Page 186 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“We need to speak with the Alchemist,” I said. “To figure out exactly what to do with the bloodlines we’ve gathered.”

A corner of her mouth lifted. “I guess it’s a good thing you kept them as an overnight guest. I only hope they’ll feel like cooperating after this.”

My runes began burning beneath Arabella’s hand. “They want the Shadow King contained as much as we do. But if not, I’ll make them see reason.” I hesitated, then added, “There’s something else you should know. About the prison.”

Arabella’s expression tightened. “What about it?”

I opened my mouth to tell her the truth—that I was part Shadow King, that the ancient darkness Auremar sought to harness was a part of me. That I’d been fighting it since the ritual at the Spire, trying to keep it contained.

She’ll never understand. She’ll turn against you.

I sighed heavily. Arabella had just learned that my mother murdered hers. Adding the revelation that I was harboring an ancient evil might be more than even our tenuous relationship could bear.

“They got to as many heroes as we did,” I said instead. “Auremar and my mother could be sacrificing them right now, weakening what little hold the prison has on the Shadow King.”

She nodded, resolution hardening her features. “Then we’d better get moving.”

I watched her, this woman who had entered my life as a pawn and become something I couldn’t bear to lose. Despite everything—the betrayals, the secrets, the darkness that threatened to consume us both—she was still here. Still fighting.

She’ll be magnificent when she breaks, the voice whispered.

I silenced it with a thought. Arabella wouldn’t break. Neither would I.

53 Balance Warfare and Spite

(The Dark Lord’s Guide to Time Management)

Kazimir

The dungeons of Skyspire had a particular smell—damp stone, old fear, and the lingering traces of necromantic experiments that even Griffin’s cleaning enchantments couldn’t quite erase.

I’d left Arabella in the Great Hall, where she was attempting to mediate a dispute between Lord Brightwater and Lady Marenti over whose ancestral claim to some insignificant valley was more legitimate. The irony of “heroes” behaving like petty nobles wasn’t lost on me. At least it kept her occupied while I dealt with this.

I’d handed Griffin’s detection kit to Thorne with orders to test everyone at Skyspire for doppelgangers—no exceptions. Nyx had killed the one infiltrator, but I wasn’t fool enough to assume there weren’t others.

The tests came back clean, and there were plans to adapt the same principles to the fortress wards. Until then, everyone—including our heroic guests—would submit to weekly testing.

The spiral staircase descended into the Undercroft Gaols, each step worn smooth to the point of being treacherously slippery. I needed answers from the Alchemist about what to do with our collection of heroic bloodlines, and I needed them before Auremar sacrificed his own captives and weakened the Shadow King’s prison even further.

But first, I had to pass through Griffin’s previous punishment.

I found him exactly where I’d ordered him to be—on his hands and knees in the corridor outside the holding cells, painstakingly inscribing containment runes into the stone floor. His robes were hiked up around his knees, and his gangly frame was bent at an awkward angle as he traced the intricate patterns with a piece of enchanted chalk before carving it.

A cart sat nearby, loaded with supplies and the Doom Scroll propped against a stack of reference books.

“My lord,” Griffin said without looking up, his voice tight with concentration. “I’m making excellent progress. Only seventy-three more runes to go.”

I stopped beside him, examining his work. The runes were precise, each line exactly the correct width and depth. No shortcuts, no magical assistance—just hours of mind-numbing manual labor.

“I’m surprised you didn’t try to delegate this to one of your apprentices again,” I observed.

Griffin’s hand jerked, smudging a line. He cursed under his breath and reached for a correction cloth. “You specifically said I was to do it myself, my lord. As penance for the, ah, incident with the prisoners.”

“I did say that.” I crouched down, inspecting the rune he’d just smudged. “And yet I’m surprised you’re actually following instructions for once.”

“I learned my lesson.” Griffin’s voice was miserable. “No more unsupervised demonstrations of necromantic theory. No more showing off to Sebastian. No more accidentally releasing prisoners who then float away in magical cages.”

The idea of Sir Darian Lightbringer and Lord Evenfall drifting across the sky in a Tempest Cage would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been such a massive security breach.