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“You speak of Malakar,” Cedric said, and the celestial dipped his chin in confirmation.

“My sister has a history of saying too much to mortals. Bestowing the gift of mana upon humans was not enough, it seemed. She had to go and reveal things that no mortal should know. And it was because of her foolishness that Malakar learned how to twist her blessings, to corrupt the magic, to wield blood and death.”

“And now he is back, and we ask for your help in stopping him once more,” said Cedric.

“But that is not, in fact, what you asked for. You asked for my help in finding her. These are two different tasks. They have two different costs.”

Nox, who had been silent since they first addressed the Dark Warden, stiffened.

“To me, they are one and the same. Because as soon as I have her back, I will bleed him for every wrong he has ever committed, for every cruelty, every ounce of pain.” Cedric rolled his shoulders back. “And there is no cost I am not willing to pay.”

Cedric thought he might have seen Nox flinch from the corner of his eye as he spoke those final words, but he didn’t have time to ponder their reaction. He forced himself to remain steady. “So, will you help me?”

The starlit specks in Noctis’s dark eyes seemed to glow as his gaze dragged down Cedric’s face and neck. They stopped when they got to his chest, and though Cedric knew that his doublet and cloak covered the bondmark above his collarbone, he was suddenly very certain that the celestial could see it anyway.

“You are her bonded,” said Noctis. “Why do you need my help? Surely you feel her presence with you always.” The celestial sounded almost wistful.

Cedric swallowed. “I haven’t been able to feel her since Malakar took her. Our bond is blocked. Cut off.”

“You are confident the Revenant is still alive though?” The words were free of judgment or expectation. It was simply a question, and Cedric suddenly felt he understood the absolute enigma that was Tenebris Nox so much better.

Thraigg huffed. “Wouldn’t ye be the one to know if she weren’t?” He paused, tilting his chin to look up at Nox, then swung his gaze back to the ground at the celestial’s feet and added, “And I mean that with, uh, the utmost respect, o’ course.”

Right on cue, Sid hopped out from a slice in the air. Soft shadows spilled off her back as she darted over to Cedric and rubbed her face against the side of his boot. Then, just as quickly, she wandered over to the Warden of Shadows and did the same thing before sitting back on her haunches and peering up at the celestial with a curious tilt of her feline head.

Noctis released a low chuckle, the sound leaving him in slightly off-beat layers, as though many people were laughing along. And then he did something Cedric could never have possibly expected: The star god squatted in the middle of his luminescent cavern and ran a starry hand down Sid’s back.

A fucking celestial was petting his cat.

“So she lives, and your bond remains, but her location is unknown,” said Noctis as he scratched a purring Sid behind her ear. “You wish for clarity. You require direction.”

Cedric’s brow creased.

Noctis stood. “Very well.”

And Cedric barely had time to inhale before darkness consumed him.

The cavern had vanished.

Nox and Thraigg and Sid and Noctis himself, all gone.

There was nothing. No towering spires or star-specked ceiling or ground beneath Cedric’s feet. Like the very world had fallen away, and Cedric was falling too.

No, not falling.

Drifting.

Weightless.

Nothing but consciousness suspended in this great blank expanse.

“There is nothing to fear.” Noctis’s multilayered voice was a gentle murmur in Cedric’s mind, outside of it—everywhere and nowhere all at once.

“Where am I?” Cedric asked, his own voice an eerie echo of itself.

“Your body? Exactly where you left it. Your mind though?”

Noctis didn’t expand further, and just as Cedric was about to press the celestial on exactly what was happening, a thin line of molten gold streaked across the surrounding expanse of black—a thread weaving through the night.