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In a matter of days, I planned to greet the world of the dead with a confident smile, knives in hand, steps unflinching. All my life was now centered on this one goal.

And I would not be turned away from it now.

Chapter Two

The sun was rising,painting the sky with streaks of gold and red, as I scurried my way across the bridge that led to the home I shared with Orin.

For decades, he’d lived alone in this small cottage near the banks of Echoing Creek. My father and I had visited it occasionally when I was a child. Its cozy, chaotic interior was a place of wonder and laughter, alongside lectures and lessons in magic and a myriad of other topics. After I lost my parents, it had become a place of refuge, too—though it had taken months before I agreed to stay and consider ithome.

I scaled the ladder propped against the right side of the house, making my way to the flat stretch of roof and the trio of skylights spaced across it. The middle window opened like the hatch on a ship, and we’d hooked another ladder to the rim of it, allowing for an easy descent into the cottage.

We had a door, of course. But the bits and pieces of Orin’s latest experiments had stretched their way all around the perimeter of the living room, as they so often did, and a table had been dragged in front of the door to accommodate them. When I’d left that morning—by crawling through the kitchen window—said table had been covered in books, scraps of parchment, andcountless gadgets in various stages of completion…all of it so precariously balanced that I didn’t want to risk flinging open a door and creating an evenbiggermess.

It was simply easier to drop in through the roof.

Phantom followed my lead, falling soundlessly to the dinged and scratched-up plank floor. His shadowy body sent chills rippling through me as he passed.

He threw a disapproving glance at the mess in front of the door before plodding to his typical spot underneath the stairs. He didn’t really need sleep, considering he wasn’t truly alive, but he tended to become grumpy when he didn’t get his time alone—so I made a point of keeping a comfortable bed for him.

My mentor stood by the kitchen sink, humming a jovial tune as he washed a teetering stack of ceramic mugs. Smudges of ink stained his brown skin despite the soapy water sloshing all the way up to his elbows. His long waves of grey hair were tied back by a strip of leather at the nape of his neck, and he wore his favorite coat, even though a healthy fire blazed in the hearth. I’d mended that coat countless times over the years—a different scrap of fabric for every ill-fated experiment that ended in flames, or sharp edges, or some seepage of cloth-eating liquid.

At this point, I wasn’t even sure what it had originally been made of.

“Morning, Orin,” I said, cheerful in spite of my exhaustion.

“Nova, my beauty!” He spun around, throwing soapy water in all directions. “What a relief to see you in one piece.”

I arched a brow. “You doubted I’d return this way?”

“Never,” he proclaimed, waving a dismissive hand, flinging even more suds onto the crooked cabinets. “And even if I had, I’m a senile old man. You can’t take my doubts seriously.” With a properly stern look, he added, “Or my certainties, for that matter.”

I grinned.

Oldwas an understatement, really. He’d never revealed his true age to me, but he’d served my grandfather, and his grandfather before that. Orin was one of theAetherkin—beings with a connection to the old magic in our world that, among other things, tended to grant a longevity not seen in most humans.

He couldn’t wield any magic directly—there were few who could, even among the Aethers—but he could sense it and, with the tools he expertly crafted, he could channel some of it. It’s why my father had introduced me to him in the first place; Orin was the main reason I hadanysort of control over my powers.

I still wore the bracelet my father had given me on my eighteenth birthday, and I’d been gifted several more like it in the seven years since. Each one was crafted by Orin. Each one helped me channel a different strand of my power, allowing me to access specific spells—such as the projecting spell the rose-bead bracelet helped me call upon. They’d helped calm the restless shadows inside of me, too; those dark ribbons hadn’t emerged upon my skin in years.

I was up to four main bracelets now, and I was somewhat proficient at—or at least knowledgeable about—each of the spells they channeled. Spells that all centered around matters of death and souls, exits and endings—necromancywas the overarching term Orin, and other magic scholars, used to describe my innate powers. Powers that needed to be tamed, by way of enchanted jewelry or otherwise. For everyone’s sake.

It was a crude system, but these bracelets were the best we could do; there simply weren’t any true necromancers left to teach me how to properly wield my powers.

Once, it was said that the five kingdoms of Valor had been home to hundreds more like me. But not anymore. I was the only one Orin had encountered in a century, despite his extensive searching for others. Which I’d always thought was part of thereason he’d agreed to take me in: Hedidlove collecting his oddities.

Even my parents had shown no signs of possessing the Shadow magic I did…though, I did have a twin brother—Bastian—who had carried markers of emerging magic. He’d died when we were just shy of a year old.

I had no real memories of him. But apparently, they’d found him dead in his crib, a dark scar running the length of his abdomen, with more scars splitting through the centers of his arms. As if something had tried to peel apart his skin and escape…

Ripped apart by his own magic, it was decided.

My parents almost never spoke of him, except to remind me of why I needed to keep my magic under control. Shortly after our first conversation about the matter, I’d found myself under Orin’s tutelage. Given the alternative of losing another child, my mother had begrudgingly allowed me to continue honing my powers with him, even as I grew, despite her misgivings about his methods…and despite the fact that the old codger refused to swear loyalty to anyone but himself.

“Have some tea to warm yourself,” Orin said, motioning to a steaming cup by the stove as he returned to washing dishes. “I’m sure it’s been a long night.”

I picked up the drink but didn’t sip from it right away; every concoction in this house warranted caution. And a quick sniff told me I was right to be suspicious—whatever was in this cup smelled like poison and the wrong end of a horse.

“This is…I’m fairly certain this isn’t tea, Orin.”