But already the Spirit was retreating, her form rippling and slipping into the pipes like ink sucked away. Arawn had already pivoted, his coat snapping behind him.
“I know where she’s going. Hold on.”
His arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me hard against him. He carried me straight through the window. Before my feet had even left the ground, we were already airborne. His wings of mist unfurled. My arms clung tight around his neck. Below us, the manor reeled by in a succession of dark roofs, twisted turrets, and sharp dormers.
“I don’t know what you’ll see,” he said, his jaw tightening against my temple. “But that Spirit will show you far more than I could ever explain.”
The wind lashed my cheeks, my legs dangled in the void, yet I could not tear my eyes away from him. “Wait… You knew about the Spirits?”
Arawn gave a fleeting, cutting smile. “I understood the moment you arrived. How they swarmed around you when they’d always ignored the others. How only you could hear them, change them in your presence. How even when they tried to drive you away, it was hopeless. You taught them to exist. To hope.”
My heart hammered against his chest as I tightened my hold around his neck. A flicker caught my eye, just long enough to glimpse Aignan. A silk basket dangled proudly from his fangs.He trotted down a corridor, tail lashing the air as though he had just saved the world. What on earth was he doing here?
I didn’t have time to finish the thought. With a sharp beat of his wings, Arawn dove straight for another window. The glass roof shattered in a shriek of breaking crystal. His wings folded around me like a cocoon of mist, his body twisting to take the impact.
His hands slid down my arms to catch my wrists. Gently, he set me on the floor and released me. Heavy drapery, walls black as night, the scent of eucalyptus and resin, no doubt we were in his chamber.
“The Spirit won’t harm you,” he said behind me, his voice lower, slower.
I turned. He wasn’t looking at me as he usually did. There was no sarcasm, no provocation. Just emptiness in his eyes.
“I don’t deserve your trust, Sugarplum. But I’m asking you to give it to me one last time.”
He guided me behind a screen. There, the air was thick with steam, veils of mist seeping from pipes. The bathroom, where a black basin streaked with violet stood at the center like a forgotten altar. A moist heat clung to my skin. The dark water inside the basin could only have come from the lake. It rippled, and the Spirit’s hand timidly emerged, her body hidden within.
“I will be with you,” Arawn said, his own hand outstretched to me.
I took them both. A dizzying vertigo stole my breath, and when I opened my eyes, it was no longer water before me.
It was Nyla. Standing before a door, pounding, again and again. A chill ripped through my spine, cold seeping straight into my bones.
“Arawn, what is this?”
He didn’t answer, but Nyla pushed the door open. She entered a room with dark green walls and slid a familiargrimoire onto the desk. My grimoire. It would have kept sliding if a boot, streaked with dried blood.
I recognized him at once—Arawn of the past: long hair, slouched in his chair, feet propped on the wood, as if none of this mattered.
“I need you to hide a letter in this grimoire,” Nyla ordered. “I want it discovered only when its full potential has been reached.”
It had been so long since I’d heard her voice. I bit my lip hard to hold back the rising tears.
“And why would I help you?” Arawn replied, leafing idly through the grimoire with a claw-blackened finger. “There’s nothing in here that interests me.”
Nyla slammed her fists onto the desk. “I agreed to work for you and for Zelda. You owe me that much!”
Arawn lifted his hand and, with a cynical smile, hurled a haze of black magic her way. Nyla didn’t even flinch.
“I’m not as weak as you think.” She blew the smoke away with a single breath. “Your spells do not affect me.”
She shoved the grimoire back toward him with one finger.
“That’s why Zelda entrusted you with me,” Arawn muttered, narrowing his eyes. “She thinks you’ll last longer than the others. But staying by my side is signing your own death sentence.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Sorcerer,” Nyla replied with a smile that never reached her eyes. Then her gaze slid to Arawn’s hand, where dark veins spread beneath his skin, spikes piercing through his flesh. “They say a good deed purifies the soul. And you—you look more and more like your mentor. I’d say your time is running out.”
Arawn shot to his feet, rage flashing in his eyes. The walls trembled. I expected him to lash out at Nyla. Instead, he thrust out his hand.
“Give me that damned letter,” he growled through his teeth. “And don’t ever ask me for anything again.”
