14. Silas

I ripmy mouth away from the throat of yet another legacy who was foolish enough to attack, tossing aside their carcass as I storm after Baelfire. He"s tracking Maven"s scent, but if he doesn"t find her soon, I expect to descend into madness instantaneously.

My freshly boosted magic prickles at my scarred fingertips, desperate to be set free. Everett is in the middle of verbally tearing Baelfire a new asshole when I catch up.

"...don"t know what the hell you were thinking. How could you not shift and burn this entire godsdamned forest to the ground when you realized she was gone?"

"I can"t shift right now, or the dragon will be fully in control, and he might hurt her, asswipe," Baelfire snaps back, shoving the ice elemental aside as he continues to track Maven. He pauses with frustration and swears viciously, rubbing his face. "Her scent is so fucking faint, even though it can"t be that long since she passed through here. It"s always faint. Why the hell is it so hard to track her?"

I imagine it has something to do with what she is and the shadow heart in her chest. I only know about that particular form of highly forbidden, unforgivable magic since I read about it in one of the Garnet Wizard"s banned ancient grimoires.

A shadow heart can serve many purposes, but primarily, it keeps something alive that"s…well. Not.

But Maven isn"t Undead. I"m certain of that.

It doesn"t make any godsdamned sense, but that"s hardly the problem right now. The problem is that our keeper vanished in the middle of a deadly combat training, and I"m losing my mind, thinking that every corpse we come across is hers.

She"s dead.

You lost her.

As it should be, the voices in my head taunt.

My ears start to ring, and my vision blurs. But finally, Baelfire stops in a clearing, and we all stare.

The grass is utterly colorless. Not like dead, yellowed grass—it"s pure white. Nearby trees are in grayscale. It"s as if any vestige of life or color has been drained away, including from a legacy corpse nearby.

"S—Silas! Baelfire! Professor Frost, you have to help me. Please!" someone wails. "It hurts!"

We all look over to see a redhead crawling towards us from a cluster of rocks. She"s bleeding profusely from her head at a rate that tells me she won"t live long. She slumps to cry into the grass.

"She was just supposed to be a w—weak little asscaster," she sobs. "Please heal me—you have to heal me! I can"t die this way, I don"t deserve this…"

She dissolves into nonsensical weeping. I crouch beside her.

"You"re talking about Maven. You saw her cast?"

The redhead rolls over as well as she can, nodding quickly and brushing tears and blood off her hysterical, wide-eyed face. "Listen to me. Listen. You can"t fucking trust her! That bitch has been lying this entire time. You have to believe me, her magic wasn"t normal! I think she was using?—"

I reach out and twist her head, snapping her neck.

Everett flinches and scowls at me. Baelfire swears and rubs his face.

"Couldn"t you at least let her finish whatever she was trying to fucking say first? Or you could have tried to heal her enough so she could tell us what happened here and what direction Maven went. Fucking merciless cutthroat."

As if being merciless is a flaw.

"She was past the point of healing. I was putting her out of her misery efficiently," I mutter.

It"s a partial truth. I was also keeping the redhead from saying anything more about Maven"s casting. If she saw Maven cast, then I couldn"t leave her alive. I know my blood blossom is hiding something about her magic, and I can"t have rumors about it spreading around Everbound.

Baelfire calls me a dick before inhaling deeply and leaving the clearing, following Maven"s scent. Everett and I follow.

The coach blew the whistle outside of Everbound Forest several minutes ago, but none of us give a fuck about not completing this stupid training. We were attacked so frequently that this was less of a structured exercise and more of a free-for-all shot at trying to kill our quintet off, which only led to us leaving a trail of bodies in our wake as we searched for Maven.

Finally, we burst out of the edge of the forest. Coach Gallagher sees us and storms over, barking that the training isn"t over and we can"t go back inside. He"s still mid-sentence when Everett flicks his hand in the coach"s direction and freezes him solid, pushing over the frozen instructor as we pass.

