Page 125 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Darkness tilted his head playfully. “What of them?” He read the look in my focused eyes as I realized he wouldn’t clarify Theia’s other answers without making bargains with Cebrinne and Kye. The shadow grinned like a cat. “Anything else before I go?”

He’d already begun to drift away, fading into the night. I snatched his arm, pulling him back. It was like plunging my hand into the frigid waters of the Brána Do Podsvetia.

“Yes,” I said. “Release my mother entirely.” Gravel crunched as someone behind me shifted their weight. My fingers tightened over his wrist.

“Oh,” he clucked, the black wisps around his arms coiling and writhing in excitement. “What will you offer me if I do?”

“Nothing.”

Darkness barked a wet laugh. I leaned into him close enough I could almost see his dark, rich skin under his smoldering shadows. “You will,” I said, my returning smile laced with the sweet taste of a Naiad vow. “Because I am no fool, and I know Theia’s replacement means more to you than you let on. Theia plans to use my bloodline. But mark my words, Caecus—if my mother dies a bauble on your shelf, there will be no further blood from me. Unravel that riddle.”

Darkness’s smile leveled for only a moment before he closed his eyes and chuckled. The thorny heather caught in his shadows like claws in a cape, but he twisted into a shrinking poof of air. I could never understand exactly what he was, sometimes more ash than solid, more liquid than vapor, but then his shadows would stretch and shrink and glimmer in a way that demanded he was none and all of them at once.

“All right, pet,” he said, humor dripping into his shadowed eyes once again. He dropped his voice to a soft murmur. “I don’t mind parting with her knowing I will someday claim you among my treasures.”

He let the wind carry him like grains of dark sand, vanishing into mist and night. A small glow remained in his place, as small as a seed for Cebrinne to claim. I shook my hair from my eyes, turning into the current of air rising from the wild waves, my sea silk dress whipping wildly behind me.

“We’ll see,” I whispered.

Aren glanced up at the sound of us returning. He motioned toward the office, brows lifted in a slightly concerned he’s in there sort of way.

Pheolix hadn’t left the office.

Grout dust coated his hair and clothes. Cuts and scrapes from Thaan’s earlier attack had half-healed, soft-pink lines the only evidence he’d been dragged and thrown and beaten. But new nicks along his knuckles had slurred blood with dust, thick and chalky. The flagstone he was rocking loose was the sixth one he’d worked out of the floor, and he huffed softly as he labored, the sleeves of his shirt tight against his biceps when he flexed.

We hadn’t all come back after the meeting with Theia and Darkness. Nori and Olinne returned to the sea, Nori careful to avoid my eyes as she left. Cebrinne had walked Ano to his little room. I could only imagine the conversation between them tonight—my father hadn’t stopped his covert string of stares at her the entire walk back to the palace. I wondered which shocked him more: working out that Cebrinne had spoken to Mihauna sometime in her past, or that she’d sold herself to Darkness.

Diara slid in beside me at Selena’s table. “Should we try to stop him?”

“No idea,” I exhaled. Exhaustion dragged its heels over every thought in my head, the energy from my limbs. I felt like a slab of beef boiled in a pot, the meat dripping from my bones. My eyelids sagged, and my body only cared to lean—against the wall, the chair, Kye’s shoulder.

The rest of them looked as tired as I felt, lumpen and bloodied. We should have drifted to our rooms. Moons knew we needed sleep.

But none of us could seem to leave Pheolix.

Hadrian stood with Aegir at the office door, the drone’s shaky breaths streaming out from behind the wall. The crown prince scratched the side of his jaw with split knuckles. “Cebrinne asked Theia where Selena is.”

The scrape of stone grinding against stone paused. “What did Theia say?”

“We don’t know exactly. Theia said she’s at the divide.”

Pheolix sniffed once, loudly. “The divide of what?”

Hadrian lifted a shoulder. “I thought maybe you would know.”

“I don’t.” The grating sound returned.

Aegir rubbed his fingers roughly over an eye. “Maybe it would come to you after a night’s sleep.” Pheolix didn’t answer, and Aegir blew air from the side of his mouth. “There’s nothing in here, gnat. You’re tearing up the floor but there’s nothing here.”

“If you’re all tired, you can go to bed,” Pheolix answered, his words wrapping loudly beyond the door, delivered to the rest of us with a sharp acuity that made Aren grimace.

Hadrian swallowed. He rolled one sleeve to his elbow, then the other. Watching him, Kye swung a leg off the chair beside me, following Hadrian inside the office, Dimas and Leal behind them. I slanted a glance at Diara, and then we entered as well, finding a place along the floor to try and pry stone from stone.

Pheolix straightened, not bothering to lift bloodshot eyes to level with ours. “I don’t need help,” the drone said, the hush of his voice like a blade sliding quietly through stalks of grass. “I’ve been waiting. Over twenty years."

His words dropped off. His mouth hardened like the stone under his fingertips, losing himself in thought. Then roused with a small shake, ignoring all of us as he set himself back to his task.

Dimas pushed under a groove, and rock split in a loud crack as he tilted it up. Dust plumed, and through it, Pheolix laid a hand over the human’s arm. He didn’t try to look up at Dimas. He didn’t look at anyone. His clouded eyes were fixed beyond us, overcast with something as cold and encompassing as rain in the dark. “Everything I do, or don’t do, or wish to do, or wish to avoid but have to do—everything calls for help. Please. Please. Let me do this alone.”