Page 124 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

I couldn’t even be angry about it. The dragon’s instincts were better than mine right now.

Arabella was quiet for a long moment. Then: “What happened during the ritual with the Alchemist?”

Everything. Nothing. The end of the world as I knew it.

I released the doorframe. “We need sleep.” I adopted my best irritating smirk, though it felt like a mask that didn’t quite fit anymore. “Unless you’d like to kick the dragon out of our bed, I’m sleeping in here, so if you don’t mind…”

The words were meant to be final, though not cruel. Arabella narrowed her eyes at me before turning toward the bedroom with Nyx squeezing down the hallway after her.

I closed the library door and leaned against it, letting my head fall back with a dull thud.

Soon, the fragment whispered. Soon you’ll understand. Soon you’ll accept what you are. What you’ve always been.

Mine.

I slid down to the floor, wrapped my arms around my knees, and prepared for a very long night.

35 Make Reckless Decisions Alone

(Because Communication Is for Heroes)

Arabella

The vial was lighter than it should have been.

I turned it over in my fingers, watching the opalescent liquid shift like trapped moonlight. Mnemosyne’s warning echoed in my head: Wait until you have someone you trust with you. Sound advice, really. The kind any sensible person would follow.

Too bad I’d never been accused of being sensible.

“What do you think?” I asked Nyx, who had somehow managed to wedge herself into the narrow alley between two shops. Her silver eyes tracked the vial with unnerving intensity. “You count as someone I trust, right? You’re here for moral support. And to stop me from doing anything too catastrophically stupid.”

She huffed, a puff of smoke curling from her nostrils. She knew me too well.

The morning had started badly and gotten worse. I’d given up on sleep around dawn. The attack itself hadn’t kept me awake—that had been over so fast I’d barely registered the danger before Kaz shoved me aside. No, it was what came after.

The look in his eyes as he’d torn through those assassins hadn’t been entirely human.

I’d seen Kaz angry before. Seen him possessive, violent, utterly ruthless. But last night had been different. For a moment, just a heartbeat, I could have sworn I’d seen someone else looking out through his eyes. Someone older. Angrier.

Someone who’d worn a crown of shadows and made the world kneel.

The same presence I’d glimpsed in that vision weeks ago, when the Heirloom had shown me the truth about what—who—my husband really was.

And then, his struggle last night during our hunt through the Spire. He tried to hide it, but couldn’t completely. Not from Thorne, and definitely not from me. The crack in his usual control was alarming.

My fingers tightened around the vial. I knew I should have told him about the Shadow King. Should have told him weeks ago. But how exactly did one bring up that particular conversation? “Darling, remember that time you had a vision and forgot about it? Well, funny story—you’re actually history’s greatest monster. Pass the wine?”

No. He had enough to deal with. Adding an existential crisis about being the Shadow King would only make things worse.

Besides, if the ritual with the Alchemist had weakened him enough for the Shadow King to start bleeding through… well, knowledge might not be power in this case. It might be the final push that let the ancient bastard take control completely.

Nyx bumped her head against my shoulder, nearly knocking me into the wall. She’d been like this all morning—my scaly, overprotective shadow. Even during last night’s hunt, she’d positioned herself between Kaz and me whenever his control seemed to slip, her silver eyes tracking his every movement with wary suspicion.

She’d seen it too. Whatever was happening to him.

“I’m fine,” I told her for the hundredth time. “And you’re here to make sure I stay that way, right? That’s what Mnemosyne meant by having someone trustworthy. Someone to ground me.”

She preened slightly at being called trustworthy, her scales shimmering with pride. Never mind that she was still a juvenile, still learning to control her own abilities. She was my dragon, and that made her infinitely more reliable than, say, telling Kaz what I was about to do.