Page 53 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

“My lord, I’m s-so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up.” I leaned in close. “You’re confined to your laboratory until further notice. No leaving except for meals and sleep. You will focus entirely on the Heirloom research, and you will report your progress to me twice a day.”

“But my—my other experiments—”

“Can wait. Or rot. I don’t care.” The shadows at my feet darkened. “The only thing you should be thinking about is how to make the Heirloom work without killing us. Do you understand?”

He swallowed hard. “Yes, my lord.”

“Good. Because if another disaster happens while you’re supposed to be solving our most critical problem, there won’t be enough of you left to reanimate.”

And because I was still furious, I pointed to the stack of ward anchors that needed reinscription. “And after that, you’re going to carve every single one of these. By hand. No magic. And if you make even one mistake, I’ll have you start over from the beginning.”

His face went white. “But that will take—”

“Weeks? Months?” I let him feel the cold fury I’d been holding back since I’d returned with Evenfall. “Yes.”

That seemed to break him. He just nodded, his throat working. The thought of that tedious, mind-numbing labor was the worst punishment I could think of for someone like Griffin. It was almost cruel enough to satisfy me.

Almost.

I was crossing the bridge from the dungeons to the Great Hall when Vex caught up to me, her once-again silver hair catching the morning light. At this point, I was so used to the frequent changes that I barely registered them.

“We’ve found something for your houseguest to do,” she said without preamble.

“Please tell me you’ve thrown Sebastian off a lightning bridge.”

“Baking.”

I stopped walking. “Vex.”

“He’s in the main kitchens.” She had a thoughtful look on her face. “The staff is fascinated.”

My voice rose. “He could be poisoning the entire citadel.”

“He’s still under guard, though he doesn’t seem to notice,” she replied, amused.

“He goes nowhere but the kitchens and his chamber without my express permission,” I growled. “And see that he doesn’t poison anyone. Accidentally or otherwise.”

“Yes, my lord.”

We reached the Inner Sanctum’s courtyard to find Arabella pacing, her expression thunderous. Nyx was perched on a high pile of rubble from the reconstruction, pointedly facing away from her. The dragon’s scales shimmered with an even deeper rosy hue than before, the pink tint spreading across her obsidian hide like a sunrise bleeding through storm clouds. Even her wing membranes had taken on a faint blush, giving her the appearance of some exotic jewel.

“She’s sulking,” Arabella said when she saw me. “Apparently, she was trying to warn me about the escape while we were in the North Tower, but I sent her away. Now she won’t come down.”

“Have you tried apologizing?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What would you know about apologizing?”

“You’re right,” I said with a smirk. “It’s a useless strategy.”

Arabella opened her mouth, likely to tell me exactly how useless I was, but was cut off by a flash of blue-green smoke. The haze coalesced into a heart-shaped crystalline vial that hovered between us, pulsing with a sickly light. A viscous liquid swirled inside—sometimes fuchsia, sometimes gold, never settling.

“That’s… new,” Arabella said, reaching for it.

I caught her wrist. “It’s from the Syndicate—the Alchemist.”

“How can you tell? And why not just send a letter?”