Lila straightened, breathless, a defiant smile cracking across her lips as a few last bits of rock tumbled free and fell clattering out of sight. Not the most elegant solution, she knew, but effective.

Within the garden, someone was calling her name.

Lenos.

She turned toward him just as a tendril of darkness wrapped around her leg, and pulled.

Lila hit the ground hard.

And kept falling.

Sliding.

Shadow was coiled around her ankle like a stubborn vine—no, like a hand, dragging her toward the edge. She skidded over the broken ground, scrambling for something, anything to hold on to as the edge came nearer and nearer, and then she was over, and falling, nothing but black river below.

Lila’s fingers caught the edge. She held on with all her strength.

The darkness held on too, pulling her down as the broken edge of the stone platform cut into her palms, and blood welled, and only then, when the first drops fell, did the darkness recoil, and let go.

Lila hung there, gasping, forcing her gashed hands to take her weight as she hauled herself up, hooked one boot on the jagged lip and dragged her body up and over.

She rolled onto her back, hands throbbing, gasping for breath.

She was still lying there when Lenos finally arrived.

He looked around at the broken platform, the streaks of blood. His eyes went saucer wide. “What happened?”

Lila dragged herself to a sitting position. “Nothing,” she muttered, getting to her feet. Blood was still sliding in fat drops down her fingers.

“This is nothing?”

Lila rolled her neck. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she amended.

That’s when she noticed the fluffy white mass in his arms. Esa.

“She came when I called,” he said shyly. “And I think we found a way out.”

I

“Fascinating,” said Tieren, turning Alucard’s hands over, tracing a bony finger through the air above his silver-scarred wrists. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” said Alucard slowly. “Not anymore.”

Rhy watched from his perch on the back of the couch, fingers laced to keep them from shaking.

The king and Kell studied Tieren as Tieren studied the captain, spotting the heavy silence with questions that Alucard tried to answer, even though he was clearly still suffering.

He wouldn’t say what it was like, only that he’d been delirious, and in that fevered state, the shadow king had tried to get inside his mind. And Rhy did not betray him by saying more. His hands still ached from clenching Alucard’s, his body stiff from his time on the Spire floor, but if Kell felt that pain, he said nothing of it, and for that, amid so many things, Rhy was grateful.

“So Osaron does need permission,” said Tieren.

Alucard swallowed. “Most people, I imagine, give it without knowing. The sickness came on fast. By the time I realized what was happening, he was already inside my head. And the moment I tried to resist …” Alucard trailed off. Met Rhy’s gaze. “He twists your mind, your memories.”

“But now,” cut in Maxim, “his magic cannot touch you?”

“So it seems.”

“Who found you?” he demanded.

Kell shot a look at Hastra, who stepped forward. “I did, Your Majesty,” lied the former guard. “I saw him go, and—”

Rhy cut him off. “Hastra didn’t find Captain Emery. I did.”

His brother sighed, exasperated.

His mother went still.

“Where?” demanded Maxim in a voice that had always made Rhy shrink. Now, he held his ground.

“On his ship. By the time I arrived, he was already ill. I stayed with him to see if he’d survive, and he did—”

His father had flushed red, his mother pale. “You went out there, alone,” she said. “Into the fog?”

“The shadows did not touch me.”

“You put yourself at risk,” chided his father.

“I am in no danger.”

“You could have been taken.”

“You don’t get it!” snapped Rhy. “Whatever part of me Osaron could take, it’s already gone.”

The room went still. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Kell. He could feel the quickening of his brother’s pulse, the weight of his stare.

And then the door burst open, and Lila Bard stormed in, trailed by a thin, nervous-looking man holding, of all things, a cat. She saw—or felt—the tension humming through the room and stopped. “What did I miss?”

Her hands were bandaged, a deep scratch ran along her jaw, and Rhy watched his brother move toward her as naturally as if the world had simply tipped. For Kell, apparently, it had.

“Casero,” said the man trailing behind her, his gaunt eyes lighting up at the sight of Alucard. He’d clearly come from beyond the palace, but he showed no signs of harm.

“Lenos,” said the captain as the cat leaped down and went to curl around his boot. “Where …?”

“Long story,” cut in Lila, tossing the satchel to Tieren, and then, registering the silver scars on Alucard’s face: “What happened to you?”

“Long story,” he echoed.

Lila went to the sideboard to pour herself a drink. “Aren’t they all at this point?”

She said it lightly, but Rhy noticed her fingers shaking as she brought the amber liquid to her lips.

The king was staring at the thin and rather scraggly looking sailor. “How did you get into the palace?” he demanded.