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Moss and ivy traveled over the once sharp architecture, the gray surface withered and rounded. Glassless windows opened to the outside world, and the gateless entrance beckoned them in. A path through the grass speared up ahead, the softened ground evidence the castle still received visitors, despite its fall hundreds of years ago.
Evelyn followed Cyrus, in step behind him on the path. The higher they climbed, the thicker the air became. Not from altitude, but with other. Evelyn’s magic flicked out and detected the darkness seeping from the castle. It crept up her spine in greeting, curious and cold. Evelyn shivered.
Cyrus stopped on the path. “Is everything all right?”
The wind howled, deep and moody like an omen. It ruffled Evelyn’s hair, and she fiddled with her bone staff, making sure it was still secure through her low bun.
“This place . . .” Evelyn shook her head, unsure how to describe it to a human without revealing she possessed magic and could feel others’.
Cyrus frowned. The opening to the castle loomed in shadow, too black to make out what lay ahead. “I feel it, too.”
“Darkness?”
Cyrus’s expression went grim. “Death.”
Evelyn pursed her lips. Whatever she felt surrounding the castle, it made her reconsider Miss Patricia’s tales of faeries.
Evelyn and Cyrus passed through the gate and entered a hallway. Mildew and the smell of wet rock permeated the air, as did the silence, more deafening the farther they walked.
At the end of the hall, she could just make out a dim light. Cyrus glanced back, and Evelyn nodded in agreement. She couldn’t shake how well they worked together, how in sync she felt with him.
Their footsteps clattered against the stone hallway until they entered what appeared to once have been a grand hall. The ceiling had crumbled above, leaving an open outlet to the cloudy sky. A disarray of rubble covered the dais. Behind it, the last threads of a tapestry hung in defiance, swaying in the breeze that escaped from the open windows.
Evelyn approached the dais, walking around a circle of burnt candles on the steps, melted to stumps, their wax having dripped onto and melded with the stone slabs. Various items were piled in the center as offerings—bottles of unopened wine, wilted grapes, rotten apples.
A single loaf of bread, wrapped in linen, appeared to be recent, not a patch of mold on it yet. Cyrus joined her, then squatted and reached for the bread.
Don’t ever disturb a faerie fort.
Miss Patricia’s words chimed through Evelyn’s mind, and she grabbed Cyrus’s wrist in time. Panic quickened her heart.
“Don’t disturb the offerings,” she whispered.
Cyrus stared at her hand, tight and firm around his muscled forearm. A zap seared through her fingers, and Evelyn snatched her hand away, hoping the dim light hid her blush as she assessed the offerings again.
She pointed to the loaf. “That’s fresh. Days old compared to the other offerings.”
“Which means someone has been here recently.”
“Maybe it was McKenna,” she said.
“It would fit the timeline of her death.” He paced the hall again. “It’s also the perfect place to meet a vampyr. Lacking sunlight and secluded from the village.”
Evelyn looked east and west and found passageways leading farther into the tower. “I can take one and you can take the other.”
“There’s no way we’re separating.” Something flashed over Cyrus’s features, as if he was surprised at what he’d said.
Evelyn thought nothing of it, or tried to, at least. She needed to solve this murder, not over-think her interactions with Cyrus. Not his kindness. The things he said. His touch. None of it mattered. They worked together.
And Evelyn held too many secrets, too much of a past to even risk getting close to him, dragging him into the mess that was her life.
She tapped into her magic and focused on the task at hand. Evelyn made sure to keep her expression and posture neutral so Cyrus wouldn’t notice.
The other in the castle buzzed, the darkness pulling her to the left doorway. Evelyn sensed the vampyr curse tethered to dark magic. The coldness. The affliction.
A red droplet stained the stone near the doorway. Evelyn crouched down for a closer look; the color was unmistakable.
“Cyrus,” she called.
