly—not because she had located Ren at last, but because her hands were shaking. She straightened slowly, looking up from the detailed map of the courts she had been poring over.

“Why would you do that?” she asked stiffly. “I’d have thought you had far too much going on, what with your sister, and Ren, and the evacuation.”

I considered her for a while. Let her stew a moment before I decided she had sweat enough. “Well, the witches have done us all a great service, cleansing the Blood Court. I need to thank them. It’d be remiss of me to let their sacrifice go unacknowledged.”

“That’s really unnecessary. We didn’t act on behalf of the Fae, Kingfisher. This was done for the betterment of our clan. No sacrifice was made.”

“Of course there was,” I said airily. “The High Council outlawed dark magic millennia ago. That’s how Algat found herself cast out of the Kinross clan, wasn’t it? If they authorized forceful cleansing and the use of black hell gate spellwork to rid Sanasroth of the vampire nobles, then they made a grave sacrifice indeed. They sacrificed their ethics. Their morals. Their—”

“Stop.” The word echoed around the drawing room.

I had her.

It had only been a suspicion, but now I knew it to be fact: The matriarchs of Iseabail’s house had no idea what she had done. A lethal smile began to spread across my face, slow as honey. “What did you tell them?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. “Did you say you’d convince the high bloods that it was in their best interests to return to their natural-born states?”

Iseabail locked eyes with me, defiance radiating from every pore of her as her face went carefully blank. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what I told them.”

Lorreth made a scathing sound at the back of his throat, his leathers creaking as he looked away, out of the window, shaking his head, as if such a thing could ever have been done. More than once, the witches had tried to convince the high bloods who had rejected the cure to reconsider their decisions. The Fae kings had tried, too. Rurik Daianthus from Yvelia. Royan from Gilaria. Shara from Lissia. No one had succeeded in persuading the high bloods that they would be better off as members of the Fae courts again. How they’d believed Iseabail would persuade them now was a mystery.

I tutted, shaking my head from side to side in faux disapproval. “Oh dear. They’re going to be very disappointed when they find out about the fucking bloodbath you orchestrated then, aren’t they?”

“You can’t tell them.” Iseabail skirted around my father’s old desk, raising her hands. My shadows were at the ready, but Lorreth got there first. He rarely used his own innate magic. Once, he had told me that his people swore an oath not to use the magic they were born with. From the North, his people lived in the wilds and carved a pitiful life for themselves out of the tundra. They were strange folk, with even stranger beliefs. They considered their magic sacred, accidentally stolen from nature during the process of being born. To use their gifts was to flout that theft in front of the gods. For Lorreth’s family, it was a sin worse than murder to use magic—inherited, small, or otherwise.

Though he was nothing like his family and didn’t share their beliefs, he had still been raised under their roof, and some things stuck with you, whether you believed in them or not. I’d seen my friend wield his power only twice before, and both times had been to save someone else. Later, if I asked him why he did it, he’d probably say he unleashed his power because he had thought Iseabail was going to attack me, and he’d be able to say it because he believed it. But I saw the look on his face as he threw out his hands; he also did it because he was angry.

Iseabail was lifted from her feet. In a flash, she flew backward, slamming into the dusty old bookcase behind the desk. Books toppled to the floor. A vase full of dried flowers fell and shattered on the ground. White light snapped around Iseabail’s wrists and ankles, lashing her to the bookcase. The band of energy that whipped around the witch’s throat dug into her skin and cinched tight.

“I . . . was . . .” Iseabail gasped. “Wasn’t . . .”

“ Shut your mouth,” Lorreth snapped.

Iseabail’s eyes found mine, beseeching. “You’re . . . just going to . . . stand there? You’re not the . . . ethical, high and . . . mighty hero you pr . . . pretend to be around . . . your mate .”

Hero? I wanted to laugh. Gods, how I wanted to. I’d never heard anything more ridiculous in all my life. “ I don’t pretend to be anything,” I told her. “Saeris makes me kinder than I should be. Do not misjudge me. I would do all manner of unconscionable things in the pursuit of her safety. I’d take my friends and my mate to another realm and let this one burn if I thought for one second that it was what she wanted. I’ve given everything I have to protect the people of Yvelia, and they spit on me and bay for my head because of it. I’m about to lose my home to this godscursed rot. I have no love left for this place, and I have very little good left in me . I’m afraid if you’re hoping for a hero, you’ll have to look somewhere else.”

