Page 65

Adrian

N ow, more than ever, I needed to find a way to stop my brother.

My hand strayed to my belt, where the charmed artefact lived in a small pouch. I didn’t dare pull it out. The charms were still being woven, still needed more time.

But based on the look on Ivy’s face as she stared in horror at the demon, we were running out of it—fast.

“Do you know where it is?” I asked. “Where the skull is?”

The old demon glanced at me before shaking his head. “Pandora took that secret to the grave. She didn’t even tell Kamari about it.”

Kamari had been the second Queen of Nyx. The Queen who had seen at least five hundred years of peace before the fall of this world.

I scrubbed a hand down my face. Ivy’s disappointment was strong, her fear potent.

“Is there any way Dante might have found out about it? Are you sure you destroyed all the records?” Ivy asked. I checked in with our bond, carefully bypassing her blocks. She wasn’t paying attention to me, too focused on the supposedly dead demon to notice my presence.

I needed to make sure she wasn’t on the brink of a panic attack. So far, since taking what was left of my mother’s power, she’d been stable not only with her magic, but also her emotions. And she had every right to lose her mind over everything that’d happened so far.

But when I checked, her emotions were mostly calm. Her fear bubbled close to the surface, but I couldn’t find any sign of an oncoming panic attack.

I remembered the first one she’d had after we’d bonded.

The way it not only affected her—but me.

I knew she had them; it was one of the first things she told me.

They were, in part, caused by the nightmares triggered by coming into the power of Nyx.

But she’d been struggling with them a whole lot longer than that. Because of her mom, because of life.

Deep within her, I found a hint of it. The tightening of her chest, the pressure that would build in her throat so she couldn’t breathe.

Only, it didn’t break the surface. It remained simmering in the back of her mind.

She was holding it back, but she didn’t need to.

I knew there was a way to siphon certain things through the mate bond. My father had told me about it. Pain, mostly. When my youngest sister, Lyra was born, Magnus had taken away Mom’s pain of childbirth.

I had a feeling I could do the same for Ivy, if I just tried hard enough .

When I pulled back from her mind, my eyes met Elias’s briefly. He had his arms crossed, jaw clenched as he leaned against the wall, but I wondered if he’d noticed the same thing I had.

He gave me a shallow nod before turning his attention back to her.

Releasing a shaky breath, I did the same, removing my hand from the pouch at my side. Later, I would work more on the spell. For now, though, we needed to get whatever information we could out of the dead demon.

Asael rubbed his chin. The locket in his hand glinted in the light of the fire as his hold on it loosened. I was a little intrigued about what it might be. There was a charm imbedded in the metal, one I didn’t recognise.

“I did most of the hunting myself,” he said. “The demons gave up information easily. Thanks to…” His eyes flickered to the Elysian King.

Rhadamanthus shook his head. “That was mostly Merikh.” He waved a dismissive hand. “They were a terrifying force.”

“That, they were,” Asael murmured.

I had no idea who the demon was, and I hated to admit my studies of demon figures was…vague, at best.

I’ll do better , I thought. When we go home .

There was a beat of awkward silence no one knew how to break.

“Well, that’s great and all,” Rowan said. At least he knew how to get the conversation moving again. “But that doesn’t answer the question of how Dante knows about the skull. We didn’t even know anything about it until Ivy was told by Pandora’s ghost in a dream. Which seems a little too…helpful.”

His apprehension was clearly shared by others, because Black, Nash, and Maeve all shared similar looks of unease.

I hadn’t wanted to say it, but yeah. It was a little convenient that Ivy learned it from a dream.

And that wasn’t on her; I knew through the bond that she’d worried the same thing.

That maybe, somehow, Dante had broken through her blocks and planted that there to kick us off the path of the crown.

“I wish it were that easy,” Asael lamented, “but I remember the day Pandora nearly exploded from her power. It was too much. She hadn’t told anyone that, of course.

She thought she was being strong, holding onto it and doing exactly what Nyx told her to do.

” A hint of bitterness entered his voice at that.

“But she was burning from the inside out. And Eryx’s uncle knew that.

I was blind to it, and I will forever blame myself for not stopping it in time—not stopping him before he could be a threat.

This is my punishment.” Tears shined in his eyes as they flickered around the room.

“You would all do anything for your mate, would you not?”

My chest tightened, though I didn’t even need to speak to know the answer to that. Of course I would. Ivy was everything to me. She was the only hope I had left in my life. Everything I knew had been a lie; a terrible, destructive lie, but she was the only constant. The only light.

