Page 127 of Liar Witch

“I’d be willing to throw in a little something extra if you manage to get both.” She flicks open a drawer and pulls out a shiny gold ring, flicking it up in the air and catching it again.

The stiffness that overtakes Rysen is immediate.

“Where did you get that?”

Her smirk sets me on edge. It’s the expression of someone who knows they’ve got the upper hand.

“In a ruined house that time forgot,” she says, giving absolutely nothing away beyond the twinkle in her eye. “It’s yours if you deliver.”

“It’s mine, anyway.” His fangs drop menacingly.

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” She tilts her head to the side. “I just know you’re not going to try and threaten me in my own establishment, are you?”

Rysen steps back, frowning, and takes several deep breaths until his fangs recede. “No. But I’ll be back for that.”

I raise a brow. “Actually, we’ll take it as a deposit.” I hold my hand out expectantly.

Marianne throws her head back and laughs, even as my men look at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“You’ve not told her much about me, have you?” The human asks my vampire. “Oh, I like the balls on you, witch.”

“Shadow,” I correct, watching as the smirk falls slightly. “The men of theDeadwoodare mine. You’d do well not to mess with them again.”

Marianne regards me silently. “I won’t gut you for that out of respect for the Goddess,” she mutters. “But this is the only free pass you’ll get from me, Shadow or not. I run these docks. I command the loyalty of everyone in it. My word is all that stands between you and being chased across the sea by every pirate who owes me. And theyallowe me something.”

I shrug. “It won’t do you a lot of good if you’re dead.”

Marianne flicks the ring into the air another time, then stares at it, pondering. Without a word, she turns to where Opal is still pacing back and forth, staring at the stone.

“You can have it, if you tell me what that is.”

Nodding, I walk around the desk, ignoring the way Rysen tenses as the move puts me closer to the human.

Opal hops up onto the top of the tablet as I reach it. It’s taller than I am and the sigils which cover it run in random directions all over the surface, rather than from right to left, like I’m used to. There are too many for me to read the full story, but it’s clear that’s what it is.

“It’s a copy of the Book of the Moon,” I mutter, then correct myself. “No. It’s the Book of the Sun?” Even that doesn’t seem right. The theological texts which tell the story of creation are subtly different, which is one of the many rifts between Solars and Lunars. Yet this writing matches neither.

I trace a finger along the strange, dual spiral sigil carved in the centre. I may not be able to read the runes by sight, but perhaps with a little magic…

Opal lends me what I need gladly, and I start at the circle of sigils, which forms a barrier between that carving and the writing around it. The stone responds eagerly, the magics of whoever carved it reaching out as if in greeting.

“Before the Sun and the Moon, there was only Fate. She who brings balance, and whose presence unites the power of both…”My mouth mimes the words, but I don’t speak them out loud for fear of handing too much information to the human behind me.

My finger brushes the sigil in the centre as I take my hand away and a jolt passes through the Goddess’s mark on my back.

If that’s not a sign…

“Ask her where she got this,”my familiar demands.

I give the cat a look, but don’t question her judgement. “Where did you get it?”

“What’s the information worth to you?”

I roll my eyes. “If you want me to tell you what it is, I need to know where it came from.”

Marianne’s lips purse, but she evidently decides to trust me. “It’s from a temple inland. It was discovered a week ago by a hunter when he was separated from his party by the wraiths. I paid a lot of money to have it removed and brought here. I would have had one of the local covens look at it, but all the witches deserted their Temples in a hurry a fortnight back.”

I don’t comment, not wanting to give away anything about the evacuation, but inwardly, I’m left reeling. This is an artefact from before the wraiths’ appearance. A leftover piece of what the world once was before the survivors fled to the coasts with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and whatever they could carry.