Page 71 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Overhead, a raven circle, relaying information back to his master.

My master.

For Hugin, I fear, lest he come not home.

“Hello!” I call out to any alive on the field.

There is nothing. There is only me and no matter how I struggle against it, I’m a visitor to this memory. I’m an outsider looking in as well as an inextricable part of it, experiencing the scene from two different perspectives. Only one of them is whole.

And I’m trapped.

Chapter 15

Wren

I’ll stab Forest. On principle.

Considering it makes me feel a hell of a lot happier after my interesting conversion with Sabine. But he’s unconscious, and there’s no sport in that.

“You, sir, are in for another wild ride,” I mutter.

Let’s hope he’s going to handle this round better than the last. It’s always challenging when he first falls into his memories. He’ll be out for a while. Whatever he’s seeing in his head, it drowns him, utterly.

“What should we do?” Helene bites her lip before catching herself.

I remember that habit.

Dangerous.

“We leave him there.” I shrug. “Builds character.”

“What if he gets cold?”

“Then he’ll finally stop talking.”

She glances at me. “I’m not sure⁠—”

“Unfortunately for all of us, he’s hard to kill. Trust me.”

She steals the air in the room. It’s not large enough to stride from one wall to the other without knocking into a handful of furniture. Her bed is the largest piece in the room, and yet it takes up less space than the dresser leaning to the side.

Helene’s apartment is too small for her.

Too cold. Too cramped. Too human. Shabby as hell.

And somehow she’s made it warm. Alive.

A woman like her deserves a palace instead of the chill, steep peaks of this place, the roofline cutting up toward the sky, spearing the wedge of moon. Oil spills of yellow light seep through the living room windows onto the dead lawn below.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t mind this room for sleep, with its four walls broken only by a door. She doesn’t want to look at the view.

A quick grin disguises my worry especially when her breathing goes heavier.

Her scent floods my senses.

“I’m nervous. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“How about you show me around, monster? I haven’t been given the grand tour,” I say instead.