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“Do you think she ever tried it?”

“No,” Brennessel laughed. “I’m pretty sure she threw it out. But who knows? Maybe…” She sighed. “I think I also wanted her to have the choice to try it, if she ever wanted to. Somewhere private where she wasn’t worried about anyone judging her.”

Oleander kept his gaze pointedly off to the side, avoiding Brennessel entirely when he admitted, “I think I might… admire her a bit. I mean, platonically admire her… obviously.”

“Obviously.”

He cleared his throat and clarified, “...I just mean I’d like to help her.”

“You want to help her? Then stop being a dick. Show her you care, and then,” She raised an eyebrow. “Then you need to ruin her life.”

Oleander couldn’t help but look at Brennessel then, her gaze deeply serious as she took another drink of wine. “Ruin her life?”

She nodded, but didn’t elaborate. He supposed she meant ruining the life that Peri’s family wanted for her. That seemed fairly horrific, even from Oleander’s extremely distant perspective. He imagined that the more he learnt about the future Peri was being forced into, the more repulsive it would become. They drank in silence, both lost in thoughts as they watched the crowds of joyful revelry around them. When their glasses grew empty they filled them quietly until after a long contemplative stretch of time their bottle was empty and they were both thoroughly tipsy. Brennessel gave him a dark grin. “I heard you’re not bad with a dagger.”

Oleander scoffed, feeling warm from the story and the wine. “You dare challenge me to a dagger-throwing competition, Ness the Pest?”

“Don’t call me that. And why not? There’s a spot by the largest fireplace that’s empty, and I’m still waiting for Taryn to get here, at which point I will abandon you instantly.”

They threw daggers until the moon hung high overhead, both impressed by each other’s talent but unwilling to admit it to the other. When Brennessel’s paramour, Taryn, arrived, Oleander finally had the upper hand as Brennessel grew increasingly distracted.

Later that night, he curled lazily in his bed, a stupid grin tugging at his lips as his eyes fluttered closed. Unbidden, his thoughts went to Perine and everything Brennessel had told him. He couldn’t deny that something about Perine drew him in, an infatuation he hadn’t been able to shake. The thing was, even before Brennessel had confided in him that Perine was not as spineless as she let others believe, Oleander had suspected as much. He’d just hidden behind his disdain for her timidity because, deep down, there was a genuine fear that the more he learnt about Perine, the more deeply he would become infatuated with her.

Lost in thoughts of Perine, Oleander didn’t notice the whispering shadow as it seeped into his consciousness, curling around his thoughts like a vice. It murmured promises of power, but its claws flexed with domination, digging deep until he was paralysed. Blood dripped from his nose, and he gasped in agony as obsidian walls began to rise around his mind.

The walls solidified, encasing his thoughts completely, until the eerie presence that had whispered to him of power was shut out. The smoke, once so insistent, grew faint, its voice barely a murmur in the distance.

It was at this moment that Oleander had true clarity. He realised with a start that every time he’d attempted to find a way to expel this parasitic shadow his attention had been firmly averted. His memories of trying to find its weaknesses were murky at best. Although he knew he’d read countless books on the subject—and created a few plans to exorcise this parasite—not one plan came to mind.

A chilling comprehension crept over him, he was not as in control of himself as he’d believed. The obsidian wall was buying him time but it was no solution, and it wasn’t even protecting him fully. The shadow was still slipping into his thoughts, tempting him with power or causing him to forget his goal of extradition.

He closed his eyes, letting the oppressive weight of the whispers fade completely. The walls held strong, and with shaking hands he found a sleeping draught his brother had made for him. He didn’t want to think about this anymore.

He slammed his head into his hands—was that the shadow influencing him to drop the subject for now? Or rather was it his own panicked mind, desperate for a moment of peace.

In the end it didn’t matter, he downed the small vial of potion and sunk onto his bed, deeper into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter

Seventeen

PERINE WILDER

Asandpaper tongue licked up her face and Peri’s eyes fluttered open. Then Zila was nuzzling her until she was fully awake, sitting up with a long stretch of her arms. Almost every muscle ached with tightness, the stiffness becoming her new normal after countless nights spent dozing off over her research into the Cursed Bargain. Her desk lay buried beneath a chaotic spread of notes, maps, and half-finished theories, tracing where across the Five Circles of Hell she might finally find this damned earring.

Zila licked her face once more. “Let’s go run in the meadows.”

Moonlight shone through Peri’s window, illuminating her bedroom in soft pearlescent light. She shoved Zila off her, laughing, “Alright. Alright! There’s a few places I need to check for the earring anyway. If we leave now we should have enough time to visit them all.”

An hour into racing along the path she’d mapped out—one that took them through ten locations across the Fauna Circle and the Holy Circle—she was fully awake. The snow had long melted, yet the mornings still clung stubbornly to winter’s bite. A soft buttery sun peeked over the hills onto a mosaic of petunia covered meadows, their petals still damp with dew.

A frigid breeze whipped around them, but only her face felt its chill. As loath as she was to admit it, Oleander’s boots were perhaps her favourite piece of clothing; not only did they fit like a dream, they were warm and incredibly sturdy. The boots, paired with her enchanted woollen cloak, meant that she was fairly cosy, all things considered.

A clan of thunderbirds flew overhead, swooping down to drop “presents” of dead mice near the path where they ran. She had initially been repulsed at the prospect of being pelted with so many dead rodents, but she'd quickly schooled her expression into one of delight after Zila explained that this was their own peculiar way of honouring the demoness who wielded Slang's Bite.

Later, while she sat eating a small breakfast on a stone overlooking one of the vast forests where the other magical creatures of Hell lived, a maelstrom of fire-salmanders scampered around her. Hundreds of the tiny creatures swept across the grass in what looked like a single, rolling blaze. The fire itself was only an illusion—their legs moved so impossibly fast that they seemed to ignite, merging into one great wave of flame.

They too stopped to drop thoughtful presents of spiders or insects in front of her. She forced a smile back onto her face and did her best to look thankful or at the very least amused rather than increasingly alarmed.