"There goes your chance at being the teacher"s pet," Baelfire mutters, still leading the way.

"He"s my coworker and a dick. Always has been."

I glance at Everett. "When we get inside, we"ll keep searching for Maven. You should go to your office or whatever the hell it is that you do here. Just keep yourself and your curse well the fuck away from her."

Never before have I felt bad for the privileged, famous heir of the Frost fortune. What was there to feel sorry for? Even if he was a brooding, arrogant grouch, by all appearances, he had everything.

But the look of stark misery on the elemental"s face as he halts to let us go on alone actually makes me pity him for a fleeting moment. I despise my curse more than anything, but at least my mere feelings can"t put Maven"s life at risk. She"s taken center stage in my life so completely that I can"t imagine having to resist her for her own good.

As soon as we step into the castle, Baelfire turns right down the hall that will take us to our quintet apartment. I"m surprised Maven would go there since she"s avoided it so heavily.

I keep up easily, still clutching my blood-soaked crystal as I look around for anyone who might try to catch us unawares. Although our mere appearance seems to be enough to turn most legacies off from the idea of approaching us. Blood still drips down my chin and neck, drying from the last person I drained. I"m sure I look as mad as I feel as blood magic swirls around my fingertips.

Meanwhile, Baelfire snarls at anything that moves into his line of sight, and his eyes are still partially shifted. He"s also covered in blood and dirt from a fight with a griffin shifter that didn"t end well for the griffin.

As soon as we step into our quintet apartment, Baelfire drops to his knees and clutches at his head with an infuriated roar. The fire flickering under his skin and smoke rising from his nose as he barely resists a shift confuses me until I test the air and realize what set him off.

It smells like Maven"s blood. Again.

Even though I"m gorged on the blood of our enemies, my mouth waters and my fangs ache at the fragrance. Gods above, nothing in the world should have the right to be so enticing.

Leaving Baelfire to wrestle with his inner dragon, I try to get myself under control as I approach the bathroom door. There are two bathrooms in this apartment. The bigger one is attached to the main bedroom that we all view as Maven"s, but she"s in the smaller bathroom connected to the hall right now.

The door is locked. I rest my forehead against it, gritting my teeth against the urge to break it down. "Maven?"

She doesn"t answer.

Something is dreadfully wrong, another voice in my head snickers.

Perhaps she's bled out completely. One can only hope.

I ignore the voices. "Are you hurt? Answer me."

There"s a soft sound of distress, and that"s my breaking point. Sending a hex through the wooden door that makes it cave in like paper, I force my way inside the bathroom—but I freeze when I see the nude silhouette of Maven behind the glass, scrubbing feverishly at her skin. The entire bathroom is filled with steam as I round the corner, anxiety curdling my insides.

Normally, Maven would be angry that I violated her space like this. But she doesn"t even look up at me as I approach her, ignoring how I"m getting drenched in the shower spray as I reach for her.

She just keeps scrubbing.

"Stop. Maven, stop."

As gently as I can, I grasp her elbow and turn her to face me, but she flinches back immediately.

"Don"t."

Misery fills me when I see tears in her eyes and streaked over her cheeks. But it"s immediately eclipsed by unadulterated horror when I spot the steel wool clutched in her trembling hand, the scarlet blood running into the shower drain from where she"s literally scrubbed the top layers of her skin off.

Myblood blossom is typically so composed and practical, but now she"s shaking and in a blind panic as she scrapes herself raw.

I can barely get the words out as I put the pieces together. "Who touched you?"

She lets out a shaky breath and throws the steel wool to the ground, grabbing the soap instead and slathering it over her arms, neck, and stomach.

They touched her stomach.

Red creeps into my vision as my throat burns.

"Maven. Who the fuck touched you?" I whisper.

She makes a gagging sound and drops the soap to cover her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut. Seeing her like this is ripping me to shreds. I want to pull her close and heal her damaged skin and beg for names so I can find whoever did this to her and paint the castle red with their blood.

