“Did you know my sister?”I am not afraid of him, I repeat in my head. I am not afraid of how his gaze scrutinizes me from head to toe. I am not afraid of the sneer curving his lips, as if my question disrupted his day.
“No,” he speaks, and I lower my head, my cheeks warm, suddenly ashamed of my brazenness.
His hand reaches up and pauses right below my chin. “Don’t look down.” His soft, long fingers lift my face, so Ihaveto look at him. Both his eyes are back to gray, dark like the clouds hovering before a rainstorm, threatening to spill chaos over anything he regards. My heart thrums against my chest, in fear, in anticipation, in agony of something I don’t dare lean in to. He lowers his head to my ear, and the warmth of his breath brushes against my skin.
“Fear makes you prey,” he scoffs, dropping my face. I snap out of myreverie, my body alert at his veiled threat. Before I can even react, the green aspier I hadn’t noticed around his left forearm moves. It stretches to my wrist, its cold scales rubbing against my skin. I should be afraid, but the aspier is alluring, the way it slithers forward, its scales glistening every time it catches the light. The mage’s right eye turns green, and the pain in my wrist from Lorne’s hold vanishes.
Alarm rings through my bones.
Beware the serpent with one green eye.
Dear Uncle Rodric, if you figure out how I can break this bond with the Mortemagi, I will never break a single rule again.
LETTER FROM HIGH MAGUS SYLAS ARCHYR TO OVERSEER PALTRO, NOVEMBER 1939
twelve | sylas
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1939
Corvi smells like roses. I hate roses. They remind me of the sickly sweet innocence of nonmagi, always so curious, always so careless, and they die just as quick. Or maybe they remind me of Mom’s funeral, where all I remember is the nauseating smell of the flowers.
As I lean over the balustrade on the first story of Hollow Tree, I wonder why mages flock to the dining hall instead of eating in their respective Houses—it’s always so… crowded. Railesza sits at my wrist, her head resting between my thumb and index finger. Her eyes follow Corvi’s every step until she sits at the long dining table, mindlessly tearing apart a fresh loaf of honeyfig bread—an odd choice for dinner. My aspier has no business being this invested in a Mortemagi, just like I had no business intervening into Mortemagi matters yesterday morning.
“You’re back.” My sister tackles me with a side hug. I wrap my arms around her, grateful to Paltro for getting me out of the correctional facility. I thought I’d never see Lyria again.
“I’ve been back for a couple of days now.” I give her a pointed look.
“Paltro sent me home,” she reminds me. My smile falters. Paltro did mention sending her to Iserine, but if he was with me the whole time,whowent with my sister?
“Alone? With poachers in every corner?”
“Gryff was with me.” She sighs.
I frown. Even with him, it’s risky traveling to a different province with poacher camps along the borders.
“I thought Gryff was in the middle of an investigation,” I say.
“He was, I mean, he is. He had to go to Iserine anyway, to retrieve Beau’s birth certificate and adoption papers.”
I don’t press further. “How is he? And did someone tell Grayson?” Gryff’s brother, Grayson, and Beau were close.
“Angry, sad. In a way, he lost a brother, too. And Gray is on assignment in Imglen. He doesn’t know yet.” She pokes her cheek with her tongue and looks up with tears in her eyes. “Sometimes I forget he’s gone, you know? How are you holding up?”
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about my feelings right now. I’ll grieve when we find Beau’s body. She nods, giving me a small smile. Then she narrows her eyes at my black aspier. “Why did Raiku try to kill the Mortemagi?”
Raiku remains still at my wrist. He was almost sent back to death row after he bit Corvi. I had to convince PGM Parrish that he was only putting her back to sleep so she could heal. An obvious lie. I briefly flirted with the idea of letting her die, and Raiku acted on it. “Uncle Rodric told me to keep you in line,” she says lightheartedly.
“Did he also tell you that they forced me to bond withher?” I scoff. “A Mortemagi.”
“Sylas.” Her tone drops in a long sigh, as if she’s speaking to a child. I prepare myself for the same old lecture. “The House of Death didn’t kill Mom.Shedidn’t kill Mom.”
“Death magic killed Mom, Lyria,” I correct her. “Perhaps it wasn’t Corvi magic, but it’s all the same.”
My sister huffs, but she knows I’m right. Dad told us the story countless times. How Mom was surrounded by the undead—bony creatures, oozing darkness, with the sickly sharp stench of death, the ones Mortemagi summon. How he tried to help her, but she died saving him with Raiek. Our entire world upended in one moment.
“Thisgirl didn’t kill Mom.” She locks me in a death stare. “Your prejudice can’t play the God of Death.”
“If I wanted her dead, she’d already be dead,” I say. What I do not sayis that I lost control. After Raiku’s biting incident, Paltro threatened to send me back to the correctional facility if I so much as touch a single hair of the Mortemagi. “You don’t want to know what Parrish is capable of,” he’d said. If she’s even half as deadly as her sister, the Deathbringer, no, I don’t want to know.