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Looking pleased with himself, Scion sauntered over to the door each of the four keys clutched tightly in his fist. We darted after him, and waited with bated breath as he tried the first key. Then the second. For each other I held my breath, practically shaking with anticipation.

But then?—

“What the fuck,” Scion barked, as I’d known he would the moment the fourth key failed to turn in the lock.

“I suppose Cross wasn’t willing to risk anyone cheating.” I threw him a sympathetic glance. “We’ll have to solve the riddle.”

“But how?” Scion demanded. “I’ve already tried them all.”

“The keys must be a trick,” I replied, already striding back to the wall. “They’re there so that you focus on them and don’t think too much about the riddle as a whole.”

I stared up at the scrawled words on the wall, considering. I’d never had to solve a riddle like this before. Indeed, when would I have had the opportunity? But I did spend many years specializing in deception and misdirection. It was a few words, how hard could that be to uncover.

Minutes ticked by and a bead of sweat appeared on my brow. Some part of me felt sure that we could not stay here forever. That something would go wrong if we took too long to answer.

I read the riddle again, aloud, pronouncing each word slowly. “Silver but not silver. Worth twice its weight in gold. Forged of blood and ash. What once was poison, now lies cold.”

“One of the keys is silver,” Bael said, a note of uncertainty in his usually confident voice.

I pointed at the wall. “But it’s not silver.”

“What does that mean?” Bael asked.

“I have no idea.”

I pressed my palms into my closed eyes, a familiar feeling of inferiority creeping over me. It was how I’d felt when I first realized how little I understood of Fae culture, despite having lived alongside it all my life. It was how I felt when the old tongue was spoken, and I couldn’t understand. It was how, even now, I wondered if everyone around me was mocking me for my lack of education. My lack of experience. My unworthiness to be here.

Sometimes I wished to return to the valley outside Aftermath and imagine that none of this had ever happened.

Of course, that was ridiculous on a number of levels. Not least of which was that the city of Nightshade—now called Aftermath—hadn’t been a city at all since the day I was born.

I took my hands away from my face, my eyes widening. My heart skipped a beat of excitement.

“Nightshade is a poison,” I mused under my breath.

“What was that, little monster?’

I shook my head, still thinking, and read the riddle again. Silver but not silver…what once was poison now lies cold.

A smile spread across my face. “Wait, I think I’ve got it.”

I dashed across the room and snatched one of the fallen arrows off the ground.

“Are you going to pick the lock?” Scion asked, obvious skepticism in his tone.

“Look—” I held up the arrow. “The arrow tip is silver, but not made from actual silver. It’s made from steel, which is made from iron and carbon.”

“Blood and Ash.” Bael’s eyes flashed with excitement.

“Exactly. And it’s forged in the poison named city?—”

“—which now lies cold,” Bael finished for me, grinning widely. “Brilliant, little monster.”

I grinned, feeling actually useful for once.

Scion stepped out of the way so I could approach the door. There was no slot for the arrow or anything so convenient as that. Instead, I held my breath in anticipation and scraped the arrow head over the metal keyhole.

At once, the door opened, a loud creak of hinges alerting us that no one had been here in quite some time.