Iseabail blinked at that, the accusation in her watering eyes cutting into me. “You don’t . . . mean that. I see you . . .” She rasped. “Your soul . You’d fight and bleed . . . for this . . . realm—”

“Lorreth!” The door to the drawing room was open. There Saeris stood, hair and clothes dripping wet, her mouth hanging open in dismay. “What are you doing ?”

Lorreth reacted as though he’d been scalded. His power crackled out of existence, leaving the reek of ozone in its wake. Iseabail slid down the bookcase, coughing as she crumpled into a heap amid the fallen books. The warrior’s cheeks and ears burned bright red as he turned away from the witch and set his gaze on the casement above the window, unable to meet Saeris’s eyes.

“What the hell is going on?” Saeris brought the scent of rain with her as she entered the room. She looked from Iseabail to Lorreth and then to me. “Are we torturing people now?” she asked quietly.

“It’s all right,” Iseabail croaked. “Lorreth wasn’t going to hurt me.”

“I fucking was ,” the warrior argued.

There were witches among the clans who could look into a person’s soul. It was said that they could get the measure of a male just by taking one look at him. Good. Bad. Kind. Cold. It was all there, apparently: the blueprints to our souls, laid bare for certain witches to read as easily as the lines of a book. Iseabail had never mentioned that she was such a witch, but the certainty she spoke with gave the impression that she might have been.

Regardless of her abilities, she was right about Lorreth. He wouldn’t have hurt her. The damned witch had him acting the fool—to say his people had history with the Balquhidder clan would have been an understatement—but he wouldn’t have caused her any harm, even if he didn’t believe that right now.

Saeris shot the warrior a baleful glance as she crossed the room and offered her hand to the witch, helping her to her feet. “Have you found Ren?” She posed the question to all three of us as one.

“No,” Iseabail answered. “I’ve tried every which way I can think of, but he’s nowhere that my spellwork can detect.”

“All right, then. If you’re certain he’s not on his way here, then we’ll have to regroup and pick this up later. I just ran into Danya as I was coming back into the house. She says the rot is here.”

Black vines snaked over the blanket of snow that covered the lawns. Wherever the rot touched, the snow melted, already softened by the rain, and the ground was momentarily exposed—blades of grass, still green thanks to my father’s wards, saw the light for the first time in centuries, only to wilt, turn brittle, and break seconds later. The necrotic spread crept forward before my eyes, its progress startlingly efficient as it made for the house.

The last remaining unit of warriors moved quickly through the shadow gate. Only two hundred fighters waited in rank and file to be transported. The warriors who had already gone through had carried large trunks with them, full of the family rings and other items of jewelry and that I’d once tasked Saeris to turn into relics. The last of the warriors carried the silver that we’d brought back from Zilvaren. Their breath clouded the air, their laughter nervous as they watched the hellish tide come in. Swords, daggers, staffs, bows, and arrows: They were armed to the teeth, and magic danced at their fingertips, but still, they were not equipped to face this foe.

“As fast as you can!” I called. “When you’re through, wait at the campsite! Do not go down into the village. The satyrs aren’t expecting us. The last time this many fighting Fae showed up on their doorstep, a bloody battle ensued. Let’s not give them the wrong impression!”

I was met with curiosity and uncertainty as the troops stepped single file through the lucent smoke and shadow. Down to the last one of them, they knew me. I had led them once. Been their commander. I had charged with them up the steep slope of victory and fallen back with them in retreat. Every horror I had ever asked them to face, I’d made damned sure I had faced it first . . . and then I’d left them. None of them had known why. None had known where I’d gone. Thanks to Tal, Renfis had known. Everlayne, too. But they’d been Oath Bound not to tell anyone where I was. They hadn’t been able to explain to these fighters that I had not abandoned them willingly. They knew the truth now—the details of Gillethrye and what had taken place there had spread through Irrín quickly enough after we’d faced Malcolm in the maze. But a hundred years was a long time, and trust was lost far quicker than that.

Renfis was their leader now. Ren should have been the one urging them through the shadow gate toward safety, but he was missing, and I was an unreliable substitute.

The rain had stopped a little while ago. It was almost dusk, and the clouds were low and dense enough that Saeris could stand to be outside. She wore a heavy woolen cloak with the hood drawn up to shield her from the last of the day’s light. As she crossed the snowy slope toward me, Onyx trotting close on her heels, I was once again struck by how strange but normal it was to have her here, to have her as my mate. She wasn’t what I’d expected. She was so much more. She really had come blazing into my life like a comet, and now she was changing everything.

