Chapter 30

Eiria's Temple was less ominous without the storm raging. Still, I'd waited outside as Paesha inched forward.

She stood at the steps, bathed in moonlight, staring back at me. "You should really be standing somewhere that's not so damn obvious."

Rolling my eyes, I took a step back into the shadow of a nearby building. She blinked several times before squinting. "That's really creepy."

I couldn't help my smile as the fiery woman turned and disappeared into the Goddess of Life's temple. Absolute betrayal had surged through my veins when Orin told Paesha I was searching for the Life Maiden. I'd tried to trust him with my secrets, and he'd immediately gone to her, placing a sliver of that wedge between us once again. But when she cornered me in the gardens the next day, I realized if I let go of the reins and we worked together, maybe that was better than failing on my own. And her eagerness for the hunt officially obliterated any lasting thoughts I had of the missing person secretly being Orin.

I could have counted every damn brick on the building I leaned against by the time the Huntress exited the temple. She sauntered across the street without a care in the world, trying to fix her eyes on me. Clearly, she hadn't been using magic.

When I stepped into the light, she smirked, bumping a shoulder into me. "Tell me that's not magic."

"You're blind for an infamous Huntress."

"Well, you're fucking mouthy, and I don't use magic when I don't need to, so I guess we're even."

We started the journey from Perth back to the outskirts of Silbath, agreeing we wouldn't speak a word of our mission on the streets. Paesha had warned me the Maestro had ears everywhere, and I knew Lady Visha was the same.

Breaking the tree line was starting to feel like stepping into a different realm. One that started as a prison but had shifted into a haven for the misfits of this world. Requiem held the grit and gore, the aftermath of an ancient war still present on every surface, but this sanctuary beyond? I could breathe here. Think and feel. Even sleep, though Boo had been finding his way to the foot of my borrowed bed. Each night when I'd taken him back to Quill, she'd begged me to stay with her. I wished I could have relieved her fear, but the settled mind of a child was unbreakable when it came to trauma.

"Nothing?"

"Just the flowery tree, like you said. Tell me again, why is this so important to you? I know a healer would be a reprieve for us, but why do you care?"

"Spend your life being the murderer in a world full of immortals and tell me how it feels to be the villain. Finding the Life Maiden is the only thing that will make me different from… them."

"You're worried about being compared to the other harbingers?"

"I'm not worried about it, Paesha. I am. My legacy is only bloodshed and tombstones. My soul is damned. I just wanted one single thing to vindicate it." I took a harrowing, desperate breath. "Did you get any sense of her? Anything your magic could bind to?"

She swiped a stone from the ground and tossed it to me. "You see that rock? Now that I've touched it and I've laid eyes on it, you could hide it anywhere in Silbath and I'd be able to find it in seconds. But if you picked a random stone, I'd try, and the magic would fail."

"A rock is just a rock until you can identify it." I nodded, tossing it to the ground. "That's what Orin said, too."

"The temple was a long shot anyway. It's been abandoned for so long. Whatever happened to you, there was probably just residual power. Of all the people that should have entered—" She stopped short, grabbing my arm. "Shit."

I snapped my eyes to where hers had landed. Black as night and foreboding, the Maestro's carriage sat waiting outside of the Syndicate house.

"He's never come here," she breathed. Turning toward me, she grabbed my arms, her face nearly frantic. "You have to hide, Dey. Go back into the trees. I'll come get you when he's gone."

"And if he asks you where I am?" I started toward the house.

"Orin's going to lose his mind if you walk into that house. The Maestro will bind you. It's not worth the risk."

I paused. "Do you think he won't come back? Do you think he won't punish all of you until he gets to me?"

"Don't kill him, Maiden. If you fail… if you try…"

I let those words fall over me for a second. "If I tried to kill every evil person in this realm, there would be few left standing. Everyone is someone else's villain. I'm not going to kill him. I'm not even going to try. Because if he dies, so must Visha and those that do their bidding, and down and down we go, until there's no line. If I'm going to do anything for this world, it won't be by leaving a trail of bodies. But the next time you wonder why I care about finding the Life Maiden, just remember where your mind jumped when you considered my next move. I'm always only going to be the murderer. Until I'm not."

She stumbled over her words, snapped her mouth shut, and nodded, her beautiful face solemn.

"Orin's already getting the sour end of his deal. If I can't save him, then maybe I can save the rest of you the trouble."