But when Maven finally manages to speak, she whispers, "It"s nothing. Wait outside for me."

She stoops as if going for the steel wool again, but I swipe it off the ground as I leave, refusing to let her touch it again.

In the quintet"s entry room beside the kitchen, Bael is still gripping his head in residual pain, but he looks over as I storm into the room.

"What"s going on? Is she?—"

I left the door to the bathroom ajar, so we both hear the faintest sniffle from the shower.

That has him on his feet immediately, but I put up a hand to stop him and nod to the dining room table instead. "We"re going to wait here for her."

"But—"

"You do not want to argue with me right now, Baelfire," I warn.

Any other day, he"d see that as a challenge, but the youngest Decimus looks utterly defeated as he slumps into one of the dining room chairs, frowning impatiently at the hallway. I sit, too, and rub my temples as I try to reign in my lingering fury and bloodlust from witnessing Maven in that state.

It"s ten minutes before the shower shuts off, and another ten minutes later, Maven emerges from the hallway. She"s wrapped in a white bathrobe that conceals the scrapes I know cover much of her body, and otherwise, our keeper is composed again. She holds her head high as she sits at the end of the dining room table, regarding us both in solemn silence.

Even Baelfire doesn"t disturb the quiet as we wait for what she has to say.

Finally, Maven clears her throat."It"s come to my attention that I have a weakness that can too easily be extorted. I want to fix that, so I"m asking for your assistance."

Bael studies her. "Assistance? What do you?—"

"Exposure therapy," she clarifies. "I need to get over my fear of touch."

I stare at her before looking down at the sticky, red-coated crystal that I still hold in one hand. "No. I didn"t realize how severe it was until now, but I am not putting you through more of that."

She lifts her chin. "I"m asking you to. Fixing my haphephobia will be torture and not the fun kind, but it"s a necessary evil. Also," she adds, cutting off another of my protests. "If you agree to help me, I"ll offer some answers."

I want to understand my keeper more than I want anything, save breaking my curse, so I carefully ask, "You"ll answer our questions?"

Maven watches us as if bracing herself for a strong reaction. "Yes. Considering you two already know I"m from the Nether, I think some transparency is in order."

I nod, but the wariness doesn"t leave her shoulders. My sangfluir still expects us to attack her for being a Nether escapee.

Incomprehensible.

Baelfire perks up. "Finally! Like I already fucking said, we need to put all cards on the table. Our quintet needs it." Then he pauses and makes a face. "Although, I guess only half our quintet is here, which is pretty damn inconvenient."

The fact that Crypt hasn"t turned up is mildly concerning. I could never miss that murderous fucking bastard, not in a million years, but his absence might be a sign of something malicious going on.

Everett"s absence, on the other hand, is for the best.

Maven drags her damp hair over one shoulder. With her dark hair and olive complexion, she looks stunning in white. I try to focus on what she"s saying and not that she looks positively edible when wet like this.

"They"ll join us later, or they won"t. Either way, let"s establish a few things. I know both of your curses. Silas, you hear voices, and you"re going insane. Baelfire, your dragon starts to take control if you don"t hunt. Is that right?"

I grimace in agreement. Unfortunately, mine is becoming impossible to miss. I could share that the voices tormenting me are none other than those of my deceased family members or how they taunt me with the promise of peace if I just put myself out of my misery. But those are dark truths I doubt anyone cares to know.

Baelfire nods, worn out from fending off his dragon earlier. "Yeah, I have to hunt and kill something every day. If I don"t, I"ll lose my marbles bit by bit, Silas style."

I scowl at him, but Maven tips her head. "And that makes your dragon stronger?"

"Something like that. My curse didn"t really set in until I was five. When my parents saw me losing control constantly, shifting without being able to shift back, throwing dragon-sized tantrums, and basically being a little shithead…they realized I must have the same curse that my uncle did. He was never given a quintet and never got to break his curse. He could hunt to appease it, too, but when he stopped doing that, he ended up shifting into a dragon. Permanently. He was completely replaced by the beast, and my asshole of a dragon wouldn"t fucking hesitate to do the same thing to me."

