Page 138 of The Vampire's Mercy

I jumped to my feet. “Am I here to unlock your chains?”

Two blinks.

I rubbed my throbbing skull. “I’ll check over there.”

He knows who you are.

Was he the voice who called me precious one?

I asked him before I went to look.

Nope.

“Do you know who is?”

Yep.

“Do you know anything about a wooden disk and blackberry ink?”

He did.

Okay, another question before I inspected the furniture. “Will something over here help you?”

Another yes.

Hmmm.

Gnawing on my bottom lip, I checked the oak bureau first, finding it empty. Then did the wardrobe, its varnish worn, a lot of splits in the wood.

I found a pair of brown trousers hanging beside a long coat of midnight blue with silver piping and a hood. I pulled it off the hook. It was soft, as light as a feather, missing its buttons.

Rifling through the pockets, my fingers knocked something solid inside the left one. Wooden, vibrating with magic.

I pulled out the wooden disk.

“What is this thing?”

I studied the symbols on the wood, holding it in my palm, still unable to decipher them. And the same thing happened again, the ink melting while the damn thing stuck to my hand.

Words and language…

Dark purple magic danced around my fingers.

I returned to the man, about to ask him another question when I saw the glowing symbols change, beginning to make sense. One by one, they became a language I found myself understanding. And that the language was runic, but not the kind of runic the world was familiar with.

Elvish runic.

“Paris…”

The sound of the vampire king’s voice slithered across the back of my neck. I immediately tensed, unable to move.

Medusa appeared beside me. “You opened the door?”

I listened tohisboots on the floorboards, executioner senses prickling as he arrived on my other side.

“Paris?” he repeated.

I kept my eyes forward, the runes telling me what to do, magic bubbling inside me, sending knowledge to my brain.