She kept close to my side as we approached the house. The carriage was empty, but the door was wide open. When we entered, Elowen's quivering voice could be heard from the kitchen. I removed the strap holding Chaos in place, locking eyes with Paesha. She shook her head, glancing down at my readied hand.

A great, big laugh, overly dramatic, as if the man stood on a stage, filled the house. Drexel Vanhoff sat at the kitchen table, his red mustache perfectly coiled, Hollis's most recent suit fitting his broad shoulders perfectly. None of his fineries were enough to distract from the scar on his cheek. The fake smile on his ridiculous face wavered when his dark brown eyes fell to my hand. "There's our girl."

The possessive look in his eyes, the way they glistened with desire, shook me to my core. His power, not his magic, but just his ability to fill a room with fear was palpable. Elowen gripped the edge of the counter, forcing a smile, though she couldn't have been cowering any further away.

"There's tea," she managed, a tremble behind the fa?ade. "Can I get you a glass, Deyanira? Paesha?"

"No." I glared, forcing myself to be strong in a moment when years of cultivated fear should have warned me to play nice. "What do you want?"

The smile, disgusting and so over the top, never wavered. "I came to visit my friends."

"The people who live in this house are not your friends. They are your prisoners, Drexel."

He raised a bushy eyebrow. "I see you've taken on your father's eloquent way with words. But you're wrong, Maiden." Challenge filled his eyes before he shouted, "Quill, my darling, please come here."

Ice slid down my side as the child bound into the kitchen, arms full of dog. Her genuine smile next to that of the serpent was sickening. One look at Drexel and Boo began to struggle in Quill's arms until he wrestled free and darted behind me. A low rumble in his throat as the Maestro laid a heavy hand on Quill's shoulder.

"We're friends, aren't we?" he asked the child, voice softening as he nodded, coaxing the answer.

She tucked herself into his side, agreeing. "Of course, we are."

The serpentine look on his face as he looked back at me turned my stomach, hardening the veins in my body as fury coaxed Death's magic from slumber. With a wary gaze shifting between the two of them, I felt more than saw Elowen slowly slip out of the room. But Paesha took her place, moving to my side.

Drexel chuckled. "One day, Huntress, you will look upon me without defiance."

"Perhaps," she answered, crossing her arms, but she softened the second she looked at Quill.

"Be a dear and go retrieve that secret ledger you found four weeks ago. Don't be seen and try to avoid the man at the back door this time. I expect you to be in my office in two hours."

She held her place for only seconds. There was a battle spoken between them as she tried and failed to resist the pungent magic seeping from Drexel. Something in the way he commanded her felt so familiar. And I hated every step that forced her out of the room and out of the house. Though likely a mundane task to send her away, she had no choice. It was only then that I realized she and I were not so different.

"Quill," I said sweetly. "Take Elowen and Boo to the garden and show them that new flower we found growing by the peonies. Tell her the story you made up about how it got there."

"But I?—"

"You may go," the Maestro purred, giving her the leave she would not take from me.

When the room was empty, the smile dropped. "Sit, Deyanira. We have much to discuss."

"No."

"Suit yourself."

"What do you want?"

"First, I want you to take that hand off the knife on your thigh. I am not your enemy."

"You are not my anything."

The smile returned as he leaned back in the wooden chair, forcing it to creak. He placed a gloved hand onto his cane and heaved himself from the table to come near.

"I am the only person that stands between your friends and your true enemies. I know you were in my tunnel. What is it you were searching for?"

My lips flattened into a thin line. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think you do."

My eyes shifted to the door, as if the glance alone would conjure Orin. Though I knew the safest place for him was as far from the Maestro as possible.

Cold metal graced my cheek as he used his cane to turn my face back to him, back to dark eyes that shouldn't belong to this world. "Would you like to play a game, Maiden?"

"I'd rather be trampled by a thousand horses."

"Such… charisma." He flourished a hand. "You would do so well on my stage."

I didn't respond, instead tapping my toe as I waited for him to leave, hoping I could get rid of him before Orin returned, and Elowen came back inside. She was clearly afraid.

"I'm not interested. Will that be all?"

"Do come and see me when you realize I'm the reason King Icharius hasn't captured you yet."

I blinked slowly, holding my face as uninterested as I could muster.

"Until next time, then," he said, yellow teeth gleaming as he leaned a little too far on his cane and hobbled out of the house.

The problem wasn't the threat that had always been there, but the spoken words I'd have to think through to make sure he hadn't just bound me into a trap I didn't even see.