Prologue

LYRE

Lyre jammed his hands deeper into his pockets as he strode down the corridor. Like most of the building, white dominated—white tiled floors, white walls, white ceilings. Of all the possible colors, why had they chosen white? He would have picked something that hid the blood better.

Blank doors with small windows lined the hall, and he checked the number beside each room as he passed. The higher the numbers grew, the more his steps slowed. By the time he reached the correct door, he was barely moving.

He glanced up and down the obviously empty hall. She was late.

Cursing under his breath, he debated walking right back down the corridor, then sighed. With heavy reluctance, he turned to the window in the door and peered in.

The tiny room on the other side held a simple wooden cot with white sheets—white everything, of course. The occupant was sitting on the cot in a sulky slouch, his posture at complete odds with the torn, gore-splattered clothing he wore. Black material hung in shreds from one shoulder, and his arm was smeared with drying blood.

Lyre guessed the room's occupant was a young teenager, already as tall as Lyre but rangy and lean. Too young to be sitting there calmly when it looked like he'd just walked off a battlefield.

Leaning in closer, Lyre squinted at the youth. His dark hair gleamed wine-red in the fluorescent lights, an unusual shade. He had to be in glamour. Lyre was in glamour as well; no one liked dealing with his kind otherwise.

The boy lifted his gaze. His eyes locked on Lyre, burning with a muted rage that didn't fit his relaxed posture.

Lyre recoiled, his hand twitching toward the chain of gemstones hanging around his neck, but he stopped himself. The window was one-way glass and the room was soundproof. Lyre's presence on the other side of the door should be undetectable by the room's occupant.

But the way the boy looked at the glass, it was like he knew someone was there—and he wanted to rip out that someone's throat.

"Lyre!"

Startled, Lyre lurched away from the door and turned.

A woman strode down the hall toward him, her long black ponytail swinging behind her. The clack of her thigh-high boots created an ominous beat in the otherwise noiseless corridor.

"Eisheth," he muttered.

She swept up to him and stopped too close. Ire radiated off her. Her dark glare lashed across his face, trying to catch his eyes. She wanted to make eye contact so he would have to break it, forcing him into an act of submission. She reveled in making men cower.

Lyre considered all the ways he could kill her. Instead, he kept his gaze casually averted and his shoulders slumped, hands buried in his pockets.

"You summoned me?" he prompted.

Eisheth curled her upper lip, disgusted that he wouldn't take her bait. Pivoting to face the door, she asked in a cool tone, "Do you see that boy in there?"

"I saw him."

"He's broken every collar I've put on him."

"Broken?" Lyre repeated, grudgingly looking at her. "What do you mean, broken? The physical collar or the weaving?"

"Both," she snapped. "I have no idea how. No one has any idea how."

Lyre flicked a glance at the door, the boy behind it out of his line of sight. "Who is he?"

"It doesn't matter."

If she wouldn't explain, then Lyre definitely didn't want to know. It was safer not to ask why a teen boy needed magic-suppressing restraints. Safer not to know anything about the blood, the injuries, or that fearless, furious stare that belonged to a veteran soldier.

Secrets were chains, and Lyre was already bound so tightly he could barely breathe. He didn't need any more.

He shrugged at Eisheth. "Magic-dampening collars only last a few years before the spells deteriorate?—"

"Do you think I don't know that?" She jabbed a finger into his chest. "I've had new collars made, tested them first, everything. He breaks them all."

Lyre stepped back, putting more space between them. "What does this have to do with me? I haven't woven a magic-dampening spell in years."

Not that he couldn't do it. Basic weavings like that were a waste of his time.

"I need something more than a magic-dampening spell," she said. "I need something better."

A slow shiver rolled down his spine and settled in his gut like a block of ice. "You want a custom weaving?"

"Yes. I want …" Her eyes slid to the window and she licked her lips, the small movement obscene. "I want something completely new. Not a collar that will control him. I want something that will break him."

Lyre wished her request had shocked him, but anyone who walked these white halls on a regular basis had seen worse. "If you want that kind of custom work, you need to submit a?—"

"Do you really think regular procedures apply to me?"

Her haughty disdain sent a quick, dark flare of anger through him. Straightening to his full height, he finally met her eyes. "You might be the bastille's chief bully—I'm sorry, queen of torture or whatever your title is—but I'm not one of your underlings. I don't have to obey your orders. I don't even have to humor your ego trip."

She held his stare. The seconds stretched, the silence yawning into a ridiculous chasm. She expected him to yield. When he didn't, her eyes darkened to pitch black.

She stepped so close that the toes of her leather boots were between his feet. "You're not one of mine, no." Smiling sweetly, she patted his cheek. "But Chrysalis belongs to Samael … and you belong to Chrysalis."

He didn't flinch, but he knew he'd lost.

He always lost.

Eisheth departed a few minutes later, and Lyre found himself meandering aimlessly down corridors of sterile white. His thoughts spiraled like water down a drain, sinking deeper and deeper until there was nothing left.

Fresh, cool air swept across his face, pulling his mind to the present. He stepped through the doorway and walked across the flat roof to the waist-high ledge that encircled it. There he stopped.

Spots of eerie red light formed a web of lines that marked the avenues and alleys of Asphodel. Straight and geometric in the center, they grew more tangled and disjointed as they spread out toward the high, fortified walls.

All he could see in the dark were those guiding lights. He couldn't see the beings that walked the streets—wicked men and beautiful monsters, indistinguishable and equally dangerous. He couldn't see the precipitous gorge beyond the walls or the jagged black mountains that scraped the sky. He couldn't see the forests of tall, thin trees with scarlet foliage or the dirt roads that wound through the wilderness.

It was all in darkness. Everything outside the reach of the lights was hidden and secret and terrible.

Lyre tilted his head back to take in the sky. There was nothing as immense and impenetrably black as the Underworld's sky. The endless expanse of nothing stretched into oblivion while simultaneously sinking down, spreading its ebony embrace across the land. It lay over him, pressed into him, melded with his black-stained soul.

Footsteps scuffed across the rooftop. Lyre knew that slow, quiet pace, so he didn't turn to look.

His brother stepped up to the concrete ledge and braced his elbows on it. He didn't look at Lyre. He merely gazed across the dark vista as though puzzling over its existence.

"Do you know about Eisheth's custom weaving?" Lyre asked after a moment.

His brother nodded. He didn't appear conflicted or uncomfortable with Eisheth's demand for a spell to break a boy's spirit.

Not his body. She could do that herself. She wanted to break that fearless, defiant rage Lyre had seen in the boy's stare.

They stood in silence. Locks of his brother's pale blond hair rustled in the cool breeze. They were almost identical, him and his brothers. Identical, interchangeable tools.

"What kind of game is she playing?" Lyre snarled softly. "Why request me?"

"I think it's a test."

"A test?" Lyre snapped. "What the hell is she testing me for? Why?—"

"Not her. Our father."

Lyre stiffened.

His brother's amber eyes drew away from the shimmering crimson lights. A reddish haze coated his impassive features, glinting in his pupils. "Don't be a fool, Lyre."

Digging his fingers into the ledge's rough concrete, Lyre exhaled roughly. He and his brothers were nothing more than tools to their father, but a tool was only useful if it performed the tasks for which it had been designed. It didn't matter how talented or skillful Lyre was if he couldn't create the kind of magic that his father wanted. That Chrysalis wanted. That Hades wanted.

This test was about what he could weave—and what he would weave.

He narrowed his eyes against the sea of blood-red lights that made up Asphodel. He could weave life and death and everything in between—but there was no magic he could imagine that would save him from this realm that devoured all light.