BEFORE
England, Late 1900s
He was the last one for now. The Monster lingered, its gaze fixed on the little boy, small and frail on the white blanket. A delicate, fleeting life, one that would never bloom fully. The boy had been sick for weeks now, far longer than the others. This pleased the Monster. His struggle was admirable. Once, the boy might have been more. An ally, a pupil, perhaps. But now? His purpose was simple. The Monster would give him a comfortable death.
The boy’s pale cheeks, his trembling eyelids, these were the only things the Monster could still savour. It hovered near the bed, fingers brushing lightly over the old book in its hands. A lullaby from long ago spilled from its lips, a sound as old as time itself, dripping with grief.
The boy was fading, his body slowing. The Monster paused, listening.
“Rest now, little one.”
The words, gentle yet detached, were the last the boy would ever hear. With a final breath, his small chest stilled, and his face turned grey as life slipped away from him.
The Monster didn’t flinch. It simply folded the child in the blanket, his body delicate and limp in its arms. Sliding the tattered book into its coat pocket, the Monster moved silently into the hole in the wall, humming the same eerie melody that had once comforted its earliest charges.
Hunger, the Monster reflected, was a vicious thing with many faces. One could’ve been hungry for power, for knowledge. Or for love, even. The Monster didn’t care about any of these anymore. Now, all it wanted—all it needed—was to stay alive.
The Monster gently rocked the boy’s empty body as it made its way up the dark stone stairs, each step leaving an echoing thump behind. Soon, the resupply would come. It always did. And then, the cycle could begin again.
The Monster’s thoughts flitted to the girl. The one inked with magic. The one who had betrayed it once, long centuries ago. The one whose bloodline still held the power. But the real purpose lay ahead. The fates were aligning.
There was promise in the air.
PROLOGUE
England, Years Later
The sun slowly dipped to sleep behind the tall, green trees of Plashet Park when the little girl—no more than six—jumped off the swing. Her gaze was glued to an old man’s shoulder as he passed the playground. She trembled, searching for her mum, only to find her nose deep in a book.
The little girl pursed her lips and poked her finger through a small hole in her T-shirt. She knew her mum would sew a small flower over it, when she noticed later, so she didn’t mind that new holes always seemed to appear. It was as if a moth lived in them.
She ran barefoot through the silky grass, too young to know better than to engage with strangers. Catching up to the old man, she tugged the edge of his cardigan.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice careful with a curious edge. Slowly, the old man stopped and turned around, his face grey and wrinkled like a forgotten paper someone had crumpled.
“What’s that?” she asked, tipping her head. “What are you carrying?”
The old man’s brows knotted as he looked down at his empty hands, then up at the little girl, who shook her head, confused.
“Not there,” she replied, impatiently, before tiptoeing up and poking his shoulder. “Here.”
As she said it, something slipped past her palm, swirling around her fingers, before floating by.
The small, dark cloud slowly took the shape of a worm and crawled up the old man’s brown cardigan as if it were soil. Then all of a sudden, two rounded wings popped out from the shadow form. They were rounded and small, too small for its body, which made it look weird, like a broken butterfly. Slowly—as if it was unsure how to use its new wings—it lifted off the cardigan.
The girl watched in amazement as the shadow moth danced in the air. It circled the old man’s body once, twice, then disappeared down his ear. The girl gasped and stumbled back.
The old man didn’t react at all.
“Didn’t that hurt?” The girl asked curiously, tipping her head so she could see the old man’s ear better.
There was no sign of the moth. The old man opened his mouth, not to answer, but to send the girl away. He couldn’t understand why such a young child was bothering him on his way home. He was tired, hungry, and all he could think of was his dinner growing cold on the stove.
But then a sharp pain rippled through his head. Pain he had never once experienced before. The little girl drew back, and so did the old man, before he fell to the ground with a sickening thump.
Chaos erupted. Adults surrounded them, shielding the two from the rest of the world, from each other. The next thing the little girl knew, she was with her mum, the playground far behind their backs. Her little hands were held tightly, her eyes locked with a green pair just like hers.
“What happened, bug?”
