I squeeze her hand. “We will track it. My shadows can cover ground that we cannot.”
“And the wraiths,” Voren says. He carries a tray with four mugs and a packet of biscuits. “The dead are everywhere. They will see where it settles.”
He places the tray on the coffee table, and Nyssa inspects it.
“That actually looks pretty good,” she says, picking up a mug.
“Told you,” he says with a soft smile.
She brings the mug to her lips and drinks. I watch the tension in her jaw ease. The heat from the ceramic must feel good against her cold skin. She looks small on the sofa, enveloped in her hoodie, but the power she radiates is undeniable. It hums in the air, a constant vibration against my shadows.
Dastian picks up a biscuit, but he doesn’t eat it. He just turns it over and over in his hand. “The quiet is worse than the noise. I feel the static building.”
“Let it build,” Nyssa says. She sets the mug down on the table. “We use it.”
“How?” I ask.
“We lure him,” she states. “If he wants me, he can come and get me. But on my terms.”
I don’t like this plan. It puts her directly in the line of fire.
“You need rest first,” Voren says. He sits on the edge of the sofa near her feet.
“I’m fine,” she argues, though her eyelids droop. She jolts herself awake but then sighs. “One night. Then we end this. Assuming it stays away.”
“Agreed,” I say.
“Where is Aethel?” she asks, cautiously as she rises.
“Voren put her on ice,” Dastian says. “She is in the crypt.”
“In the crypt where the fissure to the Pantheon realm is?” she asks.
“The very same.”
“Can she get back to the Pantheon?”
“No,” Voren says. “It won’t allow her to pass.”
She nods and walks off down the hall. I let her go, even though instinct is screaming at me not to.
“Was she okay?” I ask Tabitha.
She looks at me with that maddeningly neutral expression Order types prefer. “She did what was necessary. The Judge does not deal in comfort, Dreven. It deals in absolutes.”
“That is not an answer,” I growl. My shadows coil around my ankles, agitated. I want to wrap them around the witch’s throat until she gives me the details I need, but Nyssa chose her. Nyssa trusts her. I force my darkness to settle.
“She faced a version of herself that offered an easy way out,” Tabitha whispers, her gaze flickering to the hallway where Nyssa disappeared. “She rejected it. The emotional toll of rejecting a life of peace for… this…” She gestures vaguely at the room, at us. “It is significant.”
“She chose us?”
“She chose duty,” Tabitha corrects. “But yes. You were part of the package.”
I look at the empty hallway. My chest feels tight. She walked away from peace to stand in the rain with monsters. It makes me want to destroy the world just to give her five minutes of silence.
“She needs sleep,” Voren says, standing up. “Real sleep. Not just passing out from exhaustion.”
“I will watch her,” I say. It is not a request.
