She goes still, and I decide I’m done letting the night set our schedule.
“We go back,” I say, before she can bait me for ruining her appetite again. “Not to wander. To cut.”
She eyes me over her mug. “Cut what?”
“The heart,” I answer. “The pearl down the throat of that corridor. We go to it, and we lie around it until the lie is a cage.”
Dastian perks up. “We’re building a box?”
“A deadlock,” I correct. “Radiant to sear. Wraith to bind. Shadow to decide what exists inside. You will choose the rules. It won’t enjoy that.”
Nyssa twirls pasta like she wants to throttle fate with it. “And I’m the bait.”
I don’t lie. “Yes.”
She exhales through her nose. “Fine. But I need to sleep first. I’m no good to anyone right now.”
Voren sets a coil of frost on the windowsill and listens to the dark. “It’s coiling tighter,” he murmurs. “You can have a few hours, but nothing more.”
Nyssa drains her tea, scrapes the last pasta with unapologetic focus, and stands. “I’d better get to bed then.”
I expect Dastian to make a crude comment.
He doesn’t. As much as I appreciate the lack of sarcasm and frivolity, it’s unnerving.
“Go,” I say. “We will stand watch.”
She disappears with a nod, and I coil wards through the wood and brick until the cottage learns it belongs to me, not the night. Shadow threads every join, every keyhole, the kettle, the toaster. If the Devourer sticks a tongue against the air, it’ll taste dust and boredom, not a queen.
Dastian prowls holes in the rug in the living room. Voren remains still by the window. The house breathes in our rhythm. Outside, the village sleeps.
“Box,” Dastian says softly, pausing his pacing. “Deadlock. I can lace chaos cool or hot. You want sizzle or slow cook?”
“Slow. If we flash, it feeds.”
He nods, eyes dull, for once not performing for anyone. “I can do cruel patience.”
Voren joins us. “I will bind the edges. Old rites. It will hold if we keep her rules simple.”
“Simple is not her gift,” I mutter.
“No, but we make it simple. Who do we think it is?” Dastian’s question is one I’m pondering myself.
“Tabitha,” I state.
“Agreed,” he says. “Although she is still the same pain in our arses as she always has been, something just isn’t… right.”
“She will find Cormac and Finnian and either kill them or use them to get to Nyssa.”
Dastian runs a hand through his hair, making it worse. “Then we beat her to the punch. We take the board away.”
“After she sleeps,” Voren says, not looking away from the glass. Frost sketches itself thin as breath and vanishes. “Two hours.”
“Three,” I decide, because I’m indulgent where she’s concerned and because the Devourer will prefer it if she is frayed. I’d rather present it a blade, not a broken edge.
They nod. We don’t argue about it.
I move down the hall. Her bedroom is dark except for the line of street light bleeding past the curtains. She’s a small shape under the duvet, hair damp, blade on the bedside. She snores lightly and turns over. I don’t disturb her. The deeper she sleeps, the more rested she will be.