She was different, too. The past few weeks had changed her. There was a lithe confidence to her as she approached, her boots crunching in the snow. She’d always looked good in her fighting leathers, but now they belonged on her. My chest tightened with unspeakable pride when I saw her black tresses now hung in war braids beneath her hood. Fae war braids. She had become a part of this world—a part of me —and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Her eyes flashed daggers at me when she pitched up at my side, and I braced for the shit-kicking I was about to receive. “We don’t torture people,” she said, her tone full of ice.

“Carrion tortures me daily,” I muttered.

“If we torture people, then we’re like them ,” she said, ignoring me.

“And if we capture an enemy warrior and they have information we need?” I asked.

She gave me a dry, displeased, sidelong look from the depths of her hood.

I held up my hands. “All right. Okay. We don’t torture people.”

“I think we should send Iseabail back to Nevercross. We might need to call on the witches again. We won’t be able to do that if we’re holding one of them hostage.”

Decisive. Strategic. I knew Saeris could be both, but I liked seeing this side of her right now. She was making plans, working to stay one step ahead, and that cheered me no end. I nodded, setting my eyes on the fading horizon, trying not to look at the black infection that was slithering ever closer toward my family home. “You’re right. As soon as everyone’s through the gate, I’ll make sure she finds her way back to clan lands.”

“And in the morning, I’d like to go back to Ammontraíeth. All those people—”

“Aren’t your responsibility,” I told her gently. “Not if you don’t want them to be. There is no Blood Court anymore, Saeris.”

“But there’s still Ammontraíeth. There’s still Sanasroth . And we have no idea if the horde is where I commanded them to stay. What if they’ve broken free and are tearing through the palace right now, draining all the people who chose to come back?”

I worked my jaw, not wanting to answer. That scenario had crossed my mind, too, and my initial response had not been very generous.

Did their renewed Fae status undo all the terrible crimes they’d committed over the centuries? Thank fuck it wasn’t up to me to make that call.

“Most of those people didn’t choose to become high bloods,” Saeris said. She had no way of knowing what I was thinking. Not even with the connection we shared as mates. I supposed it made sense that she was also contemplating the question of their guilt. “Malcolm murdered most of them. They might have been kind people before. Good. And despite your frown, I don’t think you’d leave them there to be eaten by feeders. Just on the off chance that they’re not assholes.”

“On the off chance that they’re not assholes. Gods. ” I laughed mirthlessly at that, and the laughter turned into a sigh. An uncomfortable realization had struck while she’d been talking. What if these were the people from Gillethrye? The ones I hadn’t been able to save. The ones I had ordered to be burned when Malcolm’s feeders had scaled the walls of the city and torn through its streets, leaving death and decay in their wake.

What if I had been able to save them? Saeris wanted the same opportunity, and I wasn’t about to deny her that. I wouldn’t sentence her to endure the same kind of regret that gnawed on my soul every day. “We won’t take Tal with us,” I said abruptly. “I doubt he’s up to it. And anyway, after everything he went through there, I think it’s best if he never has to step foot in Ammontraíeth again.”

Saeris’s eyes went wide. “Wait. So you agree, then? We can go back?” Her surprise was endearing. I wrapped my arm around her and pressed a kiss to her temple through her hood.

“I shouldn’t tell you this, since you seem blissfully unaware of the power you hold over me, but . . . I will give you whatever you want, Saeris Fane. Always. No matter what it costs me.”

It wasn’t a promise, but it was the truth, and I would honor it. Somehow, even though the rot was on the verge of eating Cahlish and my last lingering connection to my family, I managed to smile. I suspected the smile was lopsided, but still. “I’m yours to command, Queen Saeris,” I whispered into her hair.

There was no eye roll at the title this time. Before, she’d ruled over a court of monsters. There was a slim chance that the remnants of her court might be redeemable after the events of the Evenlight Ball, and Saeris’s attitude toward her people had done a drastic one-eighty as a result. Not because she craved power or wealth but because she saw hope in a situation and wanted to help.

The odds had never been in her favor back in Zilvaren. Madra was a monster. Her officials were corrupt. The people of Saeris’s ward were dirt poor and barely making it from one day to the next, but Saeris had never abandoned them . Perhaps the way she clung to hope made her a fool in some people’s eyes, but it was just one of the things that made her extraordinary in mine.

The way she looked at me made me want to do better. To be better. Every day of my life, I was going to have to work my absolute fucking hardest to deserve her love and respect. I wasn’t afraid of the challenge.

