“You livehere?” I ask, tilting my head back to look up at the sky. The velvet night is sprinkled with a few winking stars, the galaxies a spray of seafoam in the distance, framed on either side by the curving roofs. I’m not sure what I expected—perhaps that she lived in some grand fortress made of mortal bones, feasting on flesh, only leaving her lair when summoned to descend upon Lumendite soldiers.
No, I don’t think that. At least, not anymore. Not since we fell from that rampart, down together into the dark.
We come around a tight corner. One side of the street is devoid of homes, opening instead to a larger boulevard. The Godwinds race up and down, showering the wide stone pathway with sand. Through the dust, I can just make out larger buildings, but Nyatrix keeps to the outside of the curve, staying in the shadow of the homes, and the view down the boulevard is swallowed within a few moments.
She stops just past a narrow alley. Here, the building changes from one continuous block of undulating stone to narrow houses of a similar style. Dark windows stretch wide like open mouths, the glass shimmering, an ocean at midnight. Nyatrix helps me up a few wide, shallow stairs, coming to a stop at the door.
Equui are etched into the domus’s gray stone as if the sculptor has freed them from a Curse, their manes and tails caught in an invisible wind. On the side of the structure, a windowed balcony leans over the alley, its roof rippled like the cap of a mushroom. Above the door, a mounted rider gallops, just visible in the moonlight.
And then under Nyatrix’s touch, the door swings open. She ushers me inside, bolting us in. Without the light of the moon, it’s pitch-dark.
“Let me light a lamp,” she mutters. A match strikes, and I find myself in the confines of a space that is somehow both wonderfully cozy and absolutely beautiful. The walls are wood-clad almost until they meet the ceiling. I step closer, awestruck, to find the glossy black wood is carved with skulls, vines snaking through the eye sockets, rising to weave an intricate, abstract form at the top.
With the lamp lit, I look over my shoulder into the small hallway from which we entered. Its ceiling is made of intricate stained glass in those snaking patterns that defy specific shape. The hearth draws my attention next—more pale gray stone reaching to the ceiling, this time sculpted into a fanciful design of swords, equui, and shields. Across the room, a low couch lounges, wrapped in a pale violet velvet, its arching back carved to match the walls. An intricate spiral staircase curves up into shadow.
I wish I could just tumble headlong into its beauty, but Nyatrix and Faunus’s whispered exchange clings to me with prickling claws. I hear Nyatrix moving in the next room, so I step through the arched doorway and find a small, orderly kitchen. To my shock, a neat open shelf is lined with foodstuffs: dried fruit, a jar of lentils, flour, yeast. No one who lives in Lumendei’s citadel is permitted to keep food within their chambers. I so terribly want Liminalia to be different. Perhaps it truly is.
I’m distracted by the sound of Nyatrix striking flint by the kitchen’s hearth. Orange-hued illumination fills the space, banishing the deeper shadows.
“Nyatrix,” I murmur, braver with her back to me, free from the weight of that thunderstorm gaze. “What happened? With the stablemaster?”
She turns, and in this small space, we’re suddenly so close—unbearablyclose. My heart leaps into my throat, anxiety and fear and desire and hope tangled together like the roots of a wild meadow.
“I...” She breathes out, dragging one hand through her hair, though she doesn’t meet my gaze. “Something unexpectedhappened while I was gone. Politics. I—it’s nothing I can’t handle. For now, Agrippina should be here any moment. The healer I mentioned. To help with your back.”
“Nyatrix,” I repeat, trying to find the right words. The hearth-light outlines her powerful body in red and my heart flutters. “Please. I’ve spent too long being kept from the truth.”
She finally looks at me, her mouth twisted. She releases a short breath and nods, reaching for my hands. Her eyes are wide, two dark pools in the glow of the fire. I let her wrap her fingers around mine, ignoring the way heat slides down my throat, blossoming in my belly.
“Faunus told me that our Centurion Primus, the leader of Liminalia’s governing body, was found dead a few days ago,” Nyatrix says. Her voice falters just as my stomach flips. “I—I thought I was bringing you somewhere safe, or at least safer. But now ...”
A desperate urge to run sears through me, like I’m little more than a mindless mammal seeking the safety of its dark, hidden burrow. I stare down at my feet, my heart pounding.
“I can handle this,” Nyatrix promises, though her words sound distant, like they’re coming from very, very far away. My ears ring. “I’m just a bit shaken.”
A knock sounds at the door and I nearly leap out of my own skin. Nyatrix reacts immediately, too, dropping my hands and slinking toward the archway like some great beast. With the hearth at the front of her domus still unlit, there’s only darkness to peer into, but she finds an answer there, anyway. With an exhale, she turns back toward me, her shoulders drooping.
“My friend,” she explains, gesturing toward the door. “The healer. Are you still all right to have her look at your back?”
My mind tumbles, but I manage to nod, not trusting my words. Nyatrix asks me to stay in the kitchen and then slipsthrough the archway, her footsteps silent on the tiled floors. Soft voices reach my ears, followed by the sound of a closing door.
Nyatrix reappears, looking a little more relaxed. “Ophelia,” she says, her gaze holding mine. “I want you to meet Agrippina.”
At the knight’s side stands a woman of about my height. She’s older, perhaps in her seventies, with a flowing mane of wavy gray hair. Her light blue eyes are sharp and striking against warm brown skin. She’s dressed in a simple linen shift, belted at the waist, a cowl wrapped around her shoulders, though the hood’s thrown back. I cannot shake the feeling that if my mother had lived, she might have looked much like this woman—the lined skin, the graying hair, the easy stance.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Agrippina says. Her voice is low and hearty, like stew simmered for bells on the stove.
“I appreciate you coming,” I say, my gaze darting to her capable hands, the fingertips stained green from herbs, no doubt.
From a small dining nook, Nyatrix pulls out a chair, gesturing for me to sit. Agrippina asks me the kinds of questions I would in her position, and I preemptively offer her a few details that prompt her to ask me if I’m a healer, too. When I tell her I am, something passes between us—a sadness thick as heavy fog, but a kinship, too. As I peel off my clothing down to my shift, warmth fills the room, the fire crackling.
Agrippina works in a heavy, weighted silence. Something hangs over the three of us—something tense and unsaid, roiling like a stormfront. Nyatrix watches with a sharp, rapt kind of attention, her eyes constantly darting between Agrippina and me. Like she’s waiting for something.
“Ophelia,” the healer says in that rich, warm voice of hers as she begins to button my shift back up, my wounds cleaned and dressed. “Nyatrix asked me to come see you for a reason, and it’s not just because I’m a healer.”
My blood pounds in my ears, but I manage to slip my arms back into my dress and turn to her. In my peripheral vision, Nyatrix—who has been leaning against the pantry door—suddenly stands up perfectly straight, her muscles tense.
“Yes?” I ask Agrippina, meeting that startling blue of her gaze.
