“He has something of mine,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “And I want it back.”
Something flickered in his eyes—interest? amusement?—but it was gone before I could read it.
I adjusted my tone, making it sound casual even though my pulse betrayed me.
“Small, obsidian. Spherical,” I said.
I’d barely finished speaking when his head tilted—just a fraction. “The Eye of Nareth?” he said.
I stilled, fingers tightening around the edge of the counter.
The Eye was not a rumor to him, but a certainty. “And you think Vesper has it?”
“I know he does.” My voice didn’t waver, even as my stomach twisted.
He leaned in close, the scent of pine and smoke curling off him, his voice a low growl meant only for me. “You’re wrong,” he murmured. “Vesper doesn’t have it,” he said.
A pulse of frustration spiked in my chest.
His lips curved in a knowing smirk. “But I know who does,” he murmured, leaning in close enough that the warmth of him brushed her skin.
I narrowed my eyes. “Who?”
The man leaned in, his voice warm against my ear, dropping to a low rasp. “A witch named Séraphine,” he said. His words slithered under my skin, each one worse than the last. “Carved out her own eye and put it in the hollow space—just so she could always see whatever it has to show.”
“Vesper collects leverage,” he said. “Séraphine collects outcomes.”
A witch namedSéraphine.The name alone was enough to make my stomach turn, but his words kept echoing, festering in my mind. Carved out her own eye. I thought back to her face—how one eye had glowed like a molten ember, the other black and depthless as obsidian. I’d assumed it was magic, some strange glamour, not… this. Not something stolen and lodged into her skull like a trophy.
Séraphine had looked at me like I was a problem to be solved.
Séraphine had spoken of Vesper with too much certainty. And suddenly I wondered if that certainty had never been about truth at all—but about steering me exactly where she wanted.
“Why should I believe you?” I asked, my voice more biting than I meant it to be.
He smiled then—slow, deliberate—the kind of smile that made you want to check the shadows behind you. “You shouldn’t.”
The words slid over my skin like cold water, and for a heartbeat, I couldn’t tell if he was warning me… or daring me.
Well, whatever it was, I didn’t have time for this.
“Then point me in the right direction,” I said, shoving the empty bowl away and pushing to my feet. “Or get out of my way.”
His grin widened, like my defiance was the most entertaining thing he’d seen all week. “Lucky for you, I was heading that way.”
He offered me a hand to step down from the stool, but I ignored it, sliding off on my own. The last thing I needed was to owe him more than a meal. I grabbed my glass instead, tossing back the last gulp of mead until it burned warm in my chest.
Every instinct I had told me not to follow him.
But every other path in Shadeau had already closed its doors to me — and I was done waiting for safer choices that never came.
Without another word, I turned for the door. The sunlight outside would be climbing higher soon, and every minute was a minute closer to Alaric waking up and finding me gone.
The door banged shut behind me, and I’d barely taken three steps into the square before heavy boots fell into rhythm with mine.
“What’s your name?”
I didn’t slow. “Why?”
