Page 46 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“Vines and roots,” Griffin added eagerly, apparently forgetting he was still in mortal danger. “It was brilliant! The biomantic energy created a natural barrier against the necromantic overflow—”

“Griffin,” I said very quietly, “stop talking before I feed you to the void beasts.”

He made a strangled sound and fell silent.

“Where are they now?” Arabella demanded.

“I’ve already informed Thorne,” Vex said. “He’s taken a team to retrieve them. Assuming they survived the landing.”

“Oh, they survived,” I muttered. “Because nothing in my life is ever that simple.”

“My lord,” Griffin ventured, “I’m terribly sorry—”

“Sorry?” I turned on him. “You released a Hero’s Guild knight-commander who knows our defenses and a vindictive noble who sold his own daughter. You compromised our security, endangered our operations, and demonstrated a level of incompetence that makes me question why I haven’t already turned you into a decorative wall hanging.”

“My lord,” Sebastian spoke up, “if I may—the fault is partly mine. I encouraged his demonstration. I was genuinely curious about the theoretical applications—”

“Of course you were,” I snarled. “How convenient that your curiosity led to chaos.”

“Kaz, he’s trying to help,” Arabella said.

“Help? This is help?” I gestured wildly at the general catastrophe. “Your father is loose, and Lightbringer is on his way to Auremar to tell him everything he knows. And all because these idiots decided to play show-and-tell in my fucking dungeons!”

“To be fair,” Griffin said weakly, “the spell matrix was theoretically sound—”

“Griffin,” Vex and Arabella said in unison.

He closed his mouth with a snap.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to ward off the headache building behind them. The runes in my bones throbbed in rhythm with my pulse, each beat sending fresh waves of pain through my body. First the corrupted ley lines, then the Heirloom fusing with Arabella, now this.

I turned to tell Arabella that Thorne had likely already found them, but she was gone. I stared at the empty space where my wife had been standing, then at the still-swinging door.

“Shit,” I muttered, and ran after her.

Behind me, I heard Griffin’s tentative voice: “So… am I fired?”

“Not yet,” Vex replied. “But I’d start practicing your groveling. You’ll need it when they get back.”

16 Find What You’ve Lost

(or Kill It, Whatever Works)

Arabella

Where the hell are you going?” Kazimir’s voice chased me down the corridor as I practically sprinted toward our chambers.

“After them, obviously. We can’t leave it up to anybody else.” I didn’t slow down, though my hands trembled as I reached for the door. “But I need to change first. Can’t exactly hunt down escapees in a dress.”

“You could,” he said, catching up to me. “You’d look magnificent doing it.”

“Flattery won’t distract me from the fact that my father just escaped from your supposedly inescapable dungeons.” I threw open our chamber door hard enough that it bounced off the wall.

My father. Free. The thought sent ice through my veins before I buried it under anger. I’d spent weeks pretending he didn’t exist, that he was just another prisoner in Kaz’s dungeons. But fathers don’t become strangers just because you wish them to. And apparently, don’t stop being trouble just because you leave them to rot after saving their worthless lives.

“Is Griffin still alive?” I yanked open my wardrobe.

“Barely.” Kazimir leaned against the bed, watching me tear through my clothes. “Along with Sebastian and Vex, though I’m reconsidering all three.”