“We won’t lose her again,” Everett agrees quietly.
All four of us grow silent, but there's an understanding. It’s an unspoken thing between us, the four cursed fools who somehow fucked up so badly as a quintet that we lost our precious keeper. Whatever differences we’ve had in the past, and despite the curses now plaguing us, protecting Maven from any and every threat is more important than anything.
As if you are capable of protecting her, my father’s voice scoffs.You don’t even know where she is.
I turn toward the door, batting several tiny floating cherubs out of my way. “I’ll find her. Baelfire, if you don’t go back to being a leash-chewing lizard-brained beast, scrounge up something for Maven to eat when I bring her back.”
“Who the hell put you in charge?” he scoffs.
I ignore him, knowing he won’t be able to resist his bone-deep instincts to take care of his “mate” now that I’ve brought up food. “Everett, make this room less godsdamned freezing so our keeper won’t catch hypothermia when I bring her back. Crypt, go getreveriumfrom Limbo to ease your curse or I’ll hex your cock with impotency so you won’t be able to please our keeper for weeks.”
“As if there aren’t plenty of ways to please our girl without a fucking cock, you obtuse bloodsucker,” he calls after me.
I can hear him swearing in irritation before I leave, the front door of the apartment closing behind me. I stride down the hall, ignoring every looming shadow and the paranoia my mind is steeped in. If Everett thought Maven was with us, and we thought she was with him, she obviously made us all believe something different so she could do something without our knowing.
Probably to keep us from worrying.
As if that’s fucking possible.
I'll worry about Maven until my final breath. My beautifully vicious blood blossom will just have to grow accustomed to us being overprotective, hovering, anxiously attached madmen for her for the rest of our lives.
If space is what she wants, she’ll have to use her godly powers to separate us from her.
A giant spider made of shadows crawls past in this frozen corridor. I pause, trying to decide if that was real. Since I can't be sure and suffocating suspicion is slowly climbing up my throat, I decide it's best to conceal myself.
Yes, hide,the voices in my head hiss.
Calling on the remainder of my blood magic from the last time I fed on Maven, I shroud myself in a simple but effective cloaking charm and pass through the empty halls unseen.
According to Everett, there are dozens upon dozens of people camping outside Everbound Castle’s front doors. I didn't see them when we arrived because I was in the thrall of my curse, but Nether humans, Reformists, reporters, and several others were gathered outside, hoping to get a glimpse of the demigoddess who was just revealed on live television.
We managed to get in unseen through an ancient servants’ entrance that Maven knew about. Still, it irks me to know so many await her outside.
Not her. They're here to kill you,demons in my head whisper and titter, echoing on repeat.
Soft whistling and the glow of a lantern catch my attention. Lillian rounds the corner, bundled heavily against the cold as she seems lost in thought. She passed me on her way back to her rooms for the night, but I decide it's likely she was just speaking with Maven, so I follow the direction she just came from.
It's not long before I pick up on two voices. My blood blossom’s, and Kenzie Baird’s.
“—you going to actually use all this salt Lillian brought you?” Kenzie is asking.
“Salt wards off ghosts,” Maven explains. “They're everywhere here. I grew up listening to the whispers and wails of restless spirits every night, but tonight I just want to sleep.”
“Oh, my gods. That gave me secondhand PTSD just now, monk.”
“That's not traumatic,” Maven grumbles. “What's traumatic is having the freshly dead parents of one of your quintet members haunting you and trying to get sent to the Beyond. The Frosts are so fucking entitled, even in death.”
Still cloaked and invisible, I emerge into an alcove where Maven and Kenzie both sit on an old stone bench beside a flickering lantern. Maven is freshly showered, hair still damp despite the wintry chill, and she holds a large bag of salt. She glances at a place in the cold alcove where I see Everett’s birth parents and several other strangers standing and glowering at her.
Either their ghosts followed her here, or they’re in my head, too.
Everyone in this alcove, living or dead, is plotting against you,my father whispers.Pathetic, useless son. You’ve signed your death in your own blood.
You'll bring me down with you when you fall,Maven's voice whispers in my head.
I rub my temples, resisting the urge to snap back at the voices.
The blond, curly-haired shifter is eyeing the bag in Maven's lap. “Is it weird that I’m craving salt like no one's fucking business, now that it's staring at me?”
