Adeep ache hidden within the dragon’s roar split the night above Grimora, rattling windows and sending late-night drunks stumbling for cover.
“Syn... .” Calder said, turning with concerned eyes toward me.
The sound of my name crept down my back as Calder stood at the door, his hand still on the iron handle while Wickett and I stood toe-to-toe. I knew that tone. Had heard it exactly three times in seven years, each one before something irreversible, something terrible.
He pushed the door further open with a creak.
The familiar scents hit first. Copper and sage. Candles, books and old runestones. A slice of my childhood. The nostalgia that always came. But underneath, threading through like poison, blood. My heart dipped as I tried to step around Calder, but he held me back with an arm. “Syneca...”
I brushed past him despite the warning, still unprepared for what I found. Eda Mire lay face down on her worn wooden floor. And buried deep into her spine was a blade I’d seen a thousand times. The twin to the one they’d used in our binding. Vitoria’s other dagger, its three interlocking circles on its hilt catching the fading candlelight.
The world tilted. My knees forgot how to work. “No.” The word came out broken. “No, no, no.”
I dropped beside her, my hands hovering over her still form, afraid to touch, afraid to confirm what I already knew. The woman who’d taken me in when Gran died, who began to teach me to weave runes when my fingers were still clumsy with grief. And who’d always loved me in her sharp, practical way, even when I’d had no one else.
Gone.
The shop stood perfectly intact around us. No overturned shelves. No scattered herbs. No triggered wards. She hadn’t fought. Hadn’t seen it coming. Someone she’d trusted had walked through that door and?—
“Syn.” Calder’s hand found my shoulder.
I jerked away, bile rising in my throat. “Don’t.”
Nothing made sense. Eda Mire was careful. Watchful. Wary. She couldn’t just be ... dead.
Not her.
Not the person who’d known me since I was a child, who’d held me when nightmares about my parents’ deaths wouldn’t stop. The one who was so careful when she’d told me about Gran’s murder. The one who’d always been there.
She’d always been there.
And now she was gone. I felt it like a wound.
Silas pushed through the doorway, immediately pressing against my side. His warmth should have been comfort, but all I felt was ice spreading through my chest. I knew what this lookedlike. A perfect crime scene. Another finger pointing at Vitoria. But she wouldnever.Eda Mire meant something to her too.
“She was afraid,” I whispered. “Remember? She warned us about the Oracle. And the Guardian.” I turned to look at Calder through tears I couldn’t hold back. “Why was she afraid of them?”
He squatted beside me, the bottom of his leather coat sliding across the floor as he took my hand. “Because she was wise beyond her years, and though an Oracle doesn’t hold a blade, she holds truth.”
I’ll be fine, child. I always am.
Her final words echoed in my mind as Wickett entered and passed us, crouching to examine the wound. “The Mistress of Blades falls.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Clean strike. No hesitation marks. Professional work.” His fingers traced the air above the blood pool without touching. “Still warm. She hasn’t been dead long.”
I shook my head, refusing to hear the detached analysis of Eda Mire’s final moments. Refusing to hear that if we’d been faster, we could have stopped this. We could have saved her. Even if it meant standing off with the Magistrate’s men.
Because at this point, I decided they had found Vitoria. She escaped, because that’s what she did. But they got her weapons, and now we were all a spectacle for the Magistrate as we hunted down an innocent woman that managed to sneak through his grasp.
And of all the people in the world, he’d taken this one to prove a point. The Mistress of Blades. Never quite able to pin a crime on her, too necessary to the people who needed runes, too connected to ignore. Eda Mire had been untouchable for decades, a witch walking the line between criminal and necessity with the grace of someone who knew exactly how valuable she was.
Until tonight. Until someone decided her death would send a message.
My hands curled into fists. They’d killed her not just to frame Vitoria, but to show that no one was safe. That even the oldest, most careful players could be swept from the board when it suited the Magistrate’s games. And they’d used Vitoria’s blade to do it, turning my friend into a weapon against the woman who’d helped raise me. When I had so few people left in this world to love. To fight for. And when they were all gone, maybe I would burn this fucking world to nothing. Maybe there was a reason the fire in my veins boiled. Toleration only went so fucking far.
The rage that flooded through me was sharp enough to shred me. But beneath it, cold clarity crystallized. If I let them control this hunt, if I let Wickett lead us wherever he wanted, we’d find exactly what the Magistrate wanted us to find. Another staged scene. Another perfect piece of evidence. Another step in whatever performance he’d orchestrated.
I needed to take control. Now. Before this went any further. “Look at the scene,” I said, forcing my voice to stay analytical despite my breaking heart. “No scorch marks. No heat damage anywhere.” I gestured to the pristine shelves, the undisturbed herbs. “A fire witch this powerful would leave traces. They can’t help it. Fire magic burns hot when they’re emotional, and murder’s about as emotional as it gets, one would think. And the blade,” I continued, knowing Wickett was listening even as he examined the wound. “Why leave your signature weapon at a murder scene? That’s not just sloppy; it’s more like deliberately reckless. Unless the person who did this wanted us to find it—wanted us to follow this exact trail.”
My mind raced ahead, seeing the shape of the trap someone had laid. They needed us to hunt Vitoria. But why? Simply a show. When we found her, she’d be killed in the middle of that fucking arena.
