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T he room beyond the secret door was cool and dark except for the dramatic cast of necrotic green witch light bouncing from two wall sconces around an arched doorway.

As Ambrose and Emery passed through it, the sconces flared, setting off a chain of them down the hall.

They banished the dark, illuminating a long tunnel with many doors—each of them old, formed by planks of wood with an iron ring in the center.

Cautiously, they approached the first, pushing it open.

The room beyond looked half library, half laboratory.

Strange tithes kept in jars of yellow liquid lined the shelves, alongside potion bottles with congealing contents.

Some of the books had disconcertingly beige covers, as if bound in human skin.

The hideous collection drew them in.

“One of those could be the witch king’s grimoire,” Emery said.

If an artifact of the witch king’s was present, Ambrose thought he’d sense it like he’d sensed the skeleton in the cellar.

He felt nothing, but they searched anyway.

Many of the spines were unmarked, so they had to pull the books from the shelf to read the covers. Emery touched them without disguising his disgust.

“They look like human skin because they are human skin, aren’t they?”

Ambrose nodded. The witch king’s grimoire had been the same. Bound in the flesh of a man who’d been struck by lightning, the branching shapes still burnt into the leather. Ambrose had resented the times he had to touch it. The book still prickled with echoes of pain.

I sense your disdain for my magic, even as it made you who you are.

Chastised, Ambrose tried to suppress his revulsion for the books. The longer he’d been around Emery, whose balmy magic soothed rather than stung, the more difficult it became not to let his disconcertion with the latter show.

He did a terrible job of keeping his feelings from his face, because Emery said, “What’s wrong?”

“I’d rather be reading about Henry and Simon,” Ambrose blurted, and the second it was out, he blushed in mortification.

“Who?” Emery asked.

“Nothing.”

“Wait, Henry and Simon as in … as in, the characters from—Oh, I can’t even remember the title.”

“ Ruthless Temptations ,” Ambrose said sullenly.

Emery’s mouth hung open. “But you’re only just learning to read.”

“I had a blind student in your class instruct me in the spellcraft of text-to-speech.”

“Oh.” Emery pulled his lips between his teeth, but it didn’t hide his pleased smile. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. I have those books because I like them, obviously.”

Ambrose’s heart still raced. Being caught reading rude books felt like he’d been caught naked, though it presented an opportunity to learn more. “They wink a lot in those books.”

“Er, I suppose they do.”

“It was not common practice in my era. I’m not sure anyone save rapscallions winked. Is that how modern seduction works?”

Emery snorted. “I don’t know if I’ve ever winked.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Ambrose countered.

“Sure you can. You just close one eye.” Emery faced him, winking to demonstrate. “Like that.”

Ambrose had to concentrate. He closed one eye, but evidently not smoothly, because Emery started laughing.

“Quicker. And not so … emphatically.”

Ambrose tried again.

“And not while making that face.”

Ambrose was hopeless, but he didn’t mind the practice if it made Emery laugh.

“I can get you more books with more homosexual winking if you’d like,” Emery offered.

That sounded like a terrible euphemism, but Ambrose warmed to the idea. “I’d like that. There were never any homosexual winking books in my time. At least, none that I knew.”

“What was it like for you back then?”

“For those who could partake? Clandestine. It has its appeal in fiction, but in my experience the constant threat of death if your romantic entanglements are exposed made them more …” He’d been about to say damaging . “Difficult,” he said instead.

“Oh … Is that why you acted so horrified when we—?” He trailed off. “You don’t have to answer.”

If there had ever been a perfect moment for an apology, Ambrose might never have guessed it would take place in this wretched library.

“I’m sorry for the way I reacted.”

Emery flinched, taking the wrong meaning from the apology.

“I’m not apologizing for kissing you,” Ambrose said quickly.

Emery stopped. They gazed at one another for the length of three heartbeats, until Ambrose summoned his courage.

“You— the kiss meant a great deal to me. I’m sorry if it seemed otherwise, I wanted to kiss you, but there are reasons I—can’t. Shouldn’t.”

Won’t , said the voice in his ear.

Emery set the book he held on the table and slowly made his way across the room to stand in front of Ambrose.

“Because of the witch king,” he guessed, still guarded, but softer than before.

