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In those first few moments when Asher had caught sight of me, before he realized I was Lana and not his wife—the expression he’d worn was somewhere between hope and rapture.

He’d never looked at me that way.No onehad ever looked at me that way.

But the way he had looked at me once he realized who and what I was?

Disgust. Horror.

I pinched my eyes shut, two more tears squeezing their way out.

You are an Infernari, one of the last of your people.I comforted myself.You are strong, and brave, and kind.

I dropped my hand from my mouth and pressed my forehead to my knees, which I gathered in close to my body.

I wanted to hate Asher for the way he looked at me, the way he made me feel, but I understood. I’d worn the skin of fallen Infernari many, many times, and every once in a while someone recognized my likeness. No one wanted that kind of reminder; it mocked their grief.

It was just that this time my heart had also gotten stepped on.

I didn’t know how long I sat there like that. Long enough for my shoulders to stop shaking, my tears to stop falling. Long enough even for the sounds outside to die down just a bit.

I drew in a shaky breath, and pushed myself up to my feet. Heading into the bathroom, I turned on the faucet to wash my face.

The spout gurgled and spat. I almost groaned when I remembered the water here didn’t work.

I began to leave, but then my eyes landed on a razor. It was carelessly lying on the counter amongst dozens of other old knickknacks, the color of its green handle faded with time, a relic from some long forgotten guest.

I was mesmerized by its blade, which was mostly dark orange from age. Without thinking, I reached out and picked the razor up, turning it over and over in my hands.

It wasn’t a real weapon, but it could cut all the same. And being in this world, my body depleted of magic for long stretches of time... I wanted to cut. To release my blood from my body, savor the sweet pain of it, then cull my magic.

With a swift twist of my wrist, I snapped the handle off. Then I worked my fingers under the edges of the brittle plastic, trying to pry the razorblade out from it. With a pop, the small, flat blade was free.

I stared at it in wonder, then ran my thumb over the rusted edge. It wasn’t very sharp, but if I pressed, it could split my skin.

I moved the blade to the crook of my arm just to test the theory. The edge of it pressed into my skin, then I sliced the razorblade across my flesh.

My skin split, and the pain that flared up was instantly overshadowed by the satisfying feel of it burning up into magic. I didn’t bother healing the skin, even as I converted the blood. I didn’t much care that I was cursing myself.

I pocketed the razor. I would be keeping this. Sometimes—sometimes the urge to blood-let came over me. This little razor, it could control the urge if I turned it on myself when the need got bad. For now I still had a small reservoir of magic, but it wouldn’t last forever. Once it was gone, I would need to control the urge to cull because, from my best guess, Asher and I were still a ways from the portal.

The portal... through my drunken haze I remembered. The bargain I struck with the hunter, the one that would allow me to fulfill all my oaths, it all rested on Grandmaddox lifting the memory spell.

She would never lift it, she said as much.

But I didn’t technically needherto lift the spell; I just needed her elixir. And as a potion master, she’d undoubtedly have a bottle of it here in her house.

Those conniving humans had rubbed off on me, I thought as I began moving, heading toward the door to my room. The floorboards beneath me creaked, and I heard wood splinter. It wouldn’t surprise me if this house was held together by magic alone.

I stepped into the hall, closing the door softly behind me. At the end of the hall, a narrow staircase continued up the rickety house. I made my way toward it, the ancient wood floors creaking under my boots. Grandmaddox had told me once that she kept her potions up in the attic; now I followed her old words.

I shuddered as I began to ascend the stairs. Back in Abyssos, we never made indoor spaces this narrow. Almost all Infernari needed the elements to be close at hand. The stars above us, the land around us, the earth beneath us. We loved wide open spaces.

The musty smell of decay clung to this place. And that was another thing we were unfamiliar with. Decay. Magic never died, even if bodies did. If an Infernarus’s remains were left alone for long enough, the magic trapped beneath their skin would burn through the body, escaping outwards and converting flesh to ash as it did so. I’d seen it happen often enough in the years of the war. I didn’t know why Gandmaddox chose to live like this.

I summited the stairs, the attic door in front of me fitted with a half a dozen locks. I knew what I’d find behind it.

I would curse Clades a little more by using my power to break in, and he wouldn’t agree with this. Ignoring a pang of guilt, I reached for the door and used a pulse of magic to tumble the locks. The door creaked open, and beyond it...

Shelves and shelves of bottled curses and tinctures, hexes and elixirs. Some of them glowed luminous colors, others looked like sludge, and some still moved and pulsed inside their containers.