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Resurrected kings, possessed soldiers, and a body-snatching Thief. It sounds nonsensical.

Perhaps if I wrote it out I would understand it all better.

“Do you have a notebook and a pen?” I ask the Bargainer.

In response, he snaps his fingers, and from the ether he produces a pen and a pad of paper.

I take both from him, and smooth the paper on the ground. Uncapping the pen, I begin to write.

Des peers over at what I’m scrawling down.

When I don’t say anything, he asks, “What are you writing?”

I pause, my eyes moving to his.

“A timeline.”

“Here is whatwe know: your father and the Thief are somehow connected,” I say. “If we start from the beginning, your father was once simply a king with a lot of consorts and kids; he probably wasn’t the best dude out there, but he wasn’talwaysmurdering his young.”

I pause, just to make sure I have the story straight so far.

Des gives me a nod, looking vaguely entertained.

“Then at some point,” I say, moving my pen down my timeline, “he heard a prophecy about losing his throne, and he murdered his children as a result.” I scribble the note in.

“You, his one remaining son, then overthrew him,” I pause to write in the facts, “and shortly thereafter you discovered his body wouldn’t decay, so you put him in a tomb.” I draw a long line to show the time elapsed. “Over a decade ago, his body was still entombed.” I fill that out on my sheet. “Now his body is gone, and he is very much alive.”

Once I’ve written it all out, I stare at the sheet.

And … I’m not sure this exercise produced a single answer. Except that—

The Thief of Souls began kidnapping soldiers roughly a decade ago, essentially during that shadowy period of time where Galleghar Nyx might or might not have been entombed.

There could be something to that.

My gaze moves back to the beginning of the timeline, around when Galleghar Nyx heard a prophecy and began killing his kids. That was the first domino flicked, the one that set in motion everything that led to us sitting here in the Banished Lands, an empty tomb only a stone’s throw away.

“Have you heard the prophecy yourself?” I ask.

The corners of Des’s lips pull down. “It’s been … lost to time.”

Well, there goesthatpotential lead.

A flask materializes in the Bargainer’s hand. He takes a deep swig of it, then wordlessly passes it to me.

Des is not usually this open to sharing alcohol with me. Before he can reconsider the offer, I take the flask from him and bring it to my mouth. I wince as soon as the spicy spirits hit my tongue. There’s magic in the drink, magic that strokes my throat and tickles my stomach.

I pass the flask back.

“It’s too quiet here,” he admits, his gaze skimming our surroundings. “Something is amiss.”

Something is more than a little amiss. A man came back from the dead.

“Des, whyarewe still here?” I ask softly. I haven’t pressed the issue up until now because I wanted to give my mate time to work through whatever emotional turmoil is running through his head.

And yeah, I get that an empty tomb is not a huge surprise, given that Des fought his dad back in Flora’s forest, but between keeping me alive and then defending his kingdom from an army of possessed soldiers, the King of Night has probably been a little too preoccupied to actually process that fact.

That being said, this was supposed to be a quick adventure—see Galleghar Nyx’s resting place, then go. But now we’re lingering, and maybe that wouldn’t be a problem except that, despite the drink, I can feel this place sapping away my strength bit by bit. And Des has a distant, troubled look on his face like each second he’s moving farther out of my reach.