Page 95
Hold fast the key, and fear the call,
lest shadow break and kingdoms fall.
No mortal hand should wake this flame,
for chaos burns without a name.”
Cold spread through her. Her chair dragged as she stood, drifting to his side.
“Lysander…” She swallowed. “And that—” she motioned sharply to the page “—is what’s inscribed on the keystone?”
But another thought struck her then. He read it, fluently, without faltering.
Her gaze snapped to him, alarm flaring in her chest.
“You said you didn’t know the language,” she whispered.
“I said I never studied it.” His eyes remained on the parchment. “But I have been exposed to enough relics to piece together fragments.”
Her insides tightened painfully. She'd stopped expecting lies from him. That was the dangerous part.
“Is it nightfall?” She folded the page back up.
Lysander touched near his neck, where the key lay hidden. “What is the plan?”
“Alcaeus said the daemon is hiding deep,” Idonea said, “and everything I’ve sensed places it, or the relic, somewhere nearby.”
“Basements?” Lysander pushed the table aside, lifting the hatch.
She frowned, her chest tightening, an echo of the failed ritual. “No. Somewhere deeper. Darker.” Her voice dropped. “Something older.”
Her stomach twisted. A witch’s resonance had blocked her search last night; someone from among their own.
Idonea regretted the isolated existence she’d led on Draugaros. If she’d had more experience, those children wouldn’t have died. Her throat thickened.
“Witchling.” Lysander stood partway down the stairs. He pulled her from her spiralling thoughts.
She avoided his hand and made her own way down. She’d bury such thoughts. They couldn’t help.
They slipped out into the night. The clouds were swollen, smothering the sky in a sheer, suffocating black. Snow drifted in quiet sheets, muffling each sound.
Idonea scanned the empty lanes, only a few Templars lingered near lampposts.
“I need to get near the terraces,” she said. If the daemon was anchored beneath one of them, she needed proximity.
Lance’s eyes found hers, and she nodded.
“We’ll go behind.” Lysander motioned for her to follow.
He didn’t mention anything about what might be deeper than the basements, but if any of the terraces had passages like the one Kitsa stayed in, it could be a possibility. Especially since the town was far older than him.
As they slipped behind the cottage and cut across the narrow lane, a movement caught Idonea’s eye. A tall figure stood framed against the frost-clouded window of the Magistrate’s quarters. Elzhbeta stood motionless behind the frosted glass, like she'd been waiting there. Idonea thought Elzhbeta was looking directly at her. The hair on Idonea’s arms tingled, an instinctive bristling beneath her skin, but when a drift of snow blew across her sightline, Elzhbeta was already turning away. Idonea brushed off the quiet unease stirring in her ribs and followed Lysander through the snow.
They reached the first terrace in silence. Idonea positioned herself close to the old stone wall, while Lysander waited several paces back, eyes scanning the shadows.
The cold bit at her skin as she drew her new dagger. Riven magic always demanded its due. She angled the blade and pulled a shallow, practised line across the side of her neck. Heat bloomed instantly, her blood welled up, dark and thick.
Idonea pressed her fingers to the cut, feeling the sting flare, then set her blood-slick palm firmly against the brick. A tremor passed through her arm. She shut her eyes and opened herself to the Current.
