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“Hello?”

Kato peered inside the darkened workroom. He could still feel Eula’s eyes on him from where she stood just outside the front door to the townhouse, and he didn’t dare look back. She had dragged him halfway across town that morning, insisting that he needed to go find his brother.

He’s grieving,she had said, and since he and Skye happened to share a little bit of blood, that apparently made the passing of his brother’s mate his problem as well.

That’s what Eula had told him, at least. And since he had a feeling that she was likely behind the sudden change in his work schedule—he hadn’t been asked to repair a single toilet since that day at the wall—he felt inclined to believe her.

It also helped that she had made her closing arguments that morning wearing nothing but a smile. The woman was direct, so it was unsurprising that she had invited him into her bed for the first time by pulling him into an empty room and ordering him to take off his pants.

He’d resisted the urge to tell her that she was abusing her power, feeling that, in that particular moment, it wouldn’t have been in his best interest.

“Anyone here?” Kato stepped further inside the room, turning in a circle as he took in his surroundings.

The walls of the workroom were made of corroded metal, the ceiling sloped, ending in long rows of windows that spanned all four sides. There were worktables arranged in even intervals throughout the space, each one crammed with crystals and quills and other crafting supplies. An array of weapons, all expertly crafted andgleaming in the dim light, lined the opposite side of the room.

“Skye, I know you’re here.” Kato grinned, channeling the barest trace of aether. “I can hear you breathing. What’s the matter? Shade got your tongue? They do that, you know. They’ll take your tongue, your arm, your leg… anything really.”

“I’m not in the mood, Kato.” The words were rough. Raw. And coming from the far corner of the room from behind a tall, wooden partition.

“Someone sounds surly,” Kato drawled, forcing a laugh and ignoring that strange pang in his stomach that most certainly wasn’t concern or worry or any other equally useless emotion.

Kato’s footsteps echoed as he made his way across the room, eyeing the suit of Mechanica armor that dangled from a mass of chains attached high overhead. At their core, these suits could give the strength and agility of a shadow mage to even a mortal man—there were prototypes that could even fly. This one was an older model, bulkier than anything he had seen in recent decades, with sharp lines of silver paint streaked across a faded coat of red enamel. The helmet was missing, and tangled knots of wiring gushed from the breastplate like innards.

“I was told the armor would be ready for pick-up,” Kato said, “but it looks like I was told wrong.”

“It’s a work in progress,” Skye grumbled as Kato poked his head around the corner. He was hunched over a workbench, mumbling to himself as he rifled through what looked like maps. Some were newer, with hand-drawn trails that cut through densely forested areas, and others must have been ancient—showing nothing but city overlaid with a neat grid-like pattern that wasunlike anything Kato had ever known to exist on the island.

“Hello,” Kato drawled. When Skye didn’t respond, not even bothering to look up, he decided to poke a little harder.

“Whyhello!”he said a little too brightly. “How are you, mybelovedolder brother? You are so wise and so handsome—I’m honored that you would see fit to visitme,your lowly younger brother, who is below you in both intelligence and charm.”

He watched for a reaction—but Skye ignored him.

“Well, I’m just fine,” Kato went on. “Thank you for asking. It humbles me that you can finally acknowledge my superiority in all things. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

When that still didn’t get a reaction, Kato waved a hand in front of his brother’s face. “Hey, you in there?”

Skye started, looking up at him. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair uncombed. If possible, he looked even worse than he had at the wall.

“You look like shit,” Kato said bluntly.

Skye gave a disinterested snort, turning back to his maps. “Who asked you?”

“No one,” Kato said with an affable shrug. “I’ve just always enjoyed giving my unsolicited opinion.”

When Skye didn’t answer, Kato peered over his brother’s shoulder, curious to see what had captured his attention. In addition to the spread of notes and maps that covered the tabletop in haphazard piles, there was a vial of blood placed off to the side and a small pink quartz necklace resting in a blue ceramic dish. The way the silverchain had been so carefully coiled seemed almost reverent.

But that wasn’t what caught his eye, even if he instinctively knew who that necklace might have belonged to. No, he was more interested in the stack of books that had been carefully hidden behind a set of empty glass vials—some bookmarked, others dogeared, and still more with notes stuffed between the pages. Though many of the subjects weren’t immediately familiar, the few texts he did recognize made his stomach churn.

“Why are you researching bloodcraft?” he asked, reaching for an advanced text on aether contamination. He knew for a fact that several of the spells contained in this volume had been added to the list of forbidden rites almost a century ago when the process for turning humans into Feseraa had finally been regulated by the Genesis Council.

Skye snatched the book away, stuffing it between two unmarked lab journals. “It’s unimportant.”

Kato gave him an incredulous look. “Oh, this most definitelyisimportant. You might be able to sell that argument to some Lowborn fool, but I know exactly whattheseare.”

And judging from the fact that Skye seemed to have chosen the darkest, most tucked-away corner of the townhouse he could find, Kato had a feeling Lord Castaro probably didn’t know his ward was now in possession of forbidden magic.

Kato shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think I need to tell you just how dangerous some of these books can be. Or what Lord Castaro would do if he caught you with them.”