Page 114 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

The lift shuddered to a halt, and we spilled out into the Spire’s lower levels. The corridors here were narrower, lit by enchanted sconces that cast dancing shadows on the walls. That wasn’t a metaphor—the shadows were in the middle of performing a complicated and lively jig with daggers. The place was perfect for ambushes, my mind noted automatically. Also perfect for hiding if you were, say, a traitorous former servant with a talent for disappearing.

I’d wanted to be alone after the ritual. Needed time to process the catastrophic revelation that something ancient and murderous had apparently been living inside me this whole time. But being alone meant being trapped with my thoughts, and my thoughts were currently a war zone between what I knew to be true and what that thing kept insisting was real.

So instead, I’d agreed to Griffin’s suggestion of dinner near the Academia of Malice. Anything to avoid another confrontation with Arabella in the confines of our apartment. We’d managed civility during the ritual, even worked together seamlessly, but that was business. Personal was complicated.

Personal was dangerous when I couldn’t trust my own mind.

I focused on keeping my expression neutral, my breathing even. No one could know. Not about the voice, not about what I’d felt when we touched those ley lines, not about the memories that kept trying to surface.

I caught Arabella glancing at me, probably wondering why I’d insisted on dinner out when we were both dead on our feet.

I looked away before she could read too much in my expression.

She suspects. She knows. Destroy her before she—

No. Absolutely fucking not.

But gods, I was tired. Every second was a battle to shove that voice down, to keep it from bleeding through into my actions. The fragment—or shard of consciousness or whatever—wanted control. Wanted to use my power for purposes I could only glimpse in flashes of ancient memory.

“The Writhing Tentacle,” Griffin announced as we rounded a corner. “Best experimental cuisine near the Academia. They do things with transmutation magic that would make your average hedge wizard weep.”

“Experimental cuisine,” Sebastian repeated, his violet eyes widening slightly. “That sounds…”

“Potentially lethal?” Thorne suggested. My security chief had been in a foul mood all day, his search for Pip yielding nothing but dead ends and increasingly creative profanity.

“Exciting,” Sebastian finished firmly. Then, more quietly: “Though I did offer to cook.”

“Your cooking is fine,” I said, pushing through the door. My shoulders ached with tension I couldn’t release, muscles locked tight from hours of fighting my own mind. “But I needed—”

To get out. To move. To not be trapped in close quarters with her where the voice keeps screaming to either destroy her or claim her or both and I can’t tell which impulse is mine anymore—

“—a change of scenery.”

The interior was exactly what one would expect from a restaurant catering to villains with experimental tastes. The walls were lined with preserved specimens in jars—some recognizable, most decidedly not, each labeled with helpful descriptions like “Last Thought of a Dying God” and “Weekend’s Regrets, Pickled.” Tables floated at various heights, requiring patrons to either levitate or use the provided rope ladders. The ceiling showed a view of a deep-sea trench, complete with tentacles occasionally pressing against the magical barrier.

A hostess with scales instead of skin and too many teeth smiled at us. “Table for five? Might I recommend the mezzanine level? Excellent view of the transmutation kitchen.”

We were seated at a table that hovered ten feet off the ground, accessible by a rope ladder that Sebastian climbed with surprising grace. I simply levitated, as did Arabella—though I noticed she gripped the table’s edge tightly once seated. The exhaustion from the ritual was hitting us both harder than we’d admitted.

At least focusing on mundane concerns gave me something to concentrate on besides the increasingly creative threats the fragment kept whispering about what it wanted to do to everyone in this room.

“So,” Griffin said, spreading his napkin with a flourish, “shall I order for everyone? I’ve studied the menu extensively.”

“No,” four voices said in unison.

The menu itself was a work of art. The text shifted and rearranged itself as you read, descriptions morphing from appetizing to alarming and back again. All I wanted was some godsdamned food, but I had no one to blame for this little excursion but myself.

“The appetizer sampler includes pickled demon eyes and something called ‘void-touched calamari,’ ” Griffin read excitedly.

I sighed, forcing my hands to remain steady on the table instead of clenching into fists. “Just order something that won’t actively try to escape the plate.”

“Oh, they have roasted phoenix! I’ve always wanted to try that.”

“It resurrects in your stomach,” Sebastian said quietly, reading over his shoulder. “Says so right there in the fine print.”

Griffin’s face fell. “Oh.”

I found myself watching Arabella as she studied her own menu, noting the tiny furrow between her brows. She’d pulled her hair back into a simple side braid after the ritual, baring one side of her neck.