I blink rapidly, shifting beneath an unfamiliar weight as my wings try to stretch, to relieve a cramp in their leftmost ligament, but… they can’t move.Ican’t move either—not beneath whatever is atop me.
What happened?
I glance down to find Gavriall sprawled out on my chest, one arm wrapped around my neck while his lips brush my throat. Soft snores rumble from him. His eyes are closed. And—I don’t understand. I jab him in the ribs, but he doesn’t so much as stir. Sleeping softly. Cuddling me as if I’m a gods-damned teddy bear. I raise my foot between us and, with all the force I can muster, kick him off me.
He wakes with a gasp, landing like a roach on his back and swiping at the air as if to fight it. “What—where—who—?”
“Be quiet.” I glance around us. An attempt to orient myself and answer the questions still bubbling from his lips. Because I don’t know. I don’tremember. Gavriall and I have been tossed onto a soft mattress adorned with half a dozen blankets, each a different, richer texture than the last. Wool to silk to velvet trimmed in fur. I force myself to sit, an excruciating task as my bones creak and my musclesache. Even my veins feel desiccated, as though I’m a husk of who I was hours—Days?Weeks?—ago. No. No, that can’t be right.
I snarl. “What the fuck is going on?”
Gavriall rolls onto his belly, peeking at me from behind a mountain of velvet throw pillows. “You mean this isn’t you? It’s not your magic?”
I thought we discussed no more decimation? You don’t have enough left—
That wasn’t me.
It wasn’t me. It’s not me. I grind my teeth, jaw clenched as anxiety curdles in my stomach. I recall the squid. I recall Zephyra and Vesper being tossed around like sacks of potatoes. I recall grabbing the trident and trying to fight it. I recall lightning and viscera and holding Zephyra. And then—
Nothing.
My head begins to pound.
I am with Gavriall. In a bedroom.
Enchanted storm clouds form a canopy over the lavish bed, the four posts surrounding it carved into whirling tornados. Midnight-blue tapestries drape along driftwood walls, sea-glass wind chimes ringing softly from an icy breeze that stretches across the whole of the grandiose room. Thunder booms. Distant, a mere echo of reverberations that only gently quake the floor. There are desks, chairs, even a small bench in the corner sculpted in the shape of a chest overflowing with gold, and every single one of those surfaces is buried beneath treasure. Crystals. Gemstones. Silver and gold coins. Rings and necklaces and—an ancient skull that rattles its teeth.
“Kill the spare to grow more fair, but if he’s dead, mind your head. A crack. A splat. Blood, blood, blood,” the skull chitters. Seconds later, it adds, “Everyone who draws a breath will eventually draw their last. How are you to know which is which? Breathe in. Breathe deep. Die, die, die.”
“Right.” Gavriall peers overtop pillow mountain and stares straight at the cursed artifact. “Time to go. Magic us out of here. As in expeditiously. Immediately. With great haste. Preferably before that thing tries to eat us.”
I glare at him, and even my wings seem annoyed by hisunnecessary presence. The right reaches out and smacks his spine. Gavriall grunts. “I did not kill a giant squid to be abused by your feathers—”
“You did not kill a giant squid. You were shaken around like a baby’s rattle while the rest of us tried to murder it.”
He frowns and sits up, his jet-black hair matted in a gnarled bird’s nest and sticking out at haphazard angles. “I believe I was an equal participant, thanks very much.”
“Then the siren song must have melted your brain.”
“Ah! Siren song!” Gavriall rises onto his knees. “I remember that. I remember the silver-haired mermaid and her trident, I remember besting a giant squid, and I remember… I remember…”
“Nothing,” I answer for him. “There’s nothing after the attack.”
He swears, then raises his conjoined arms. They’re bound together at the wrists with obsidian rope. For a split second, I think I remember the swift impact of a gnarled net. The sharp injection of a syringe. But the memory vanishes sooner than it appears, and my gaze drops, instead, to my own hands. Also bound.
The silvered cord tangles with obsidian bonds, twisting around each individual knot, trying with palpable desperation to slice through the rope and free me, but it won’t be able to.
We arefucked.
“So?” Gavriall asks. “Want to cut us loose, Arion?”
“I can’t.” I stare at the rope—blackened not from dye, but from poison. A paralysis toxin. Magic threatens to roil in my veins, but it can’t. Exhaustion squeezes my lungs, my heart, in merciless claws. Someone kidnapped us. Someone poisoned us.
“Solar squid ink,” I say disdainfully. Gavriall’s eyes widen with instant comprehension.
The skull chatters pearl-white teeth, seemingly gleeful as it echoes, “Die, die, die.”
“I hate that fucking thing,” Gavriall murmurs.
