His gaze cut to me. “Careful. Knights bite back.”
“Good,” I said, leaning forward. “So do I.”
Vitoria smiled at me. “I fucking love it when you’re wicked.”
“The rest of the world gets the obedient little Rune Weaver who whispers her spells and keeps her head down,” Calder said, his rare smile peeking through. “We get Syneca Black, untamed.”
“Lucky you,” I said, raising my glass in mock salute.
Vitoria clinked hers against mine. “To being untamed.”
“Within our own four walls, at least,” Calder added.
“The only walls that matter,” I said, and, for a moment, the weight of the day felt distant. This was home. This was safe.
Whatever vigil Vitoria had taken over the window had long passed. She was just worried, like the rest of us. But the wine had settled her nerves, I was sure. It made me sleepy, and the familiar weight of Silas settling against my side didn’t help. My book grew heavy in my hands as I read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a word. Beside me, Vitoria was practicing her transformation magic. I could feel the subtle shift in the air as she worked, the way her features flickered and changed. She’d mastered the full nymph transformation years ago, but lately she’d been attempting something more delicate, adjusting individual features, reshaping the line of her nose, the curve of her cheekbones.
“Imagoris variantis,” she murmured under her breath, her face rippling like water before snapping back to normal. “Come on...”
“You’re forcing it,” I said sleepily. “Magic flows better when you’re not fighting it.”
No one knew more about fighting against one’s power than I did. It was the real reason I needed more rest. The reason why Eda Mire couldn’t understand the drain on my power. Like everyone else, she had no idea I was bound to a griffin with a water affinity, not to enhance my natural abilities, but to mask them.
As Vitoria continued trying, I let my eyes drift closed, listening to the soft sounds of her practice and Calder moving around the kitchen. Safe sounds. Home sounds.
I must have dozed because the next thing I knew, screaming ripped through the night.
I jerked upright, the book tumbling to the floor. Beside me, the couch was empty. Cold.
“Vitoria?” I called, still groggy from sleep and wine.
No answer.
I threw the quilted blanket someone had draped over me off and darted for her room.
Nothing.
Calder bolted from his room, blade already in his hand. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She was right here?—”
“No one opened the door last night,” he said, checking the runes that sat upon the frame. “Not even her.”
I whipped around to the window she’d become obsessed with. More screams came from outside. Then a sound I’d never heard before, the high, desperate crying of sprites in distress, coming from every direction at once.
We rushed to the window. Through the glass, I could see them. Dozens of sprites frozen in mid-flight, their tiny bodies rigid with terror, their voices raised in perfect, horrible unison:
“Get to Blackbriar’s Square! Get to Blackbriar’s Square!”
Over and over, like a broken music box.
“Vitoria!” I called again, searching the apartment frantically. Her boots were by the door. Her cloak hung on its hook. Only she and her twin daggers were missing.
She was just gone. No trace. No sign of a struggle. Like she’d simply vanished into the night air.
Calder grabbed his coat, already moving toward the door. “We have to get to Blackbriar’s Square. Now. Grab your coat, Syneca. Focus.”
But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of wings. Not sprite wings. Not bird wings.
