“Maybe she’ll be back soon.” Brys peeked up at me, giving me a shy smile.
“I hope so.” I wanted to hug him, tell him things would be alright, but that would be lying. Something was very wrong here, and I wasn’t sure we could make it right.
Our time here was limited. After patting his head, I rose from the sofa and strolled toward the bedroom door. Brys watched me before looking back at Dorion.
“Why are you here?” the boy asked. “You didn’t say.”
“We came to speak with your mother,” Lore said.
“You can wait. She’ll be back sometime.” Brys sat up stiffer onthe sofa. “I miss my mummy. She doesn’t smile any longer or read me stories or tell me she loves me.”
“How long has she been this way?” Dorion took my place on the sofa and tentatively put his arm around the boy’s shoulders.
While father and son tentatively connected, I opened Laphira’s bedroom door and slipped inside, leaving the door open, though their conversation was muted enough I couldn’t hear what they said.
Let me know if you learn anything important,I said to Lore.
She’s been like this for only a short time, as far as I can tell. Brys doesn’t appear to understand time, but he remembers that it started one night and that she was sleepy at first. After the second time, she emerged like we’ve seen her. She hasn’t changed—or smiled—since.
Queen Naveer’s hand, I assume.
That’s my assumption as well.
The air in Laphira's bedroom felt different than the sitting room. Almost viscous. A metallic tang coated my tongue, and the shadows seemed deeper here, pooling in corners where light couldn't reach.
I made a quick pass around the room, checking the items we’d found during our first time here. The room remained unchanged, everything in its disturbing place.
The clay effigy still sat on the shelf, bone needles piercing her chest and head. This close, I could see tiny dark stains around each puncture. Dried blood. My belly lurched. The figurine radiated a cold that had nothing to do with temperature, and when I leaned closer, the faintest whisper of sound escaped it. Like it was breathing. Or sobbing. I jerked back, my skin crawling, and replaced the book in front of it again.
When something glinted on the tallest bureau, my pulse quickened. Each step toward it felt like I was walking throughinvisible cobwebs, and the floorboards beneath my feet groaned despite my careful movements.
A wooden jewelry box sat on top of the bureau. It wasn’t here when we searched before.
Crafted from night-dark wood veined in silver, its surface shimmered in the low lights, almost like it had been dusted with frost that never melted. Intricate vines, stars, and even a moon spiraled across the lid. A snarling nyxin with its mouth open wide had been carved into a clasp. With the edge of my sleeve, I gently tugged on the lid. It creaked open, revealing glinting jewelry inside.
The pendant wasn’t among the rest, however. I should turn away and keep looking but my attention was snagged by a curved object half-buried beneath necklaces and earrings bejeweled with stones of every imaginable color. I eased the object out from beneath the jewelry with the tip of my dagger and dangled it from its chain in the light.
A claw of some sort, the size of my fist and with a very sharp tip.
Something…
Where had I seen a claw like this before?
It was past time to search some more, but I couldn’t drag my gaze away from it spinning in the light.
Hesitant to return it to the box, I stuffed it and the red stone from beneath the floorboards into my pocket.
I slammed the cover down on the jewelry box, and it released a dull thud when it landed. By then, I was moving around the room, examining everything else. Why hadn’t Laphira laid the talisman on her side table like most people would do?
As I quickly searched, the back of my neck prickled with the constant sensation of being watched.
When I passed a tapestry depicting ladies sitting in a garden,drinking tea with a profusion of flowers around them, the thick fabric fluttered without any breeze to stir it. The movement made goosebumps lift on my skin. Fabric didn't move like that naturally. Something wanted me to look behind it, and that realization made every instinct scream danger. I would’ve kept going if something along the edge hadn’t caught my eye.
I used the tip of my blade to ease the tapestry to the side, revealing something carved into the stone wall. Leaning close, I tried to determine if this was a random mark inherent to the stone or…
No, they’d been deliberately placed here.
I found a series of runes,I said to Lore.Carved into the wall, hidden behind a tapestry.
