It took both Ryland and Varian to drag Rooke upstairs, while I mopped the rest of the blood off the floor before it congealed completely, the raven watching my every move like he was debating telling me I’d missed a spot.
“You’d best keep your little beak shut,” I muttered, scrubbing at one stubborn bloodstain, then another.
Gravelock had known the second the Triune had been taken, and only by some miracle had Ryland and Varian escaped mostly intact. Which meant the Gravespire wards were keyed to the Butcher…probably to his blood, since that was the source of his magic.
The wards around this place had responded as well, which meant blood magic secured this entire castle, kept Rooke inside.
It might be the force contained inside those silver cuffs, the ones my fingers were still tingling from.
As I cleaned, I turned this over in my head, looking for a way to use this information against Gravelock, see if there was some weakness we could exploit. Then I shoved the question of his hideous magic aside, because I kept coming back to something that didn’t make sense.
If the Triune belonged—by rights—to Rooke’s family,then why couldn’t his father ever find them, despite a lifetime of searching? And how had Gravelock managed to locate something so cleverly hidden in under fifty years?
Did his magic have something to do with that, too?
Or was one of those blank-faced Fae guards like Varian, capable of sniffing out treasure from afar?
However the Butcher found the Triune in the first place, at least we had two of the three pieces, which bought Rooke a reprieve. But if one of those guards could detect the location of such powerful relics…he’d be coming back. And this time, Gravelock would spill Rooke’s blood for more than just enjoyment.
He’d use it to unite the Triune.
I scrubbed until the floor was immaculate.
Until the raven dozed with its softly feathered head tucked under one ebony wing and my knees ached.
I couldn’t help glancing at the Thorn and the Mirror, that empty place beside them, all that power echoing around me, inside me, like a constant, aching heartbeat.
Yes, they were powerful—the most powerful things I’d ever seen, but ultimately—completely worthless.
Like Gravelock, we needed all three pieces forthe planto work.
Because there was a plan.
And whatever scheme these three had cooked up between them—I was one thousand percent in.
Oh, I would keep my word to Anaria. I’d cart these dangerous relics back to Torin so she could lock them safely inside her vault, just like I’d promised, but first…
I was going to help Rooke kill Gravelock.
I kept replaying Rooke hanging in midair, his beautiful face twisted in pain while the Butcher carelessly flayed theskin from his body, enjoying every moment. That bastard had to die. Slowly and preferably…painfully.
I sucked in a breath of ozone-laden air, rage boiling over, blistering in its intensity as I weighed my other pressing problem. The one I would never have seen coming, not in a thousand years.
I was twisted into knots over Kaden Rooke.
I sat back, legs crossed, trying to pinpoint the moment everything had shifted.
Because something had.
Watching Rooke’s suffering had peeled off another thick layer of scar tissue that I needed to plaster right back on—tight, so no blood flowed to that part of my formerly dead heart.
I couldn’t afford any more distractions, no matter how pretty, or how tempting.
No matter how easily his dark blue stare turned me molten, no matter how much I was falling apart on the inside, because I was certainly falling.Apart. One after another, no matter how fast I scrambled to shore them up, my centuries-old barriers just kept crumbling.
And I couldn’t stop them.
The crow cawed softly as I climbed to my feet and tossed the bucket of filthy water over the fire, effectively putting out the flames before I headed upstairs myself.
