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“S—Sorry,” I clear my throat. “I just… remembered something. About the night I first smelled Idril’s blood.”

“Sorry? You’re sorry?! Dude, you walked down the stairs with your fucking eyes closed, fell into the wall, and then stood there mumbling to yourself. So what—and I cannot stress this enough—the fuck, Vae?!”

“I honestly don’t have a better answer than the one I gave you,” I tell him.

Silas’s eyes look like they’re about to fall out of his head.

“Okay, cool. Let’s try this one, then. Why the hell are you still up close and personal with that wall? Is there a reason you can’t fully face me? Did you knot it on accident? Are you getting high on that paint?”

“Paint? What paint?”

“Fuck—is this what it feels like to be gaslit?” His arm shoots out, and he points emphatically at the wall like I’m an idiot. “The glowing paint!”

In his defense, you are being an idiot, my Alpha pipes up needlessly. Slow-roasted-moron with a side of stupid.

Again, you ARE me.

Says you—and Daxen—but I don’t need to remind you just how well it ended the last time you trusted him over me.

I roll my eyes, then frown because… why didn’t I turn around to talk to Silas? Why are my hands still on this wall? Why haven’t I moved?

I’m so close to the wall I have to take a step back to see what’s right in front of me.

I don’t know what this stuff is, but I don’t think it’s paint. It’s the same color as the luminous light coming from the rest of the basement to our right, but I could swear it wasn’t coming from this wall when we were upstairs. I take another step back, and as I do, the odd silvery-blue glow of the substance seems to fade.

By the time I’ve backed up so far, I’m standing on the third step from the bottom, and the glow is almost completely gone.

“What the fuck,” Silas breathes. “Now get closer. See if it gets brighter.”

I shoot him a dubious look, but do as he says. This time, the substance doesn’t simply get brighter; it sharpens into actual shapes.

“Holy shit,” I murmur, creeping closer to study the drawings—because that’s what they are. I have no idea what kind of symbols or drawings they are, but they’re too precise—too purposeful and uniform—to be random.

Silas follows behind me as I walk along the natural curve of the wall and into the basement itself. The images etched along the perimeter are fascinating, ranging from simple, rudimentary symbols to more advanced designs and even a few incredibly intricate variations. Each one is made up of lines, waves, swirls, shapes, and patterns. Each symbol twists, crosses, or mirrors another, and when I step back, I realize they seem to stack and grow one on top of another, creating even more intricate designs on a larger scale.

I’ve never seen anything like it, and yet… I can’t shake the sense that it feels strangely familiar, like something I’ve seen in a dream.

I’m inches away from the wall, trying to discern what the hell this substance is, when it hits me.

Holy… Fates.

This is where the summer lightning scent is coming from. Which means⁠—

Oh. Fuck.

I scramble back so fast I almost trip over my own feet. I swallow, trying to work some moisture into my suddenly dry mouth. To my right, Silas is busy studying the substance—so captivated by the appearance of something neither of us has ever seen—a fucking rarity when you’ve been alive as long as we have—that he, too, has failed to connect the dots.

Every inch of these walls is covered in this glowing silver-blue substance. A glowing silver-blue substance that smells like ozone, lavender, and amber.

And I have no fucking idea why, how, or when the color changed, but that doesn’t make the truth any less real.

This basement is covered in symbols drawn in blood.

Idril’s blood.

Panic skitters through my veins. Sweat coats my palms, and then my brow. My heart is fucking racing, and that pain in my chest—that fucking ache that won’t go away—is throbbing.

How much of Idril’s blood did that asshole take? How much of her blood did he steal to do… whatever the fuck this is?