Maven absorbs that for a moment. "What happened to your uncle?"

"He was put to death by the Legacy Council. They didn"t like the idea of a dragon flying around outside of their control. Said he posed a risk to humans. Which he did," he shrugs.

I remember when that happened. Gruesome as it is, that was the last time a large batch of dragon scales was harvested, but those ones are all but gone now.

Hence why I need Baelfire"s.

"Your turn, Mayflower," Bael urges. "Give us an answer about you. Tell us why you were in the headmaster"s office."

She doesn"t miss a beat. "To kill him. But a changeling beat me to it."

He blinks. "Oh, shit. How the fuck did a changeling get into Everbound? And why did it take out Hearst?"

"Changelings in the mortal realm are mercenaries only motivated by money and feeding on memories. It must have a master somewhere who wanted Hearst dead," Maven shrugs. "But now it"s trapped here with the rest of us and the Immortal Quintet hunting for it."

Things click together in my head. "That"s who poisoned you. The one you"re looking for."

"The one I"m going to kill tonight," she nods as if she"s describing taking a stroll.

Baelfire"s jaw clenches. "Not without my help, Mayflower."

"And mine."

I expect Maven to refuse immediately, so it"s a pleasant surprise when she studies the two of us for a long moment before sighing.

"How strong are your stomachs?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I"m going to torture this changeling, and oddly enough, not everyone enjoys that."

For nine years, I observed the Garnet Wizard torture anyone who attempted to trespass in his sanctuary without authorization. His punishments were brutal, and he occasionally asked for my help conducting magical experiments on those trespassers.

I"m no sadist, but I am well-versed in things like this.

"I can handle it," I say, smirking across at the dragon shifter. "Baelfire is far too soft, though. He should sit this one out. He once fainted watching a horse give birth on my parents" estate, back when they were alive to have one."

He kicks me under the table. "I was four, you motherfucker. When I saw your parents" keeper reaching into that thing, I thought he was stuffing his hand up its butt. What kid wouldn"t find that shit appalling? But that was forever ago, and I can handle anything you can."

I look at my keeper pointedly. "As you said earlier, his dark side isn"t nearly at our level. If he even has one."

"Everyone has a dark side," she mutters as if to herself.

"Look, I"m not a blatant asshole like Silas most of the time, but this fucker hurt my mate, so watching her torture it is going to be an absolute fucking treat," Baelfire huffs.

Maven nods, then frowns. "Come to think of it, that changeling got into my head earlier, so it might start spouting off shit about my past that it has no business sharing. I should do this alone."

I set my bloodied crystal on the table, shaking my head. "You"ve decided to be transparent with us. Consider this a part of that. Nothing it says will sway us from your side."

She openly grimaces at that before meeting my eye. "Don"t be so sure."

"What will it take to earn your trust, ima sangfluir? Should we make a blood oath promising to take your secrets to our graves?"

"No. Besides, that would hardly be comforting. In my experience, graves aren"t permanent."

Baelfire and I exchange a look before he asks, "Wanna expound on that, Mayflower?"

She opens her mouth, but someone knocks on the front door, interrupting our first half-official quintet meeting. Baelfire looks haggard as he bares his teeth. He"s still liable to shift and kill if any threat presents itself, and there is no way in the world that I"m letting someone outside of our quintet see Maven in a bathrobe, so I"m the one who answers the door.

Engela Zuma regards me, barely blinking at the dried blood on my chin, neck, hands, and clothes. I"m so taken aback by a member of the Immortal Quintet at our door that I immediately step out and shut it behind me, ensuring she has no chance of glimpsing Maven.

Of all members of the Immortal Quintet, I know the least about Engela. Everyone knows Natalya is a spoiled, overpowered bitch, and that none of her immortal boy toys should be crossed because they"re all equally powerful and inhumane.