And if she asked me to do what he was doing now, I would do it in a heartbeat.

“There is a chance Eryx and I never found everything in the Fae realm,” Asael admitted.

“We did everything we could. We had help from the Fae who chose to kneel to Pandora, but there were clearly still some who were determined to undermine her. To go against Nyx. That is the only thing I can think of.”

The Fae prince standing beside Ivy cleared his throat. “Is there a chance you didn’t check the Luna Court?” His eyes flickered from Ivy to the demon. “They have been instrumental in the current war against Ivy. The High Lord—my father—has been working with Dante since the beginning.”

Rage coiled deep within me. Hyperion Black was one person I knew I didn’t have the authority to stop. I’d leave that for Orion. But if he wanted the charm I was working on, then I’d let him have it, if it meant stopping the bastard. Especially after everything he’d done.

Asael was quiet for a moment, before sighing.

“They were perhaps loyal to a fault,” he said.

“I never once got an inkling they were working against us. But it is possible. The Luna Court is heavily fortified—or it was, when I first ventured into the Court. And there was so much land that hadn’t been explored. ”

Orion nodded, though he seemed more lost in his own thoughts now.

Ivy glanced up at him with a soft expression; I didn’t know all of what they’d talked about in the icy city, but as much as I hated the pain that bastard had put her through, I was a little glad they had worked something out.

It was clear she didn’t fully trust him, maybe wouldn’t for a while, but he had given her something.

“So, we’re no closer to figuring this shit out then,” Elias grumbled.

“Can you give us something useful, demon? The fate of my mate is in the balance. Clearly, you don’t realise how much danger she’s in.

” The wolf shift pushed off the wall he had been leaning against and stalked towards the dead demon.

“He has things that can take her power. Not just the skull, but runes. Ancient ones.”

Asael was maybe a couple inches shorter than Elias, so when surprise flickered across his features, I rose, too. “You don’t know about the runes?” I asked.

The demon looked between Elias and me. “What runes?”

An hour passed as Rowan drew each rune from memory. He’d tried slipping into the vision so he could get a better look at the chains that had been trapping her.But apparently, we weren’t exactly in a physical place. The cabin wasn’t real.

So, Rowan had to figure it out himself.

“I memorised them,” he muttered as he sketched the pattern. “They were complicated. Something I didn’t recognise.”

“And you think your mother tricked you into studying runes for this moment?” The demon raised his brows, though not in disbelief. “We knew an Archer Seer. Tricky woman. I never trusted her with my drinks again after a particular ball.”

Rowan snorted as he slid a piece of paper to him. “Apparently, that runs in our very long bloodline.”

A smirk pulled at the demon’s lips as he took the paper and assessed it.

We were all gathered around the table now; Ivy sat at one of the chairs across from Rowan and next to the demon, the fourth empty as the rest of us stood around them.

I was between Ro and the demon, Maeve standing beside me. The only one not here was Hawk.

Man, I was starting to really hate the male.

“I think I know what these are, but…” He shook his head. “I don’t understand how he found them.”

Across from me, standing directly behind Ivy, Elias rolled his eyes. “That’s not really helpful.”

The demon cut him a dark stare. “I understand your irritation, wolf, but I am trying to help.”

“Not enough,” Elias growled. “This is wasting time.”

The demon sighed, setting the paper down. “These were known as God runes. Again, wiped from known history. Only those who accepted the role of protecting the God Magic knew of these.”

“So, you think someone from one of those…groups might have given these to Dante?” Ivy asked quietly.

“It is possible.” He gave the paper back to Rowan. “There is a way to protect yourself from these. It’s difficult, but with the right charm magic…”

Asael sat back, reaching into his pocket for the locket he had stashed there when Elias had brought up the runes. I watched as he pulled it free and set it on the table.

“My time here is coming to an end,” he said, though he didn’t sound too disappointed at that.

“The runes were created by the gods. That is why they are so powerful. The skull is somewhere only Pandora would know. I do not know how your enemy would have found out about it, but I suspect Pandora has been leading you there, somehow.”

Ivy blinked up at him. “What do you know about a cottage?”

A wistful smile touched his lips. “Pandora grew up an orphan. Lived in a cottage behind the orphanage, caring for their crops.” He shook his head, laughing quietly. “I never would have suspected she would hide something there, but if she did, I would go to dragon territory. Good luck.”

The demon fazed out of sight, and as soon as he was gone, the cabin disappeared with him.