Page 118

Hah, didn’t he know what that felt like?

He barely touched his soup when it arrived. The rock of nausea in his stomach took up too much space while Atticus’ grimoire was a shadowy weight in his peripheral. Coming to terms with one’s mortality for the third—or was it the fourth— time in his life should have been easier than this. Instead, Orpheus found himself aching for what could have been different.

I came so close.

To happiness. To a life. He would have traded all the magic in the world yet again to go back to the day of Fenrir’s crowning. To have another chance at a future with him, magic or not, purpose or not, if it meant the two of them were safely together. He’d have found something worthwhile to live for, in time. Some project to pursue or moral conundrum to unravel. He could have helped Red with her tech or assisted Farris in the garage, learned a new trade or written a volume of books documenting the years of Lore’s reign and the effort to stop her.

He could have done something. Anything, and been happy.

Because he’d have been with Fenrir.

Because he’d be alive.

Gwen burst into the room not through the door, but a hole in the far wall. “I want to try something.”

Orpheus blinked at her, then down at the stick she clutched in her hands. Long and black and straighter than a stick had any right to be—

“Is that a cane?”

It shone in the light, black surface lacquered sleek, the silver grip at its top finely molded—the sigils running its length a delicate inlaying of silver.

Gwen gripped the cane close, then shoved it at him. “I made it for you. Well, I stole the cane, but I carved the sigils. I think they’ll…help.”

“Help,” Orpheus repeated stupidly, taking the cane. In a day he would be dead but…this was a gift. The only gift anyone had ever given. Forged not with the power of Gwen’s spellcraft, but something better. More powerful.

Her love.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Gwen blushed. “We’re going for a walk.” She sounded like Atticus when she said it, but the thought of resisting did not occur to Orpheus. He stood, testing the cane.

The silver head fit into his palm nicely while the base stuck to the ground via whatever spells Gwen had charged it with, rather than the use of a rubber nub. He stood, grip wavering for a moment, before another spell bled into his hand to calm its shaking.

How clever. They were simple spells, mindfully executed, thoughtfully applied, and together they formed a useful piece of tech Orpheus would have never thought up; so far from the destructive nature of his own magic he considered the reality that Gwen’s magic wasn’t necessarily untrained, but rather misapplied.

“Is it working okay?” she asked, voice small.

Orpheus gave her a smile, ignoring how it trembled.

He took what felt like his first steps of his own volition in weeks, towards a fate he hadn’t apparently outrun in the months since leaving the Gilded Palace. Whatever Gwen wanted to show him, she didn’t want Atticus or Duluth to see. Orpheus didn’t want them to, either. This was meant just for them, and warmth flooded his chest when he realized, burrowing deeper than it had any right to.

He didn’t ask Gwen where they were going. He ducked into the hole she created, Soot taking up their rear in a trail of smoke. Through a labyrinthine maze of magical passages he followed her, holes opening like they were doors, rooms passing in quick glimpses: more studies and a few utility closets filled with dusty shelves stacked with paper and ink.

They didn’t go far, but by the time they stepped into a long windowless corridor Orpheus felt like he’d seen more of Sanctuary than he had over the last several weeks. This particular corridor stretched long, one end terminating in a two-story tall door, the other a man with a broom quietly sweeping.

Orpheus froze when he noticed him, but the man didn’t look up when Gwen swept down the corridor towards the opposite end. His eyes remained on the floor, half-mast like Duluth’s, chasing dust Orpheus couldn’t see.

For one more moment Orpheus eyed the man warily, then followed after Gwen. “What is this?” His cane made a satisfying click when they approached the tall door.

“You’ll see.” Gwen twisted her hands together before placing them against the thick wood.

It opened with a groan, and what it revealed took all his breath away.

A library. A real library. Like the wizard keeps he’d read about in what Fenrir had called fantasy books, it soared high overhead into a painted domed ceiling, richly polished bookcases lining the tower’s walls where narrow catwalks clung. From each shelf, books spilled, pile after pile lining the catwalk’s railing, while at its center, a spiral staircase led up into a tier of landings, tables and couches filling each so a scholar didn’t have to carry their books all the way down to have a place to read.

And ringing the ground level where he and Gwen stood, windows three times taller than him overlooked a city from every vantage possible, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view that drew Orpheus to the closest balustrade to gasp.

He’d seen Sanctuary before. He’d ridden through her streets and glimpsed her from narrow windows and gazed down at her rooftops from high atop her wall. But never before had he seen her like this. Alive with the glimmer of their Netherflame lanterns, from a vantage that did not feel like that of a prisoner’s, but rather as her mage.