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The slimy coil of guilt wound through Isak’s stomach. Maia didn’t even like him, and here her brother was feeling sympathy for him. He had to remind himself what Sunny had said in the bathroom. Maia was his mate even if she hated him. He straightened his spine and met Harth’s serious gold eyes.

“I’m sorry I snapped, too. Look, I don’t think we’ll be able to find this in an hour. And your Eversky pin is more than Anzhelika found, so why don’t we all go back to the saints section and see what we can find?”

“Excuse me,” a husky voice cut in, making Harth’s guards startle. “Sorry for eavesdropping, but are you looking for ancient relics?”

Isak turned, the base of his stick scraping the polished floor and making a horrific screech. A small, white-bearded man stood a few paces away, leaning on a walking stick far fancier than Isak’s, the honey wood carved with images and details, the handle pure gold. The man was draped in a similar robe to the first woman they’d met here, but his were teal—a colour Isak had come to realise denoted rank.

“Nice stick,” Isak remarked, admiring that gold handle.

“Thank you very much,” the man said with a pleased grin.

Anzhelika elbowed Isak, with enough force that he grunted and would no doubt be nursing a bruise later.

“We’re looking for any information or stories about a gold box—it’d be hundreds of years old, powerful, and maybe connected to the saints.”

The man considered Isak, then gave Anzhelika a similar perusal. He did the same with Harth and the guards. Isak supposed he should probably learn their names, but it was hard to focus on the names of strangers when his family was at stake. He’d just call them Grumpy, Grumpier, and Grumpiest.

“I don’t know who you are, or why you warrant a retinue of a general enforcer and three of our finest warriors, but it must be urgent.” The librarian angled himself away, tipping his head. “You need the books from the crypt. Follow me, and I’ll show you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Maia was asleep, wrapped deeper in unconsciousness than she’d been in weeks, since the compound in Vassalaer. No dreams tortured her sleep. No nightmares made her heart race and body shake even in sleep. Probably because of the furnace wrapped around her, the solid muscle pressed flush to her back. A heavy arm settled across her waist, hand possessively wrapped around her hip. She felt safe, and warm, and protected. Waking up to the sensation of choking on her own blood was like being slapped in the face after a long, soul-nourishing hug.

She came awake with a horrible lurch, the movement so violent that Bryon’s arm slid off her waist, her own hands clutching at her throat.

“Maia?” Bryon demanded, instantly growling protective promises as he reached for her, scanning her face before his head whipped around to scour the room for threats.“Show yourself,”he barked, his voice so deep that Maia jumped, scratching at her throat as the sensation of choking worsened. It wasn’t a noose around her neck, wasn’t even hands. It was… liquid. Blood, she’d thought, but it tasted like dark, rotten plants and was as thin as water. Yet when she clutched at her mouth,expecting a waterfall of the poisonous stuff to flow from her lips, there was… nothing.

“I don’t understand,” she choked out, her throat throbbing and sore like she’d been strangled. But there was nothing there, no blood, no poison. Only her own fingernails scratching at her throat.

“Princess,” Bryon said, catching her hands and holding them firmly, lowering his head to meet her eyes. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it.”

“I-I don’t know,” she gasped between sharp breaths, struggling for air even thoughnothingwas happening. There was no one in the room, no hidden assailant, no poison shoved past her lips. She flung the covers off and crawled into Bryon’s lap, relief like a bright star in her chest when his arms instantly surrounded her. “I’m choking on… on liquid. I thought it was—” She coughed violently, her eyes watering as Bryon stroked her back, glaring out at the room as if it was to blame. “I thought it was my own blood,” she said when the coughing eased. “But there’s nothing there. I would be covered in it.”

Bryon stiffened and went very still. Maia’s instincts had her freezing too, a natural response to her mate sensing a threat. “There’s no one in the room with us,” he said finally, his hands warm and calloused against her back, and so damn comforting. “I thought someone was attacking you with magic at first but—”

“But,” she prompted, not liking the pause from him. Bryon rarely paused, which meant she wasn’t going to like what he said next.

“I don’t think you’re choking, princess. I think one of your mates is.”

The truth hit her like a fist to the chest and she scrambled away from him and off the bed, restlessness hitting her like a disease. She paced to the window, then the door, then back tothe bed, her hands starting to shake, then her arms, her knees weakening as she sank deep into her own soul.

The glade of her soul was dark, the trees utterly still instead of waving in a natural wind, the leaves a deep green, almost black. In her mind, she ran through the long grass, searching for the wrongness, searching for which of her mates was drowning.

Bryon caught her when she paced back to the bed and she stood in his arms, shaking, her eyes closed to focus on her soul. There was a huge tree, it’s roots reaching through the glade, touching so many other trees that it was clear it was important. The heart of the glade. Maia crept closer, her heart pounding in her body even as her whole consciousness washere,nearing the tree, feeling sick at the blackness of its bark, the red-veined dark of the leaves. Was this what the iron poisoning had done to her soul?

She hesitated, her stomach tangled in knots, but even here she could feel Bryon holding her. He’d been brave in Marszton, had faced down a saint to heal her, so she would be brave, too. On soft feet she padded closer to the tree, a hand out in front of her, knowing she needed to touch the sturdy trunk, to soothe the damage within. Up close, dark, bubbling liquid oozed from cracks in the bark, the tree bleeding thick, viscous ink.

When she set her hand on the tree, liquid coated her palm, the slick, icy sensation distracting for a second before the glade was ripped from around her.

It wasn’t the bedroom with Bryon she returned to, but a different place—grey and austere and cold like their first cell. And instead of her sitting across from Bryon, the two of them scowling at each other, ignoring the chemistry burning in the space between them, this cell was bisected by a metal table. Upon it were instruments of torture that Maia knew too well.

She tried to back up, but something froze her in place. She couldn’t move her arms, couldn’t lift her legs. A black-hairedgiant walked around the table with a knife curved at the tip, the kind that had once scarred her deep. Maia’s chest rose and fell with panicked breaths, but in this space, she was utterly still, staring straight ahead.

An animal rumble of warning came from behind the man, and Maia jolted in surprise, a sick understanding creeping up on her, dripping like ice down her spine. Was this—was that Jaro, growling? It sounded like her mate. The stranger came nearer, bringing psychopath eyes that wicked knife unsettlingly close, approaching where she’d frozen against the wall. But Maia was a bystander. He wasn’t approachingher.Who? One of her mates butwho?

Frantic, she searched for any clue, trying to drop her head to see his body, trying to lift his hands so she could check for scars and tattoos and rings, growing more out of control with every second, with every inch of floor the torturer crossed. He was like Etziel—she knew it in the way he moved, the easy way he held the weapon, the way his eyes glimmered. He was like Etziel and he was going to torture her mate and she couldn’t help remembering the wound on Azrail’s chest where someone had begun cutting into him, peeling his skin away from muscle.

Az?She screamed down her soul, down the bond.Azrail!