Lucy grabbed my hand. “Together?”
I looked at the glowing book. At the door about to break. At Mrs. Deliana, who was risking everything to help us.
“Together.”
We jumped.
The world inverted. Colors bled and ran like wet paint. I felt like I was falling and flying simultaneously, reality bending around us in ways that made my stomach revolt and my magic scream for stability it couldn’t find. Reaching and failing to find Silas, who we’d left outside.
Then, solid ground appeared beneath my feet so suddenly, I stumbled and fell to my knees.
We were in a cottage. Small. Cozy. The air thick with the scent of dried herbs and old magic. The walls echoed a tragedy, or that could have just been my heart. Above us, a matching leather-bound book floated in mid-air, its pages still glowing faintly.
Then it dropped, hitting the wooden floor with a thud.
I whipped around to Lucy. “What the fuck just happened?”
“Portal magic,” Lucy said, staring at the book with wide eyes. “Mrs. Deliana’s a scrivener.”
“A what?”
“A scrivener...” Lucy shook her head in disbelief. “They’re supposed to be extinct. A race of people who could weave magic through written word. Create doorways between places using ordinary-looking books and scrolls. I thought they were myths. Stories from before the Age of Scattered Crowns.”
“Well, apparently they’re real. And running bookshops,” Pip said, landing on my shoulder. Her wings trembled slightly. “Just like Dyssara is real. Told you her cat was weird. Anyway, where are we?”
I looked around, really looked, though I already knew what I would see. The workbench covered in half-finished runes. The shelves lined with ingredients I recognized. The personal touches, a blue shawl draped over a chair, a chipped teacup still sitting on the windowsill, books marked with notes in familiar handwriting.
My chest tightened with grief.
“Eda Mire’s cottage,” I breathed. “We’re in the Bloodwood.”
Chapter 35
Syneca
The spaces between words hold more magic than the words themselves. Listen to what isn’t said, that’s where intention hides.
Pip was already flitting around the cottage, curiosity driving her to examine every shiny object, every interesting trinket Eda Mire had left behind. She picked up a crystal, turned it over in the light, then carefully set it back down.
I stood frozen in the center of the room, overwhelmed by the weight of being here again. The cottage was small, just a few rooms connected by narrow archways with curtains instead of doors. The furniture didn’t match in size or design, and the walls were rough-hewn wood, darkened by years of smoke from the stone fireplace that dominated one corner.
Pip fluttered past a shelf crammed so full that books leaned against jars, and jars pressed against half-melted candles, everything fighting for space. She picked up another crystal wedged between a cracked teacup and what looked like a preserved moth, turned it over in the light, then carefully set it back down with a scrunch to her nose.
Bundles of dried herbs hung from the exposed rafters. Lavender, I recognized. Wolfsbane. Others I didn’t want to name. Shelves lined every available wall space, crammed with jars of preserved things, books with cracked spines, candles in various states of melting. A worn rug covered the center of the floor; its pattern faded to nothing but suggestion. Everything here felt close, intimate in a way that made breathing difficult.
I couldn’t look around. Couldn’t go into that back bedroom. Couldn’t let myself imagine the horrors this cottage had once seen. Then Silas slammed into my awareness.
Not physically. But our bond, unaffected by the change in distance, and usually a steady hum of connection, suddenly blazed like someone had thrown open floodgates no one knew were closed. It was overwhelming. Intense. Like going from hearing under water to crystal clarity in a single breath.
I gasped, pressing a hand to my chest as I summoned my familiar. “Cor Meum.”
“Syn?” Pip stopped mid-flight. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just—” I flexed my fingers, pushing down the feeling.
The cottage smelled like her. Not how I remembered it from my childhood with Gran, living amongst these walls, but more recent. Like Eda Mire since she’d taken it back over after... after Gran was killed here.
But I couldn’t think about that night. I refused to let myself remember the screaming. The trauma. The way I fought Silas, digging in dirt and ash to save her, when there was nothing to be done. He’d saved me that night. And every night since.
