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“I suspect everything dreadful.”

I explore the scripture room alone, and I understand that it’s much too small to be considered a hall.

The first thing I linger near is the gold plaque in the lobby. According to the inscriptions, Kithe’s collection is funded and supplied by donations. That’s a pretty way of warning me that the collection will be scattered and modest.

Still, I’m in no position to turn up my nose at any scripture.

The past few Quiets, I’ve slept in Daxeel’s bed—in his arms.

Whatever switch flicked inside of him, if it happened in the human realm or during our bitter fuck in the kitchens, it has been a welcome change.

Daxeel is starting to feel like mine again.

I feel like his.

Together, we find a peace, a contentment.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Yet, no surrenders have been written. I have no engagement, no promise of a future with him. My place in the Sacrament stands. I am still enslaved.

And Daxeel is still to fight for the Cursed Shadows.

Time is running out, fast, like sand in my fist.

Now, with what Eamon said, the unease in my stomach is stirring. It writhes, a snake pit in oil, nurtured doubt.

The itch for answers is what drew me here. But Eamon’s doubt is what powers me through the aisles with a burn in my gaze and a determined set to my jaw.

It takes an hour or two before I have gathered an armful of scrolls. The priest ties them with twine before I make my way back to Hemlock.

The first bridge I take alone is the same one that the selkie once caught me on and tried to lure me into the waters. That feels a lifetime ago, but it was less than a month past.

This phase, it is no selkie that is drawn to me.

I’m out of the centre of Kithe when I hear him—

“Narcissa!” A raspy voice booms up from the winding road behind me. “Narcissa, wait!”

I stagger on the road. Almost trip over my feet as I turn to see the litalf wrapped in brown leathers.

He slows his run into thumping steps.

His broad shoulders sway with his eternal swagger, as buff as the beefy Caius, but stretched taller, so it suits him better.

Streetlights glisten over his leathers, easing an earthy brown from them, a shade that matches his hair tugged back into a braided ponytail.

“Ronan.” I take an involuntary step back, Daxeel’s command ringing through my bones. “I’m not meant to speak to family.”

Ronan lifts his calloused hands; scarred palms flat against the air. “Am I your family? Do we share a bloodline?”

“I…” My boots clack against the stone, my backward steps unfaltering. “I don’t think I can stop to talk.”

Physically, I cannot find the strength, the power over myself to halt my steps.

Ronan sucks his thin lips inwards until they vanish entirely. He hesitates.

After a beat, he nods, firm. “Then I will walk alongside you.”