The casual mention of Aethel grates on my nerves. “You’re a long way from the Pantheon, witch. What’s your game? Playing house with these mortals?”
“Someone had to watch the prison gates,” she says, blowing a perfect smoke ring that doesn’t dissipate in the rain. “And now the prisoners are out, playing with the warden’s daughter.”
“Stay away from her,” I warn, my voice dropping the playful tone. The chaos inside me stirs, hungry. “Or I’ll remind you why even Aethel thought twice before crossing me.”
Tabitha just smiles, a thin, humourless curve of her lips. “You’ve tainted the latest of the Firsts’ bloodline. But remember, there is another, when she perishes.”
My magic crackles at my fingertips, the urge to wipe that smug look off her face almost overwhelming. “Tainted? We’ve enhanced her.”
“You’ve marked her for death,” Tabitha whispers. “TheOrder will not tolerate a compromised slayer. You think you’ve claimed her? You’ve just signed her death warrant.”
“You won’t touch her,” I growl, my hand closing around her throat and squeezing until her eyes bulge.
She doesn’t struggle. Instead, a web of silver light, fine as spider silk, snakes up my arm from her skin. It doesn’t burn; it chills, a creeping frost of complete order that attempts to deaden the chaos in my veins.
“Still resorting to brute force,” she rasps, her voice strained but steady. “Some things never change.”
“This is why I hate you,” I hiss. The silver light intensifies, and I’m forced to release her, snarling as I shake the numbing sensation from my hand. She is the only creature in existence that can stop chaos from unfolding. Stopme.
“I’ve seen realms die, Dastian. The slayer is a key. A key you’ve just jammed into the wrong lock.”
“The only key is my fist down your throat, witch.”
“Try it, Dastian.”
“The Devourer comes,” I grit out. “Your existence will be wiped out if she doesn’t stop it. Seems a waste of all these centuries of hanging on, don’t you think?”
Her eyes go wide, and I know I’ve hit the jackpot. “The Devourer,” she whispers, terror seeping into her tone.
“That’s right, you old hag. You will leave Nyssa to complete the mission, or we all die.”
She nods once, and her glamour falls back into place. “I will misdirect the Order,” she mutters, suitably cowed when faced with something even I fear. It pisses me off, but I’ll take it. I can’t kill her. She can’t kill me. But we can do enough damage to each other to create a ripple effect that would cause irreparable damage to this world.
“See that you do,” I say quietly. “Or I will come for you and feed you to it myself.”
She breathes in slowly through her nose, but she doesn’t reply. She simply drops her cigarette, crushes it under her boot and stalks back into the shop.
Typically, I would thrive on the chaos that has unfolded in the last few minutes, revel in it, but this… when Nyssa is concerned… I suddenly rival Dreven for doom and gloom. The shop door swings shut behind Tabitha, and for the first time in centuries, I feel something other than reckless amusement. I feel… outmanoeuvred. The Witch of Order, hiding in plain sight as a mortal seer guiding the Firsts’ bloodline. It’s so perfectly, infuriatingly her. Dreven is going to be insufferable about this.
I need to tell them. The thought does not bring me joy. Admitting I went off half-cocked and found a bigger problem is not exactly my style. But Tabitha being here changes the game. She’s not just some hedge-witch with a crystal ball; she’s an ancient power with her own mission, and now she knows we’re back.
I vanish from the dreary street, reappearing in the crumbling hall of Marrow House, knowing I’m walking into a lecture that will bore my arse off, but they have to know.
Chapter 36
Dreven
Iam pacing the ruined hall when Dastian manifests in a shower of gold-red sparks that singe the rotten floorboards. His usual chaotic glee is absent, replaced by a grim set to his jaw that I haven’t seen since we were banished.
“What did you do?” I ask, suspicion tinging my tone.
Voren materialises beside me, his pale eyes narrowed as he senses the sudden shift in the chaos that surrounds Dastian. “You smell of Order.”
“Worse,” Dastian says. “The Order’s seer, Taye. It’s Tabitha.”
“The Witch of Order.”
Voren goes utterly still, the air around him frosting over.