Saeris’s smile made something profound inside me thrum . The echoes of fate and all the universe vibrated behind my breastbone, promising . . . what? I wasn’t like my mother. I hadn’t been blessed with visions of the future. I was just going to have to live my life and find out.

Saeris’s eyes drifted over my shoulder, focusing on the estate, and the moment was lost. “They’re coming,” she said.

The last of us.

They came down the slope from the house together: Te Léna and her mate, Maynir, who carried a bundled-up Everlayne in his arms; Iseabail, walking ahead of the group, her skirts pinned up with one hand, her crimson hair stark and bright against the white of the snow; Lorreth, helping a weary-looking Tal, who was up, dressed, and walking (though rather shakily) on his own two feet. Carrion, Foley, and Hayden brought up the rear, each carrying a towering stack of books.

Relief stabbed through me at the sight. In an estate full of valuables and riches, it was the books they were saving. The information inside some of those tomes couldn’t be found anywhere else in Yvelia. It had been Belikon’s first priority when he’d assumed the throne of the Winter Palace to seek out and destroy anything that might threaten his reign. For as evil as he was, he was also smart.

He knew that, to control his people, he had to control the information they had access to. Hide the truth from people, and you kept them in the dark. Burn the books, and you got to rewrite history and the future.

Those books would be replicated. They’d be shared among the masses. If I had to copy every single fucking one of them out by hand myself, I would see it done.

The last of the warriors were gone now. Our small group was all that remained, standing on the brink of something that none of us understood or knew how to fix.

Everlayne looked so tiny in Maynir’s arms. She’d always been small. But strong , too. Full of fire and passion. I’d always wondered how such a small vessel could contain so much energy. She was diminished like this—an echo of her true self. Purple shadows rimmed her eyes, her skin wan and pasty. Her hair had lost its luster, the normally bright blond strands dull and stringy in her thick, single braid. Her eyes shuttled quickly left, right, left, right beneath eyelids that looked so paper thin they were almost translucent.

“She’s burning up,” Te Léna said. “We need to get her back indoors as quickly as possible. I have a friend in Inishtar. Someone I trust. I’ll take her to them and make her comfortable, Fisher. I’ll send Maynir to let you know if there are any updates.”

“Thank you.” Everlayne had only ever had Belikon as a parent, and yet she had still turned out to be as kind and sweet as her mother. The blood we shared had bound us, even when the king had determined to keep us apart. She was my sister, and I knew she was in there somewhere, fighting to get back to us. I could feel her.

Te Léna and Maynir disappeared through the shadow gate, taking her with them. Iseabail was next to go. The witch hugged Saeris briefly, offered me a stiff nod, then was gone.

“If these satyrs don’t have anything stronger than ale, I’m holding you personally accountable,” Lorreth said as he passed us. “Just ’cause they can’t hold their liquor doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t.”

“I’ll find you in a tavern, then?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I think we could all use a drink after this. I have the headache from hell, thanks to those sprites.”

He was referring to the fire sprites in particular. The other household creatures had already gone through the shadow gate, but the fire sprites were still below ground. Lorreth had gone into the bowels of Cahlish, as deep into the pyre as he could tolerate, and he’d tried to convince Archer and his friends to leave with us, but they had refused. They couldn’t survive very long without the heat of the pyre to sustain them—a day or two, at most—and anyway, they believed their brimstone would protect them from the rot.

They were likely right, but it still didn’t feel good leaving friends behind.

Tal was even paler than normal as he dipped his head to me. “I won’t be a burden on the camp,” he said in a raspy voice. “As soon as you’re through, I want you to send me back to Bayland’s End.”

Bayland’s End. I hadn’t heard that name spoken out loud in centuries. Hearing it now brought a wave of nostalgia crashing down on me. Taladaius’s ancestral seat had been a well-loved, if a little run-down, haunt of mine in my youth. We had gotten up to all kinds of mischief there together—two young Faelings discovering their magic and learning the lessons their realm had to teach them the hard way. Taladaius wanted to go back. Whether his mother would have him back was another matter.

“Bayland’s End is less than a hundred leagues from Cahlish,” I said. “The rot won’t stop once it’s finished with Cahlish. It will keep spreading in all directions and be on your doorstep again in a matter of days.”

Tal shrugged half-heartedly. “Only if you don’t stop it first.” He wore an amused smile. “I get the feeling that the two of you will have found a way to put a stop to all of this by tomorrow night, anyway. You’re each as stubborn as the other when it comes to getting your way.”

