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Skul Drek narrowed his eyes into bloody slits. “Cruel, Melder.”

The laugh squeaked out. “I’m not trying to be, I swear it.” I cleared my throat and forced myself to take a step back. “Can you sense the souls like I see the bones?”

“Pieces of the first king and his soul are in the lands, this I sense. But the sight is my melder’s alone.”

He could feel the power of the Wanderer’s soul, but not where it was. I was the one who could see the craft of the soul. Two gifts with the potential to be of use, but we had to find a way to entangle them. Bonded or not, it seemed our crafts remained our own.

“The time is nearly spent.” The brush of his shadowed hand ran down my cheek.

Skul Drek or Roark, the man did nothing but fret over the melder’s trance that brought me to the mirror. Without the power of soul bones, I did not stumble so fiercely after each meld, but it was disorienting should I remain in the darkness too long.

“Wait. You sense souls.” I swallowed with effort and looked in the direction of distant gates, faraway spires. “Can you sense him? Kael? Can we see if his soul is still bright?”

Tears would not fall here, not from my soul, but the vibrance dimmed.

Skul Drek pulled me close. “Lead the way, Melder.”

I imagined Stonegate. The smell of evergreens, of the smoke and leather and roasted meats in the market. I imagined Thane’s laughter, Yrsa’s satin gowns. I tried to draw up the reek of the Stav units, with their rancid trousers and stockings.

“We don’t go closer.”

My eyes blinked open. The mirror shifted. We stood outside a peeling, cracked, debauched version of the walls around the Jorvan fortress. “What do you mean we don’t go closer?”

“The dark one waits for my melder.” Skul Drek’s lip curled. “Tricks and spells sense your soul. You brighten the night, and they will take it.”

This edge of Roark spoke with such venom, such rage, it was odd how I’d come to recognize the shifts in his tone, to tell his loving possessiveness from his bloodlust. The way he spoke of Fadey’s presence was harsh and hateful. With me, it was nearly desperate, like he could never get enough and it angered him.

“Do you sense something here at the gates?” I asked.

“Blood spells.”

Dammit. “The queen is a blood crafter. She’s warded the gates, no doubt. But how can we feel it here?”

“Traps of the soul and the body lie in wait for my melder. The dark one knows my melder comes to me here. He hunts you where the souls speak as well as where the living walk.”

Shit. Fadey and Ingir had managed to place spell casts in the mirror?

I looked to the gates again, dark, dreary. I did not know how to get beyond them. “Souls have connections to other souls, do they not?”

His hot eyes narrowed, and Skul Drek curled one of his misty hands around the endless gilded tethers binding us together. “Bonds with the melder only belong to he and we.”

“I’m not talking about a soul bond. Good gods, you’re rather jealous in this state.”

Skul Drek merely growled in response.

“I mean connections. We feel drawn to certain folk. Like Emi says, some souls understand each other. I was just hoping I might feel Kael.” I peered up at the hooded face at my side. “You sense souls. Can you find him?”

Skul Drek paused for a long breath, then closed his eyes. I didn’t move, didn’t speak. Beneath his murky cowl, his features twisted, contorted. When his eyes snapped open again, the copper had deepened to a fierce red. “There is light in the soul you seek.”

“Kael’s alive?”

Skul Drek tilted his head. “There is light…and darkness. There is pain, my melder.”

The burn of bile rose in the back of my throat. I hugged my middle. Kael was suffering in his soul. My brother, my friend. The boy who first saw my hair stand on end after sleeping, only to laugh until he nearly retched. The man who loved easily, and was a bit of a rake, but would take a knife for anyone he kept in his heart.

“I must get to him.”

“A vow to find a trapped brother remains,” Skul Drek breathed next to my ear. “But now time is spent.”