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EPILOGUE

Caliginous on Silverway

Yveswich, State of Ker

“I know you’re watching me.”

Roman Devlin stood completely still, staring at his reflection in the elevator. His ears popped as the platform shot to the top floor of the skyscraper, leaving his soul down below. Ochre eyes blazed through the glass, the uncommon shade just as unnerving as the depthless black that frequently swallowed them whole. The threat simmering in his stare formed a sharp contrast with the cheerful music tinkling through the speaker, some old tune birthed from the days of black-and-white motion picture shows, an era the world would never see again.

He’d ridden this elevator so many times that he didn’t need to call upon his Sight to know there was a security camera hidden behind the mirror. It was pointing straight at him, red light flashing as it recorded.

A cruel smile curved his mouth, deepening the small scar by the left corner. He stepped up and leaned his forehead against the cool glass, inked hands hanging loosely at his sides.

“You’re watching me because you think I’m sick,” he whispered, breath fogging up the mirror. He shut his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were black. With the aid of the Sight, his reflection melted away to reveal the hidden camera—red light blinking, just as he’d suspected. “And you’re right: I am sick. Twisted. Rotten to my very core. But let me tell you a secret.” He stared at the red light. Wet his lips. Tilted his head a little. “That’s why I come here… To better myself… To help myself. Which is why you should stop. Recording. Me.” He thudded a fist on the glass, causing the platform to quake as it slowed to a stop on the highest floor.

The doors slid open with a muffled ding, and the red light on the camera shut off.

Roman stepped back. Blinked away the Sight. He tilted his head, staring at his reflection with gold eyes again, taking in the small tattoo marking the skin below the left. A skull of shadow, black ink oozing through it. The mark of the Shadowmasters. The mark of his house.

With the bloodthirsty grin of a shark that caused the ink on his cheekbone to stretch, he ran a hand through his tousled hair—dark brown with a hint of gold, a feature his mom used to tell him made his eyes pop—and turned on a heel, angling his wiry body to slip through the doors of the elevator as they slid shut with a hiss.

A pretentious sign written in a loopy font on a wall of slatted wood greeted him for the fifth night in a row. Caliginous On Silverway, it said.

Roman’s combat boots slapped on the spotless floors as he made his way to the enormous curved desk up ahead, where a redheaded witch sat in a leather chair, cell phone in manicured hand. The stick of a lollipop poked through a puckered red mouth, the rounded candy bulging against her cheek. If she would quit throwing herself at him every time he came here, he might appreciate the sight a little more. But she was too easy. Roman liked the chase, even now—even in his late twenties with no sign of his aging slowing down.

“Slacking again, Tanya?” Roman said, husky voice booming against the vaulted ceiling.

Tanya set her phone on the desk and pulled the sucker out of her mouth. The room smelled of artificial cherry flavoring and the cool peppermint mist spiraling from the conical diffuser on the desk, a collection of salt lamps spread around it. “Back again so soon?”

“Isn’t there a policy that prevents employees from making snide comments about their clients?” He stepped up to the high desk and folded his arms on the surface.

Tanya plunked the lollipop into the wastebin. “It’s not a snide comment, Roman. It’s merely an observation.” She grabbed a coil of keys off the desk and stood, chair swiveling with her departure. “Most of our clients only come here once per week, if that.”

“Maybe you should create a loyalty program then,” Roman said, following her as she rounded the desk and led the way down a wide hall, stilettos clicking out a rapid staccato. “Give me a few free sessions instead of charging me out the ass.”

She snickered. “I didn’t know a Darkslayer’s pay was something to complain about.” The sleek fabric of her black pencil skirt whispered with every stride.

“It’s not. I’m just cheap. I don’t buy dinner before I fuck, and I would rather steal when given the opportunity than pay.”

A chill prickled across Tanya’s arms; Roman could sense it. He could sense everything. “I’m not sure you should be telling me that,” she said.

“What are you going to do? Call the MPU on me?”

She cast him a glance he couldn’t read. “I think you’d have to be holding a gun to my head for me to do that.”

“Don’t tempt me. Some people are into that, you know.”

“I can’t say I’ve tried it before, but I’m always open to new things.”

“If chamber number seven is available, I’ll take it.”

“You’re our only client tonight.” A look thrown over her shoulder revealed that her eyes were hooded with heavy lids. With a wetting of her glamoured lips, she told him, “You can have whatever you like.” Roman didn’t miss the subtle invitation.

“Then I’ll have chamber number seven.”

It was the last door on the right. Tanya stepped up to the panel on the wall and flattened her hand on the scanner. The door shot open with a hiss, leaving a wall of invisible spells in its place, programmed to allow only the paying client to pass through.

The room was a lightless anti-gravity chamber made of jet-black adamant, the glass-like rock broken up here and there by forks of weeping cristala. The darkness choking the interior was the kind that blinded, the ceiling and floor so far away that the chamber seemed to stretch on forever, no end in sight. Just like the night sky.