I creep out from the comfort of the bed and fight a shiver caused by the chill as I close the distance to see his tattoos better. Something about the pattern prods at a memory I can’t quite pinpoint.
I’ve seen it before. In the grimoire, maybe?
No. The memory feels older than just a few months. It’s something I’ve seen a hundred times before, like a word I’ve heard repeated too many times to count but never cared to log in my mind.
The lettering thickens near the circle, thinning out at the base of his spine like a sharpened point.
My internal temperature drops. I step back and scramble to put on clothes.
“What is it?” Lynx asks, on edge.
“Follow me.” I don’t turn around to check if he does as I stumble through the door and down the hall, heading for the opposite side of the manor.
No one at the party pays either of us any mind, too drunk to do anything more than trip about and slur through conversations.
I fist my clammy hands, pulse rising with every step toward the room that started it all. I hold my breath and hesitate for only a second before opening the door into Ella’s room.
“What are we doing here?” He knows just as well as I do that I haven’t come in here since I buried myself.
“It has to be here somewhere.” It’s the most I can offer as I launch into my search—moving the drapes around, kicking aside furniture, looking beneath random pieces of fabric and junk.
There were several things I brought here the night of Ella’s birthday. The candles and chalk are exactly where I left them last time, her urn is in my grave, and the grimoire’s back in the room we just left. There’s one thing missing.
“What are you looking for?”
I kneel beside the bed and peer beneath the frame, and there it is, untouched since the night I accidentally summoned my first demon.
My arm strains as I stretch to get the item nestled between balls of dust. It takes all my concentration to pull it out and hold it up to the light.
“A dagger. I used it for the summoning—it was the object my sister cherished the most. It has to be on here somewhere.” There’s a dark patch on the metal that’s seeped into the engravings. “I must have bled on it worse than I thought.” I frown. “Could that be why you’re bonded to me?”
I have to angle the blade to properly make out the markings, and when I do, it feels like I’ve figured out the key that will get us out of here—and the thing that will damn us both.
“The symbols—they’re exactly the same as your tattoos,” I whisper, but I might as well be shouting.
“Where the fuck did you get this?” There’s a deadly tremor in his voice that spikes my adrenaline.
“What? I-it’s been in my family for generations. My grandma gave it to my sister,” I rush to say. Why is he getting so upset about this?
“Tell me your name.”
I frown. “What? It’s Sable.”
“Family name,” he demands.
“Eldrith.”
28
Lynx
Eldrith.
The company I spent years building railroad tracks for. The very company I stole from and ended up asthis.
As soon as my gaze lands on the piece of metal in her hand again, bile rises in my throat, and I step away, putting distance between us.
Betrayal is crawling under my skin and burning through my veins as I stare at the traitor in front of me. Her hair, long and disheveled from sex, lips swollen from endless kissing, and all for what? I was summoned here by her. The blood of the people who sent me straight to Hell and made me leave my brother for dead.