However, the second female monster in the Immortal Quintet is a relative question mark, even by her appearance. I know she can transform objects and even people to stone at the touch of her finger, but with her deep brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair shorn close to her head, she could pass for a human. She doesn"t look nearly as monstrous as the others in her quintet.

I dip my head slightly, a sign of respect I don"t entirely mean because I respect no one in the Immortal Quintet. "What brings you to?—"

She cuts me off by holding out four sealed envelopes without a word.

I don"t want to take them. What if they"re dangerous?

Of course, they"re dangerous, a voice in my head scoffs. The Immortal Quintet must know the truth about Maven. They"re after her.

When you open those envelopes, deadly hexes will emerge.

You"ll be powerless as usual. Useless boy,my father growls among the voices.

My eye starts twitching, and I realize I"m breathing heavily and retreating backward. If Engela notices, she doesn"t care. She drops the letters on the floor and walks silently away, rounding the nearest corner.

I wait several seconds to see if some kind of trap springs forth, but when I hover my hand over the envelopes, I sense no malicious magic.

I pick up the envelopes and return to our apartment, frowning when I see one each for Maven, myself, Baelfire, and Everett.

"What is it?" Baelfire asks, approaching. Then he wrinkles his nose. "What"s that smell coming from Maven"s letter?"

That intrigues Maven, who walks over and leans up and inhales near her envelope at precisely the same time I lean down for a whiff.

"Calea ternifolia," we say at the same time.

It makes me blink, and then a smile threatens to tug the corners of my mouth. "I almost forgot. You"re quite the botanist. Odd that you should have that hobby, though."

With our faces close like this, I have the luxury of studying the dark kaleidoscope of colors in her irises as she arches a brow.

"Why, because I come from a lifeless void?"

"Precisely."

She shrugs. "Everyone needs a hobby, even in hell."

She slips the envelope from my hand and opens it. Baelfire and I lean in to study the small object that falls into her palm. It"s a circular glass talisman. At the center of it is a golden eye closed in asleep while the outer edges of the glass bracket a pattern of swirling dried leaves—the calea ternifolia that, when spelled, becomes so pungent.

Although it"s simple, it"s incredibly well-crafted and appears to be very old. If this is a gift from Crypt to her, it"s impressive.

Maven reads the note that came with it, and as she does, Baelfire and I both read the letters addressed to us. It doesn"t take me long to skim, and I must finish at the same time as the dragon because he lets out a harsh scoff and shakes his head.

"Fucking Nightmare Prince."

Maven glances over. "What did he say in yours?"

"Mostly a grotesquely detailed threat of extreme testicular torture if we let harm befall you while he"s away," I reply. I don"t mention the part where Crypt added that he would search for anything at the Divide that might ease Maven"s ailment, as reverium does for him.

"Same," Bael grunts, tearing up his letter. "How about yours, Boo?"

He tries to lean over to read over her shoulder, but she slips it into her pocket and glares at him. "No more Boo. Boo is dead. Put that nickname on a fucking gravestone and move on."

"My bad, Mayflower."

My attention moves back to the talisman in Maven"s hand. "That must be a dream totem. An incredibly old one. I don"t know where Crypt found it, but they"re supposed to keep nightmares at bay, among other things."

Her lips curve into the slightest smile as she studies the talisman, and just like that, I"m fiercely jealous. I want to give her something she likes, too. Baelfire looks equally envious as he huffs and folds his arms over his chest.

"Doesn"t change the fact that he fucking left. He should be here helping to protect our keeper."

Maven rolls her eyes and pockets the talisman before fixing us with a look. She no longer desperately clings to her poker face whenever we"re alone, so right now, it"s purely Maven, with that intoxicatingly dark, dangerous flare in her eye that makes my cock twitch in my pants.

"Let"s get one more thing out of the way. You two have no idea what I"m capable of. I"m sure the last day or two of close calls has made you both think I"m fragile, but trust me. I can handle myself. Now come on, it"s time to hunt a changeling."