Page 139 of Lana Pecherczyk

“You have a trove too?”

Heat rushed to his cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Will I get to see it?”

He wanted to say no. He’d never planned on having a mate, so his trove was embarrassingly personal. And bare. He was a bit of a romantic in his youth. Looked up to his parents far too much. Painted a few embarrassing things on the walls. Couldn’t decide what was worth keeping and what was worth tossing. Then, after Cloud’s betrayal, River had stopped going there altogether. Stopped caring.

“Shit, you’re blushing.”

“It’s personal, that’s all.”

“This place is too.” She touched a trinket with a child’s drawing on it. “It’s nice when you think about it. Photographsjust aren’t the same. What I wouldn’t give to revisit objects from me past—Mum’s makeup brushes. Dad’s hammer. I’d feel less alone.”

She sniffed.

“Are you crying?” River asked.

“I’ll stop.” She wiped her nose.

He hooked a finger under her chin and brought her eyes to his. “Do whatever the fuck you need to do to feel better, Blake.”

“Do you ever take your own advice?”

He smirked, let go, and faced the darkness. The weight of her stare remained with him a little longer before she asked, “Should we leave?”

“Probably, but … it can’t be a coincidence we found this place. The Well has an interesting sense of timing, and…” He thought about all the times he had feelings and intuition that were validated. Rory, for one. He’d always known something was off with her, that she’d break Cloud’s heart. And the moment he’d seen that shadowy figure flying after the retreating airship five years ago, he knew Cloud was about to break her.

“And?” Blake prompted.

“And I sometimes wonder if I’ve got a touch of psychic powers. My mother was almost the Donna before she eloped. I’m sure you noticed the chin markings and how she reads auras. The point is, if we’re here, the Well wants us to see something.”

The bioluminescence wasn’t bright enough to see clearly. Cloud would have prepared another light source. He focused on his connection to the Well and sent his awareness outward. Nearby, he felt the telltale buzzing of a concentration of mana. He crossed to the shadowed wall and peeled back a tattered, dusty tapestry to reveal a lever attached to a pipe. He held his ear to it, and the buzzing amplified.

“This must be it.” He pulled the lever, opening a valve, triggering a whooshing and tinkling sound through the pipe.Two seconds later, light erupted around the room as lanterns around the trove filled with escaping manabeeze.

“Whoa,” Blake blurted as previously invisible UV scripts blazed across every surface. Cloud’s handwriting grew more frenzied deeper in the chamber.

River’s people believed that if a circling crow’s shadow touched theirs while they were grounded, they were marked for an unlucky life. They never left home without shiny objects on their belts for this reason. Distracting a circling crow prevented their shadows from crossing paths.

At the ripe old age of ten, River had once spent a weekend terrorizing his murder from above, casting his shadow over the grounded just to watch them scatter like mice. His kettle’s low social status had barred him from a stupid event he couldn’t even remember now. But he’d retaliated by seeing how many destinies he could ruin.

Every single target shone their shiny in his face. All except one.

River had found Cloud sitting alone, nose bleeding from his father’s fist—punishment for attempting to join a Gathering before he was of age.

When Cloud didn’t react to their shadows crossing paths, River shifted into fae form and berated him for inviting trouble.

“What’s the point?” he’d replied, sniffing through his bloody nose.

“Fuck your dad. Do what you want.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Everything’s easy with someone to watch your back.”

They’d sketched plans in the dirt, seizing control of their destinies, laughing off shadow-crossing superstition. But now, seeing the evidence of Cloud’s madness in chaotic discord on the ruin’s internal walls, River feared they’d been wrong.

So very wrong.