“King Declan,” she said, and the syllables dry-brushed the air like leaves scudding across tombstones. “Your son tells me you require a remedy for an… impasse.”
I stepped forward, carefully, as if approaching a loaded trap. “We require certainty. The ritual challenge must be won. No room for error, no room for mercy. My daughter’s future—and my own—is on the table.”
Moira’s lips curled, not quite a smile, but something far more obscene. “Blood magic is always happy to oblige the proud and the desperate.” She glided to the bookshelf, her long fingers trailing across the spines with the delicacy of a blind pianist. “Which flavor of certainty do you desire, King? Invulnerability? Madness? Death in the shape of your enemy’s face?”
Moira’s fingers stilled on the shelf. The cold radiating from her deepened, frosting the air in my lungs. “You’ve already begun,” she said, less a question than an accusation. Her black eyes flicked to Dominic’s as he sat at his desk, then back to me. “With an ancient book.”
I didn’t flinch. “You know it?”
She laughed—a sound like ice snapping underfoot—and withdrew her hand as if the spines had burned her. “Know it? It’s a corpse’s breath given form. The Black Codex should’ve been ash five centuries ago.” For the first time, her ageless face twitched, a spiderweb of tension fracturing her composure. “Where did you—?”
“Irrelevant.” I crossed to the panel, pried the Codex free again. Its binding needle bit my palm, drawing a bead of blood that sizzled against the leather. “Can you work it or not?”
Moira didn’t touch the tome. She leaned in, nostrils flaring as if scenting rot, then recoiled. “This isn’t blood magic. This is… communion. With things that gnaw at the roots of the world.” Her voice wavered, just a tremor, but I stored it away like a blade. Fear. Genuine fear.
Dominic stirred, knuckles white on the chair arms. “Declan, maybe we should—”
“Quiet.” I didn’t look at him. Kept my gaze locked on Moira’s endless eyes. “Name your price, witch. Triple your usual.”
Her tongue darted out, wetting lips gone gray. “Triple won’t save you when the debt comes due.”
“But it’ll buy you prettier headstones,” I said. “Do we have an accord?”
A beat. Two. The cold sharpened until my teeth ached. Then—
“Dawnbloom petals. Still dripping sap,” she snapped, suddenly all business, though her shoulders remained rigid. “The heart of a storm-struck oak. And a living vessel—something with teeth enough to bite back when the void starts chewing.”
“The wolf,” I said, nodding toward Callum, who grinned like a feral dog scenting blood.
Moira’s gaze swept over him. “He’ll do. Barely.” She turned to Dominic, and I watched him try to sit up tall under her attention, sweat glistening on his upper lip. “You. Strip to the skin. Scour yourself with salt and vervain. No metal on your flesh when the moon crowns.”
“Why?” he croaked.
“Because when the Codex opens you,” she said, smiling now with all the warmth of a grave’s shadow, “you’ll want every barrier gone. Pain is the kindest part of this.”
Dominic’s throat bobbed, but he nodded.
Moira swept toward the door, her cloak billowing like a storm cloud. “One hour,” she threw over her shoulder. “Pray your wolf doesn’t piss himself before then.”
The door slammed.
Callum chuckled, cracking his knuckles. “Feisty.”
“Out,” I ordered. When the room emptied, I pressed my bleeding palm to the Codex. The leather drank greedily, runes flaring copper-bright.
Let her fear, I thought. Fear made servants of wolves and witches alike.
Dominic lingered, trembling in the lamplight.
“Go prepare, King,” I said softly. “Your mate awaits.”
He fled.
Alone, I poured another whiskey. The lake outside mirrored the sky’s gathering colors—purple, violent, beautiful.
Soon, Menace would learn the cost of defiance.
Soon, the Codex would feast.
