Page 35 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

‘These—’ Gideon began, pointing with a metal finger to those scattered across the table.

‘No. Before,’ were the only words I could let escape my lips, my heart hammering viciously against my ribs.

‘In the kitchen,’ William answered reluctantly. ‘Why do you—’

I was already moving, Emrys’s voice a distant call as I raced into the hall and almost threw myself down the kitchen steps that manifested to my right.

Skidding to a halt only when I came to the table at the centre.

Seeing the stack of William’s collection beneath a bowl of highly polished green apples.

I lunged for them, rifling wildly, hearing the commotion of everyone following. I turned, Alma and William pressed into the narrow stairwell as Gideon elbowed his way through them. Emrys already before me.

‘Lord Septimus.’ I thrust the pages at him, only his focus didn’t stray from my face as the pages remained pressed against his chest. ‘Lord Huntington.’

The murdered lords. Who’d been deprived of their blood. The ones that had set Emrys on edge.

‘He was hunting them.’ I tapped the pages as Emrys took them into his hands.

That Montagor was seeking the power he could take from them. What if that power was compendiums or relics? Items that could only be awakened with blood. Just like when Finneaus opened that book.

‘He needed their blood. To open the compendiums they left behind. That was why Finneaus was opening the book in the Fifth Library. He didn’t want to be there.

Montagor must have forced his hand,’ I continued, prodding those lords’ names on the page to emphasis my point.

‘That’s how he got the relic. He found a compendium that took him to it. ’

‘The Septimus lords didn’t have a compendium.’ Gideon ran a hand through his blonde hair, the metal of it glinting in the kitchen’s firelight.

‘Their bloodline must have crossed somewhere with another house. Whatever he’s looking for has to be old.’ I shook my head, the lord lines were known to marry into one another. Anything to keep the blood pure. Only maybe they’d been keeping it pure for another reason. To keep their secrets hidden.

‘There was a tale many dark things could be hidden in books that old,’ Thean began, voice almost disinterested, but their eyes were too sharp as they peered down at the abandoned copies of The Crow’s Foot spread across the table.

‘Why the lords were hesitant to relinquish them after the wars. Why they bound them to their bloodlines.’

‘Relics?’ I pressed.

‘I’ve seen many things in my years,’ Thean nodded, turning around the papers with a distasteful glance. ‘Hiding one object within another is an old trick.’

‘Fuck.’ The word was a soft curse from Gideon. Emrys had gone very still, those dark eyes scanning over the pages before him. ‘Relics are from the old ages. Before the seals.’

‘If Montagor has a relic, he can find a seal. Those bastard compendiums probably lead the way,’ Thean added without emotion. Of course – because all dark things return in the end. They always know their way back.

‘That’s why he wants her.’ Gideon nodded in my direction. ‘Why he sent that beast after her blood. Why he set the trap at all. He’ll also be needing more than one relic to accomplish anything.’

I hadn’t considered that. Just as relics could guide the dark to a power source, the magic in my blood could do the same – guide it to the seals it protected. Because Montagor knew there was a seal beneath Fairfax. He knew it was gone. And he knew I was the reason for that.

‘He’s going to open a seal.’ I felt heat flare in my veins with panic as my eyes met Emrys’s. ‘There are other Kysillians. Others with lesser blood. It isn’t just me.’

No. I wasn’t special or chosen. That poor girl and all those fey had died in that pit for nothing and Montagor would do the same. Find anything remotely close to Kysillian to try to get what he wanted.

‘No. But you present a challenge I’m certain a primitive part of Montagor’s nature is quite obsessed with,’ Gideon offered, giving Emrys a dark look.

Of course. Verr were territorial. I flushed. Montagor knew mine and Emrys’s entanglement and he’d use it to his advantage. Anything to claim power over another. In challenge, an opponent needed to find a weakness … and Montagor had found one of Emrys’s.

Me.

William worried his hands. ‘It makes sense why Montagor has been after you and your role within the Council, Emrys. You have enough compendiums and dark artifacts here.’

Gideon let out an irritated huff of breath. ‘As entertaining as this revelation is, we still don’t know where to start.’

‘Ainsworth’s compendium,’ Emrys and I said at the same time, startling Gideon.

‘It’s already open,’ I finished. ‘They wanted something from it.’

‘Why on earth would it be open?’ Gideon asked, looking slightly unnerved by the thought. ‘Where the fuck is the gobrite from inside it?’

The house clattered the pans in the corner in excitement before something crashed into the kitchen table. Sending the apples bouncing from their bowl.

There, rattling in the cage I’d trapped it in, was the gobrite. Only it didn’t look the same. It had shifted itself into something far less grotesque. Like a small wyvern as it curled in its own sheddings, hissing at us as if annoyed by the disturbance.

Small onyx scales glinting in the hearth’s light.

Why had Emrys kept it? I looked at him but his annoyed gaze was focused at the ceiling, hands on his hips.

‘There it is!’ William beamed, but he still took a few steps back from the creature, standing on Gideon’s foot. ‘Kat captured it in an old chandelier.’

‘Of course she did,’ Gideon grumbled. Then those blue eyes were back on me, hard with annoyance. ‘We could have asked the little Ainsworth twat about the book and saved ourselves all this bother, if Miss Woodrow hadn’t clawed his fucking eyes out.’

‘When?’ William croaked, mouth agape.

‘Should have gone for his throat,’ Alma muttered darkly, making William go paler.

‘Finally, you’ve decided to be interesting, darling,’ Thean mocked me, amber eyes practically gleaming.

Gideon – thankfully – ignored them all and finished. ‘Now, we have to deal with the bastard lords.’

‘I can check the inventory for which compendiums we have and which were destroyed. Which books belong to which houses. That will narrow down the missing ones and any Montagor might be interested in,’ William offered, turning to see where Alma was still lost in pensive thought. ‘Alma, do you want to help?’

‘I don’t read well,’ she offered with mild irritation, her cheeks flushing.

‘You should be thankful I have nobody better to torment,’ Thean sighed with barely controlled boredom. ‘I read excellently .’

Alma’s lip curled back as if resisting the urge to bare her fangs.

‘We need to summon the lords,’ Gideon interrupted, voice sharp with authority.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Emrys corrected, turning to William. ‘William, was there any post this morning?’

The boy frowned before looking in his apron. ‘Only this. I didn’t think the fire post was still open.’

He held out a simple letter, no name on it and singed at the corners. But something in it must have been familiar because Gideon tensed as he saw the blue wax seal.

‘You bastard,’ he seethed.

‘I’m certain we’ll find all the answers we need at the east dock.’ Emrys smirked, a teasing darkness in his eyes as he met his brother’s annoyance head on. Then I saw the depiction of a ship’s anchor at the wax seal’s centre.

‘What’s at the east dock?’ I asked.

‘The Lady of the Reavers,’ Thean Page answered darkly, a threat lining those words. ‘You’d better understand the game you’re about to play, Blackthorn.’