He wasn’t wrong there. The outlines of a plan were forming in my mind. It was a long shot, and by all the gods was it dangerous, but if it worked . . .

Saeris would be safe .

The realm would be safe, at least for a little while.

The mess I would have to create would be catastrophic. Sometimes, the cure was more dangerous than the affliction, but at least it would buy us some time . . .

“Do you guys mind if I skip ahead in line? These books are really heavy.” Carrion grimaced awkwardly as he leaned around Tal’s shoulder. The smuggler was wearing three coats layered one on top of the other. His hands were encased in mittens.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Saeris asked.

“Because I always end up sitting in a snowbank, waiting around for hours while everyone else disappears off to do something dangerous. I don’t love being cold, Saeris.”

“Why are you saying that like the weather is my fault?” she asked.

“It is your fault. You could have fallen in love with an outcast warrior from Gilaria or, better yet, from Lissia, but no. You fell for the one from the frozen wasteland that is Yvelia.”

“You do realize that that’s your land you’re talking about,” I reminded him.

But Carrion was already trudging toward the shadow gate. A moment later he had vanished, books and all.

“The Randy Swine,” Lorreth said.

“ Excuse me?” Saeris’s eyebrows shot up.

“That’s the name of the tavern we’ll be at.”

“Oh. Right.”

Lorreth gave us a wink and went, supporting Tal under his arm. That left only the four us: Hayden, Foley, Saeris, and myself.

Saeris’s brother squinted worriedly over the top of his stack of books at the shadow gate, apparently not sure what to make of it. “I’ll go through with you,” Saeris said. “You’ll feel like shit on the other side, but that only happens the first time. After that, traveling through the gates won’t affect you anymore.”

“Great.” He sounded breathless. If he hadn’t been able to see the rot blackening the hillside and corrupting the ground with his own two eyes, he probably would have insisted on staying at Cahlish. As it stood, the rot was growing closer by the second, and we were running out of time. “Will you bring Onyx for me?” Saeris asked. “I can’t carry him, carry some of these books, and catch Hayden on the other side.”

“I’m not going to pass out again,” Hayden objected.

“Yes, you are,” Saeris fired back.

“You probably will,” Foley said at the same time.

“Of course. I’ve got the fox. Don’t worry about him,” I told her. “Go on. I’m right behind you.” I gave her another kiss on her forehead. “Go.” And then, so that only she could hear: I love you, Little Osha.

I love you, too.

I felt the moment that she passed through the shadows and moved beyond my reach. It was as though I had been cut off from life itself, and only the cold, empty void of death remained. I shivered at the sensation, something unpleasant twisting in my gut, but the feeling was instantly forgotten when I had to dart forward and grab Onyx, who was about to leap through the shadow gate after Saeris all by himself.

“Gods alive,” Foley said. “You told me up on the roof, and I believed you, I did. But seeing you pine over a female in the flesh ?” He shook his head, his golden fangs glinting in the muted light as he laughed at me. “I mean, it’s just something I never thought I’d see with my own two eyes.”

I pulled a very dour face at him as I herded him toward the gate. “Shut up, Foley. I can’t fucking help it, okay?”

He grunted but then elbowed me playfully in the side. “Are you okay with this? Leaving Cahlish? I know how much this place means to you.”

Before I could stop myself, I’d turned back to look at the estate. There were other houses that were larger. Finer. More impressive to look upon. But Cahlish was my parents’ home. And for a very long time, it had been the only thing that was mine. Leaving it felt like abandoning a dying family member, but we had run out of options. “I have to let it go,” I murmured. “If there’s a way to save the place, then I’ll find it. And if there isn’t . . .” I shrugged. “Then there’s no point in looking back. There’ll be time to build new homes for ourselves once this is said and done.”

“Mm. Very pragmatic,” Foley said teasingly. “You think we’ll succeed, then? Find a way through all of this?”

I faced the shadow gate again, steeling myself. “I do. I have to believe it.”

“For her ?” he finished.

I gave him yet another dry look. I didn’t deny it, though.

“By the gods, you’ve got it bad.” Foley slapped me on the shoulder, grinning. The sound of his laughter rang in my ears as my friend disappeared through the shadow gate. I could still hear it as I stepped in after him, Onyx pressed tight against my chest plate. Wind howled past my ears as the world went black . . . and then the laughter morphed into something else.

A voice, calling out from the space between worlds.

“Hello, Dog.”