Silas.
I need to see him. I want to see those ruby irises and that beautiful intensity that’s all him—and I need to see for myself just how mad my blood fae necromancer has become. But I don’t doubt that Everett will vehemently refuse to let me see my fae if he poses even the slightest risk. My elemental is exhausted enough as it is, so…
Tonight, I decide. I’ll find a way to help Everett sleep tonight and track down Silas’s prison.
Other gears begin to spin in my mind as Lillian and I sit quietly in front of the crackling fire, until finally I ask, “Do you have a paper and pencil I can borrow?”
Lillian smiles and gets up to rummage through one of her wardrobe drawers before bringing me a box of crayons and a writing pad.
When I make a face at the crayons, she laughs. “I missed the colors here almost as much as I missed you making your lists. You started making them when you were seven years old, you know. I’ve never met another seven-year-old who was so serious about setting priorities.”
That’s thanks to Amadeus’s obsession with making sure histelumwas educated enough for his liking. I made lists to keeptrack of the aggressive learning marks I was held to. I doubt most other seven-year-olds spent all their time focused on acing examinations with the threat of being fed to the Undead if they didn’t pass.
Moving to the floor, I pull out the red crayon so that it will at least resemble blood as I write my list.
1. Tame my dragon.
2. Hunt down Crypt.
3. Get a heart. (Create my own shadow heart again?)
4. Learn holy magiceven though it’s probably useless, like everything else pertaining to thegods.
5. Find out what became of Bertram. If he’s alive, change that slowly and painfully.
6. Rebond to my matches and break their stupid fucking curses once and for all so we can live happily ever?—
I pause, my hand going to the spot where the haggard scar mars the center of my chest under my thick black sweater. What I want more than anything is a future with my quintet, but if Amadeus finds out I’m back—and I don’t doubt that he will—there’s no way we’ll be left in peace.
But I fell from Paradise for a second chance with my men. No matter what I was initially created for, they’re mine now, and I refuse to have anything less than a fulfilling, normal lifetime spent with them.
With that in mind, I add a final step to the bones of my master plan.
7. Kill Amadeus and anyone else who tries to harm us so we can finally rest in peace.
12
MAVEN
Two things areclear after scouring all but one of the handful of texts and scrolls that Everett’s men brought from the makeshift temple.
The first thing is that I can apparently read the holy tongue of Paradise now. It’s annoyingly rhymed, like the poem I’m currently trying to make sense of.
Wild spirits compiled in thee,
Nature’s warrior mighty,
Sealed in slumber yet to bide,
’Til this putrid blight’s defied.
Gibberish.
It goes on like that for nearly a thousand ancient pages.
The second thing that’s become clear is that there is nothing remotely useful about learning holy magic in these books.
I shut this tome, glowering at the small pile on the bed beside me as the fading light of the setting sun finishes sinking outside the frosted-over floor-to-ceiling windows.
