It’s the same every night.
I wake up in a house not my own, in a dark bedroom, and through a doorway, I hear the sound of someone screaming.
Then there’s always silence.
The first couple of nights I chalked it up to a recurring nightmare of some kind, especially because once I closed my eyes,
“You’re looking as tempting as ever, love.”
Arianna’s pistol was out and trained on the familiar voice before her head swung around. “Where’s Dix?”
“Your first mate? Wishing he’d been paying more attention.” Elliot eased against the doorjamb, his towering frame backlit by the flickering torch.
She scowled.
Pan pulled at his leash, and it took everything in Peter to hold him back. The burly black-and-tan German shepherd was having none of it.
“Come on, boy. We’ve got to stay focused. If we fail, we’re kicked out for good.” Muscles straining, Peter tightened his grip and heaved in the opposite direction.
Through the mist, a faint glow hung over the water. I shifted my hydro-scooter into neutral and flicked the light off. The glow wasn’t Samuel’s spotlight. Besides, hadn’t he mentioned that the constables’ fuel allowance had been cut?
My scooter bobbed in the waves, a bit of salt spray dampening my boots.
“Warn’t nearly this hard when yer pa were in charge,” Les Watkins said into the phone, wiping blood off his hands with an old dish towel. He was careful to use the old ones. The missus scolded him nigh to death every time he ruined the fancy towels she’d just got.
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The bale of alfalfa hovered in the air, held together by three strands of twine that pulsed to a rhythm only Farmer Ben could hear. Anxious cattle swarmed beneath it. At a mental command from Ben, the twine snapped. The bale crashed to the ground where a horde of bovine maws devoured it.
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Rank upon rank, we stand ready.
Faces set and stern, wings unfurled, eyes locked forward, swords at our sides—though they will dance like flames in our hands at the first sign of trouble. We have seen battle, terrible and costly, against ruthless enemies. We will leap into combat again, if threatened, if met with resistance.
But that is not our mission.
Crossing my arms, I scowl at his gravestone. It’s a struggle to keep this aria of screams and sobs inside the icy wind of my mind instead of releasing it into the icy wind around me. He’d only seen me cry once; I’m not going to cry now.
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Mirrors never show the truth on our birthdays. They show only fractures, pieces that we can almost hide, but never completely.
And this mirror is no exception.
I steel myself before peering inside its depths. Darksouls—the reflected versions of ourselves living in mirrors—have a persuasive air about them.
The king was broken in pieces.
Ezahtira shouldn’t have been surprised. Ever since the gods punished the kings for their corruption, the nation of Cadmar had suffered the Two-Taloned Curse. The First Talon turned each king into a stone-like substance at death, after which he would crumble.
Genies don’t like to be called monsters. We monster hunters like to disagree.
Sure, they’re beautiful. Sure, they’ll give you three wishes. But you have to catch them first—before they mess with your head, or turn invisible, or shapeshift into a scorpion so that you don’t want to catch them.
I saw through everything in that magical ballroom. Chandeliers cast a warm glow, but I knew which shadows would hide me. The orchestra played a lively reel, but I knew the immense pipe organ in the balcony above could be problematic in an attack. The governor’s palace was lit with elegance as I joined Georgianna, Cynthia, Elizabeth and the other ladies in their chatter.
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