Page 45 of Ink Sworn (Greatdrakes #3 | The Fae Universe #24)

After losing his mind the first time, Cosimo Greatdrakes had vowed never to let it happen again. Unfortunately, standing on the bottom step of a staircase for twenty minutes and refusing to walk up them wasn't a sign that his mind was as healthy as it should be.

He would have liked to blame the restless dragon inside of him, but he had experienced this feeling long before his dragon had awoken.

When Cosimo's wife had died almost two decades beforehand, he had fought through his long dark nights of the soul and had come out the other side battered, bruised, and changed forever.

He knew he hadn't been a good father to his boys then, and knowing that they understood and forgave him for it didn't help alleviate the guilt he still carried.

That guilt hurt now more than Lisa's loss. His grief for her had been integrated within himself, and when there were days he still missed her, for the most part, he tried to remember to keep living his life.

Unlike Lisa, Cosimo had never grieved for his sister.

For a start, he knew that Maria was still alive, wherever she was. Magicians as talented as her were known to stroll off into other worlds and come out again when they wanted to.

Most of the stories of mortals getting lost in Faerie and coming out hundreds of years later usually failed to mention that they were all magic users hunting an obsession.

Cosimo had missed his sister, but he never thought she was dead because the house would have told him. Magician’s houses are strange places at the best of times, but if a magical family lived for centuries upon centuries in one place, the house tended to take on a life of its own.

Too much magic soaking into the walls , his father, Lugh Greatdrakes, had once told him. It makes the house another living family member. Always care for it, and it will care for you.

The house had flickered with the spark of Maria's magic two days ago, when she had appeared to Valentine in the cellars on the night of his mating party. She had been trying to get to Cosimo and had found Valentine instead.

Cosimo had held off going up the winding stairs of Maria's old tower ever since. It still felt like he was about to trespass into a space that didn't belong to him. The house had never removed Maria's rooms, which was always how you knew that a Greatdrakes had died.

Cosimo had loved the house for giving him that sign his sister still lived, just as much as he hated it when he came home after Lisa's funeral and found that the house had taken away her study, and all of her things.

It had left pictures of her with the family, but everything down to her perfume bottles and cosmetics had all vanished.

That was the moment when Cosimo had lain on the carpet in their bedroom and hadn't moved for two days.

In the present, he flinched at the memory, his shoulders hunching inward. He hated that his sons had to take care of Reeve and become adults too early because he had been too hopeless to do anything for months.

"Focus on the present and the living," he whispered under his breath. "Maria is alive, and she needs you."

Cosimo had hoped she would appear to him, like she had to Valentine. There hadn't been a whisper of Maria's magic since that night, and Cosimo couldn't hold it off any longer. He had taken one step up the stairs when he felt Valentine behind him.

"About time you went up there," he said.

Cosimo turned to where Valentine was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He looked like he had been there a while, which made Cosimo narrow his eyes.

"How long have you been standing there? Do I need to ban glamor in the house?" he asked, fighting off embarrassment.

Valentine only grinned. It was a smile from long ago that was becoming more frequent again after mating with Yelena. His too powerful, complicated son was finally himself and happy again.

Cosimo loved that all of his sons had finally found their partners, even if it made him resent the fact that he no longer had a mate.

We can change that , the voice of his dragon prodded at him.

Cosimo rubbed at his eyes, willing the dragon to go back to sleep. I don't want another mate.

Liar. There could be one out there.

I don't care.

You are just scared to try again, like you have always been. We could have another mate and you..

"Shut up, " Cosimo growled under his breath.

"Dad? Are you okay?" Valentine asked, taking a step forward.

Cosimo attempted a smile. "Sorry, just a bit of a headache. Did you want to come up with me?"

Valentine nodded. "I'm not going to let you do this on your own. Besides, I've never been into this part of the house because you banned us."

"I banned you because magician's towers become unstable when their magician is gone for too long.

Maria was brilliant and loved ancient magics.

Gods only know what some of her research and experiments do.

I went up here after her disappearance, trying to find some evidence of where she had gone, but then I felt it was better to leave it alone," Cosimo said, running a hand through his salt and pepper hair.

If anything, the warning made Valentine look more interested. It was another reason Cosimo had warded the stairs to the tower. All of his sons were curious, but Valentine had always been exceptionally ravenous for knowledge.

"I'm definitely coming up with you now," Valentine said, stepping up beside him. He pointed at the invisible space in front of them. "Do you want to get this ward or should I?"

Cosimo huffed out a laugh. "Go ahead, I know you have been dying to do it."

"I was trying to respect your decision," Valentine replied, and a slight swiping motion with his index finger shredded the wards like they were nothing more than cobwebs.

"Show off," Cosimo said fondly. "Let me go first at least."

"You think there will be traps?"

"There wasn't last time I came up here, but I don't know how stable it's going to be now," Cosimo admitted. "Did Maria seem hurt at all when she appeared to you?"

Valentine shook his head. "Not hurt. Pissed off and confused, but not in any pain. She didn't seem to have aged much. Not like you."

"Thanks, son. I appreciate that," Cosimo replied, rolling his eyes. The shock of Lisa's death had made him start to go gray early, but he didn't want to point that out. "If you boys didn't stress me out so much, I would look a lot younger."

"You and Taranis both bitch about that, and really, we haven't gotten into any trouble that we haven't gotten ourselves out of again," Valentine pointed out.

Cosimo snorted. "Have you been sampling Apollo's potions? You went into an ancient barrow kingdom and picked a fight with a fae king only a few weeks ago! Taranis and the others had to rescue you."

"It wasn't a risk, it was a battle plan. Going in there was a tactical maneuver that needed to be taken to remove Midir as a threat," his son argued back.

"Dark gods, it's a blessing I went grey instead of bald, with you thinking that makes doing something so dangerous any better."

Cosimo paused in front of a wide wooden door. It was square, not arched, and the walls around it were a pale stone. A cartouche was carved above it.

Valentine stared at it. "Do you know what that says? My hieratic and Coptic were always stronger than hieroglyphs."

"It was Maria's idea of a joke to put up an ancient Egyptian curse to deter people from entering her space. It reads, 'May the One who Dances in Blood drink heavily of those who enter here uninvited.' She was quite dramatic, even for a magician," Cosimo replied.

"If it's a joke, how come I can feel that it's a real curse?" Valentine asked, still staring at the carving with a slight grin.

"Her humor was - is - darker than most. Considering she told us to follow her trail, we should be safe from Sekhmet coming after us."At least, Cosimo hoped they were. You never knew with his sister. He readied himself for the emotional blow he was about to receive and opened the door.

Need to know what they find? You can check out Cosimo’s book here !