Ambrose couldn’t keep this secret any longer. It was making him ill, but he didn’t know a comprehensive way to explain. “There are things I’ve hidden from you. Or myself. Or both. About the witch king, my oath. Things I need to tell you before we can—I can—”

“Hey.” Emery cupped his cheek. He seemed shocked he’d done so, but a second later his thumb soothed a line across one cheek bone. “It’s all right. He’s dead.”

Don’t tell him.

Ambrose had to wrench the words through the choking circle of the collar’s grip. Emery was standing close enough that the compulsion held some power over Ambrose, but not enough.

“The witch king isn’t dead.”

Emery’s hand stilled. “What?”

“He isn’t dead. Not entirely. In life, he performed a ritual that connected us somehow. He could not die so long as I lived. Now you’ve resurrected me, and I—I hear his voice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Stop this. Kill him.

Ambrose bit the inside of his cheek to distract from the molten pain the collar inflicted upon him. “I’ll explain everything, but for now, I really need you to step back and keep the tether far away from me.”

No! Choke him, break him, do not disobey me.

Emery, wide-eyed and confused, took three steps back and fished the slim bone from his pocket. He held it up. “How far?”

Sweat had broken out on Ambrose’s forehead, but the collar loosened. Runes glowed faintly with residual power along the pearly length of the bone, still trying to inflict its commands, but the compulsion held no power.

Emery’s face dawned with horror. “He was trying to control you.”

“Yes.”

“What did he want you to do?”

“He wants me to kill you.”

Even in the dark, Emery’s face paled. The way he pulled back further tugged at Ambrose’s heart. He didn’t think he could bear it if Emery feared him like he had at the start.

“Why?” Emery asked.

“I suspect he believes it would restore his power. Perhaps revive him. He tried to do the same by ordering me to kill Morcant, but it failed. Presumably because Morcant cannot die. Now it fails because I refuse to do as he asks, but with that in my hands …” He looked at the tether and shuddered.

“I think the only reason I’m able to refuse is because, while you have it in your possession, I am bound to protect and never harm you.

But it belonged to the witch king first. It is his.

And so am I.” The words tasted more bitter than they ever had.

Emery’s face fell. “What do you even mean by that?”

He meant that he’d been loyal for a lifetime and didn’t know if he could break free now.

He meant that the magic needed to be fed, or he feared it might consume him instead.

He meant that the witch king’s love was the only kind he’d ever known, and that he still couldn’t quite reconcile how meager it had been.

Scraps were luxurious when you were starving.

Mostly, he meant he didn’t know who he was anymore, if not the witch king’s faithful servant. He’d sacrificed the hero for the wolf.

Carefully, Emery tucked the finger bone into the inner pocket of his robes.

He took a few cautious steps forward. Ambrose let him, though his instincts screamed retreat.

But Emery ensured no contact with the tether when he leaned forward to touch his arm, trailing it to the wrist, encouraging Ambrose to unfist his hands.

His nails had bit into his palms. Through the pins and needles, Emery’s fingers tucked silkily between each of Ambrose’s, reminding him of the way he’d held his place between pages in books at the library.

Ambrose knew he’d need no such bookmark to recall with clarity this moment, with his heart tripping and Emery looking at him earnestly.

“I won’t let that happen,” he said. “You’ve protected me all this time. I’ll do the same for you. We’ll find a way to free you of him.”

No!

The witch king’s rage blazed hotter than it ever had.

Ambrose feared it. Still felt a sting of guilt over it.

But he’d spent a lifetime serving a man who loved him with the unfelt heat of a distant star, where even the small affection of Emery holding his hand filled his chest with the scorch of summer’s sun.

They had a task, so the rest of this conversation would have to wait.

Of the many books they scoured, the witch king’s grimoire was not among them, so they ventured down the hall to further doors.

Valenti squeaked piteously and jumped at every noise. Emery couldn’t turn him back without the correct tithe, but he seemed all too glad to remain small and protected within his cage.

One door opened into a darkly decorated office—complete with a mummified bat mounted on the wall. Another, a room filled with taxidermy and pickled animals. But the others were … different.

One led to a second library, but not like the last they’d explored.

This was Bellgrave’s public library—galleries of books several stories tall.

Looking in had the effect of watching an underwater world through aquarium glass.

All the sounds on the other side were muffled.

Poking their heads in, the dripping damp from the hall fell away, resolving into the shrouded papery quiet of all libraries.