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There was no hiding what he was from the world. No glamour or spell could make his eyes look like anything but the mirrors they were—a mark of his curse.
“I’ve managed,” he retorted sharply.
“I intended to scare you off,” she confessed, still eyeing him down. “But it seems you’re the only one left, and since that’s the case, how about I offer you a little advice instead?”
Aldor tensed at the offer. “I need no advice from you, hag.”
She cackled, and he gritted his teeth. “That’s no way to speak to your elder, boy.” The witch tapped the side of her nose. “Remember your manners.”
Aldor sent his dagger hurling toward her throat. It landed in the wall with a thunk when the witch shifted out of the way like a misted specter. She stepped back into view from the hallway a second later. “You’ll have to be much faster than that, pet,” she observed, teasing at her hair and eyeing the blade. “You’ll get the advice whether you want it or not,” she went on, poking the end of the dagger’s hilt. A cat with bright yellow eyes appeared at her feet and hissed up at him.
He had no time for the witch’s stalling. Or cats.
“Leave the woman alone,” she warned him with a depth that made his stomach twist. “She isn’t the answer to your curse. No matter what your High Priestess whispers in your ear.”
“Hold your tongue,” he spat, “or lose it.”
She gave him a sad little look that made his fingers itch to throw another blade. “You young ones always insist on learning the hard way,” she observed with a heavy sigh, reaching down to pick up the cat. “Suit yourself, but I did warn you,” she finished, wandering down the hall and out of sight.
He glared at the spot where she’d stood. Aldor loathed witches and their games.
She knew nothing.
In the end, he would get his reward.
In the end, Nestra, his High Priestess, would make him whole again.
He only had to find the Star.
He only had to find the girl.
Aldor fetched his dagger with haste, then turned back to the darkened hallway. He glanced at the fractured door that had been touched by the Stepping Stone before sliding into the bathroom, in which he barely fit. There, he pulled the ID out of his pocket and touched it against the surface of the mirror above the sink. “Where is she?”
His own pale face, disheveled dark blond hair, and unshaven stubble stared back at him. His broad body lacked the strength it once held. He was only a shell of himself. He looked nearly mad. He was mad, he knew. Driven mad by obsession. By purpose. The mirror rippled and warped, wiping his reflection away. The image was blurred. Obscured by magick. A hazy shape moved past, and a pair of green eyes came into focus, only for a second, before there was a burst of violet light. The mirror shattered, clattering over the sink and bathroom floor.
He cursed. She was hidden. Hidden somewhere that was protected by strong magick. Somewhere he would not be able to track her.
Aldor was furious she’d slipped through his grasp, but a jolt of anticipation skittered through him. Nearly three decades he’d searched, without a whisper from the mirrors to give him direction. Now, after all these years—those green eyes flashed in his mind—he was close.
A prickle of magick sent his hair standing up. Aldor plucked the ID from amongst the shards of broken mirror and slid it back into his pocket. It was time to go. The witches had arrived.
He closed the door to the bathroom, managing to squeeze in, and pulled the silver chain from under the collar of his shirt, the elaborate golden skeleton key dangling on the end. Aldor pushed the key toward the door, and a similarly grand lock appeared in the middle. He placed the key inside. “The tomb of Ferin, the island of Strye,” he instructed it. He turned the key three times. A flash of light ran around the edge of the door just as voices began to rise in the rooms beyond. He pulled the key from the lock and walked out onto leaf-strewn gray stone.
Aldor closed the door behind him and let out a deep breath. A cool breeze shifted the fallen leaves, and the branches of the trees spread over the acropolis, the resting place of countless highborn zephyrs. The silence was soothing after spending so much time in the modern world. He needed the quiet. He needed time to think.
He turned on his heel to reenter the door he’d just stepped through, no longer a tiny bathroom but a large tomb. In the center lay a sarcophagus of soft gray marble. The carved figure of a regal zephyr man, his wings draped down the edges, his sword held over his chest, lay frozen in eternal peace.
“Hello, Grandfather,” Aldor murmured, moving behind the sarcophagus to the stone alcove at the back of the tomb. Wilted flowers lay in one of the carved slots, placed there by a priestess no doubt. No one else would lay flowers here. No one else would bother to come here at all. Not to pay tribute to a disgraced bloodline.
Aldor pushed the back of the alcove. It gave way under his strength, revealing a hidden passage. It would be some time before the paladins returned home, which gave him time before he would need to report to his mistress.
How Jacard had managed to keep the Star so well-hidden all these years, Aldor didn’t know, but the mage had made a grave mistake. If he’d cared for this girl, he wouldn’t have burdened her with such a target on her back.
She is perfect.
Aldor knew from her apartment that the woman was not the powerful force Jacard had alluded her to be. Gwendolyn Moore may have held the Star, but as far as he could determine, she was no one. Perhaps something had gone wrong with the mage’s plan? Perhaps the death of Jacard’s human lover had gotten in the way?
A small part of him felt sorry for the girl. There was nowhere she could run now. He would find her. No matter the cost. And when Aldor did hunt her down, he would do whatever it took to retrieve the Star and tie up loose ends. There was no other way.
