Page 130 of Fallacies

“Hopefully,” I grit out, eyes watering at the stench, “Prya will teach you what no means.”

His eyes widen impossibly further, and with one final twist on his noose of shadows, his bones crack, and the Baron falls lifeless to the ground.

I rip my hand away and take a fast step back, chest heaving as I stare down at his body. Magic slithers back into place, leaving a static buzz in its wake. The prickling sensation pushes up from beneath my skin, raising the hair on my arms.

“Now what are you going to do?”

Flinching at the sound of his voice, I whirl around in time to see a tall figure emerge, stepping out from a shadowed corner. That current of power that he’d taken when he fled the dining room sweeps over the carpeted floor as he leisurely crosses the hall, hands stuffed into his pockets.

The glint of blue crystal eyes shines through the dark even before the moonlight hits him, and he stops a few feet away, attention shifting from me to the dead body between us.

There’s a lot of pity on his sculpted face as he takes in the Baron’s injuries, but if I’m not mistaken, there’s a little amusement there too.

It’s his casual perusal of my crime that shakes me from my stunned silence, triggering some frustration instead. “You were there the whole time?”

At my question, his eyes meet mine.

I remain defiant, chin lifted, insistent on an answer. What kind of person sits back and watches a man force himself on a girl who clearly wanted nothing to do with him? Lingering in a dark corner as a bystander witnessing that interaction? It’s sick.

“You told me not to interfere.”

I snort, pushing up my sleeves as I step over the Baron’s body.

“Something’s funny about that?” He tracks me as I pass him, the weight of his attention heavy. “It was your request.”

“Yeah,” twisting my hair back and over my shoulder, I drop to a crouch, reaching for the Baron’s ankles, “and I’m surprised you listened.”

“Why’s that?” he wonders.

Why’s that?

I take advantage of the lingering adrenaline and blurt out, “Because you’re the Hound.”

An ivory hand darts out, blocking my reach and halting my motion.

I stay there for a moment, attention locked on long, steady fingers, a barricade I don’t dare push past as all the air rushes out of my lungs.

It had been a hunch—one I felt more stupid than scared to believe in—but I think I was right. And as the seconds tick past, the silence swelling, the truth of it sinks like a rock in my stomach.

It’s the only thing that makes sense. I knew he wasn’t human the first time I saw him, and his magic isn’t Solian or Rogue. But it was what he’d said at dinner that shifted enough pieces in my brain for it to click:

And when you die, the land will still belong to her, but all of you will belong to me.

And it was how he said them, with centuries of vengeance in an old-world accent that I’m sure would’ve sliced even deeper if he had spoken it in his native tongue. The revelation all but hit me in the face—he’s the Hound. Pyra’s Hound. The rumors had been true.

The story Pa told a few Selumira’s ago is the extent of my knowledge—how Etis had made a deal with him, long ago, her soul in exchange for his help in breaking the curse on their Disciples. She left Streatham with him, and when she came back, years later, she was alone and without a cure. Etis had gone entirely mad with the curse she’d been infected with.

Nobody knows what happened in the year she searched with the Hound—most of what she spoke about after was gibberish. Etis and the other four Disciples were locked away in that state. Condemned to suffer through their immortal lives in a tomb somewhere. Stuck with a disease that would slowly drive them closer and closer to insanity.

And that was fifty years ago.

Cautiously lifting my gaze, I follow the length of the arm stretched out before me, all the way up to a depthless cerulean stare. He pins me in place with it, and I know I should be afraid, but I’m not. I should want to shrink away, but I don’t.

It’s grown so eerily quiet that when he finally speaks, the low rumble of his voice is jarring. “Now, when did you piece that together?”

I swallow, still frozen in place. “I don’t know. Somewhere between “all I care about is retribution,” “Torture is the business,” and “when you die, all of you will belong to me.”

Somehow I find the strength to break his stare, pushing away his extended arm so I can grab the Baron’s ankles. Not being caught in the hall with a dead body is priority number one—I can freak out about who I’m in the presence of later.