Page 42 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“I don’t know.” I took a long pull from my glass, letting the spirit burn away the bitter edge of my ignorance. “But whatever it is, Auremar’s incompetence has turned it into our problem.”

“So this isn’t just about conquest anymore,” Thorne said slowly. “If Auremar’s corrupting the ley lines—”

“The damage could spread,” Vex finished. “To neighboring kingdoms. To the entire continent’s magical ecosystem.”

“We have plenty of work to do.” I drained the rest of my whiskey. “Our priority now is clear. We need to figure out how to fix the ley lines. Everything else—Auremar, the invasion, even Sebastian’s mysterious baking magic—comes second.

“Griffin, tomorrow I want a full update on your Heirloom research. Everything you’ve compiled so far. We’ll use that as our starting point.” I set down my glass with finality. “Then you can start looking into purification rituals.”

“I’ll keep the army ready,” Thorne said. “When you want to move, we’ll be prepared.”

They all looked at me expectantly, waiting for dismissal or further orders. My advisors. The people I trusted most in the world.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Tonight, we rest. We’ve all earned it.”

They filed out one by one, Griffin still muttering about magical theory, Thorne heading to check on the night watch, Vex disappearing into whatever shadow she emerged from.

As everyone filed out, Arabella lingered, sliding her arms around my waist from behind. “What are you thinking?”

The ley lines. Auremar. A hero who baked magical scones and made my people like him. “No one is that genuinely nice.”

She huffed a laugh. “Not everyone has to be a villain.”

“Those people are boring,” I said, turning in her arms. “And they don’t get to have you.”

“No,” she agreed, going up on her toes to kiss me. “They don’t. Did you actually eat anything at dinner, or were you too busy glaring at Sebastian?”

“I didn’t get dessert.”

The look in Arabella’s eyes shifted from teasing to wanting. I pushed her backward until the heavy oak table pressed into her thighs and trapped her there, my body pressed to hers. Mine.

Just as her breath hitched, the doors creaked open. A servant entered, tray in hand, to clear the remnants of our meal.

“Out,” I snapped, not bothering to look at him.

With a flick of my wrist, shadows slammed the doors shut, the bolt sliding home with a heavy thud.

“That was rude,” Arabella said, but her hands were already sliding up my chest.

“I’m the Dark Lord. I’m allowed to be rude when someone interrupts my dessert.”

14 Attempt a Magical Extraction

(Without Exploding Your Wife’s Head)

Arabella

Try it again.”

My words came out through gritted teeth. My scalp prickled where Kazimir’s fingers traced another pattern, his dominion magic pulsing against the Heirloom like someone playing an off-key lute directly on my brain.

His hand stilled. “This isn’t working.” That particular edge had crept into his voice—the one that meant something was about three seconds from being set on fire. “Nothing’s changed.”

We stood in Griffin’s main laboratory in the North Tower, surrounded by the organized chaos of his experiments. It was actually quite impressive when you weren’t worried about it exploding. Three levels of workspace connected by a spiral staircase that moved on its own but occasionally got confused and deposited people on the wrong floor. Glass vials lined the walls in rainbow gradients, some bubbling ominously despite having no heat source. Shelves crammed with containers stretched from floor to ceiling. Some held perfectly ordinary herbs. Others contained things that pulsed with their own light or occasionally tapped against their containers as if testing for weaknesses.

A half-assembled contraption that looked like a metal spider crossed with a pipe organ dominated one corner. Another held what appeared to be a collection of preserved eyeballs that tracked our movements with disturbing focus.

Any blank spaces on the walls were covered in chalk equations that rewrote themselves as Griffin’s theories evolved.