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Lysander set the knife aside. “Where?”

She stepped closer, lowering herself into the chair opposite him. “Beneath the chapel.”

He exhaled, leaning back, the chair creaking beneath his weight. “The one place they never let you near.”

Idonea rubbed her palms against her thighs. “I sent the witches away with the pirates. They’ll be safe, from Templars … and daemons.”

Lysander’s expression hardened again, but his eyes never left hers. “And what about you?”

“I can’t leave,” she said. “Not until it’s done.”

“Then neither can I.”

The words landed heavily. She knew what they'd cost him. Her throat tightened. She held his gaze, letting the silence stretch.

“When?” Lysander asked.

Idonea sighed. “Soon. There is something I must do first.”

He shifted in the chair. “I might go down to the basement.” He held up the ruined arm and new. “See what can be done.”

She nodded, and watched the hatch close behind him.

Chapter 34

It was her only way.

The airship was long gone, and everyone had left.

If she failed, there would be no second chance. The world would be left vulnerable to the thing sleeping beneath the chapel.

The Templars wouldn’t be held in that terrace house for long.

Idonea paced at the edge of the fjord, boots crunching through the crust of snow, the black water shifting restlessly against the frozen banks. She had chosen this place deliberately, away from prying eyes, away from Lysander. If she fell here, it wouldn't be in front of him.

The thought spurred her to work.

Lance curled beside her boots, wings folded tight, his serpentine body coiled, sensing the strain inside her. She lowered one finger, stroking along his scaled neck. His eyelids slitted open, and he released a long, drawn-out hiss. It was softer than most.

Idonea couldn't share their certainty. Her chest was tight, her mouth dry. She was about to unmake herself. Risk possession, risk worse, by entering the Nexis without anchor or guard. There was, by every measure, a one-in-three chance she would come back whole. And she’d not told Lysander that. To her, the odds seemed generous.

The knife gleamed in her hand. She pressed its edge to her finger and dragged it, not wincing, letting the sting root her body in the mortal world. Her blood welled, hot and dark against the snow. She drew the circle, crimson lines glinting in the moonlight, closing herself in.

She lowered herself cross-legged into its heart. The snow soaked through her skirts immediately, biting cold into her thighs, but she held still. Her breath came shallow, her heartbeat thundering too loudly in her ears.

She poured the grave dirt next, scattering it across the lines where blood and snow met. The smell was faint, metallic and sour, and it caught in the back of her throat. Her tongue darted out, licking cracked lips.

“Hold fast.” She shut her eyes.

Lance stirred uneasily, wings twitching, and released a low, warning hiss.

Current rose around her, and she shaped it with thought, with will, with desperation.

Her lungs constricted. Vapour curled around her, mist thickening until the night itself was smothering. It tasted of iron and smoke, acrid and burning. Orange tendrils coiled like dusk-fire, crawling up her nostrils, down her throat. She forced herself not to choke, not to fight. She had to let it in. She had to let it take.

Her eyes snapped open, and the world was gone.

She stood upon cracked earth that bled heat, each fissure glowed with molten light. No sky hung above her, only a roiling void of endless black. The air seared her skin, beads of sweat forming instantly along her temples, throat, and arms. Already, she longed for the sting of snow.