Her magic is useful. Potent. It stabilizes the hunger in a way yours never could, though I miss the way you quell the silence afterward. I still wake reaching for you. The sheets are cold without you, and looking at her is a chore I endure for the sake of the result.
I dropped the letter as if it were red-hot iron.
...a chore I endure...
“No,” the word sounded pathetic.
My mind tried to stitch the contradictory scraps of reality together, but the needle kept breaking. The window, I had seen her murder his parents. I had seen her infect him with the dragon parasite. That was real. The House had shown me because it wanted me to know.
But this letter...
Had she broken him so thoroughly over thirteen years that he had learned to love the hand that held the leash? I squeezed my eyes shut, and immediately the memory of Fenrik in the studyassaulted me, the heat of his body, the desperate hunger in his eyes, the way he’d whisperedI’ve wanted you since you arrived.
Lies. All of it. If the letter was real, then the man who had kissed me wasn’t a victim fighting to survive. He was a conspirator. He was sleeping with the woman who had destroyed his family, perhaps out of a twisted need for the power she controlled, or perhaps the parasite she’d shoved into his heart had rewritten his desires along with his memories.I still wake reaching for you.
Was I the savior of a cursed lord? Or was I a battery? A useful, “plain” tool brought in to stabilize the messy overflow of their dark magic so they could continue whatever twisted game they were playing?
“He saved the wyrmling,” I stared at the dragon who was sniffing the paper on the floor with suspicion. “He fought the shadow inside him.”
But did he fight it? Or was he just managing it?
The House groaned around me. It felt sorrowful. Confused. Maybe the House didn’t know either. Maybe Fenrik Stormgarde was so lost in the labyrinth of his own mind that he played the victim by day and the lover by night, leaving me trapped in the middle, staring at a letter that turned my heart to ash. I didn’t know which was which anymore. The only good thing was that if I were indeed in a cage, I had just walked into the lock.
seventeen
Lysa
Iheard a boom, then plaster dust rained down from the vaulted ceiling, coating the shoulders of my tunic in a grey powder. I didn’t brush it off. I stood frozen in the center of the ritual circle, the forged letter crumpled in my fist, clutching the sketchbook to my chest like a shield.
“Lysa!”
The voice that tore through the heavy oak door was not human. Another impact and another boom followed.The door rattled in its frame, but it didn’t budge. Along the seams, where the wood met the stone, the manor’s wards flared bright. The House was holding him back. It knew what was on the other side of that timber even if I was currently questioning everything I knew about the man inside the beast.
Or the beast inside the man.
“Go away!” I shouted, my voice cracking humiliatingly in the middle.
“Open...” The word dissolved into a snarl. “Open... this... door.”
“I’m busy,” I yelled back. “Come back later.”
“Busy?” The roar rose in pitch, half-shriek, half-shout. “You are... in a room... that does not exist!”
“Well, I found it, so clearly your floorplans are outdated,” I stepped back as the wood groaned under another assault. “You really should fire your architect.”
Kirion, the traitor, scrambled out from behind my legs. The wyrmling didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at the letter that proved his master viewed me as nothing more than a glorified magical sponge. He threw himself at the door, his claws scrabbling against the wood, whining high in his throat. He wanted out. He wanted the monster on the other side.
“Your dragon wants you, he has poor judgment, apparently.”
“Lysa.” The name came out as a low thrum that I felt in my stomach. “I smell... distress. I smell... salt.”
Tears. He smelled my tears. I wiped them away furiously with my sleeve, smearing dust across my cheek.
“It’s just dust, you’re knocking the ceiling down. It’s very messy. Mrs. Crane will be furious.”
“I do not care... about the dust!” He slammed against the barrier again, and this time I saw the wood bow inward before the amber wards snapped it back into place. “The House... fights me. It thinks... I am unsafe.”
“The House has excellent instincts,” I retorted. “Maybe you should listen to it.”
