Page 60 of The Unseen Hour

Orion dropped my hand, and the familiar chill of the Ether returned. I swallowed disappointment as he retrieved the holster.

“Finished,” he announced, placing it in my hands. He flipped the knife so the handle was toward me, and then handed that over as well.

I slid it into the holster, then started trying to get the contraption placed over my thigh. The leather was soft and pliable and had plenty of give. No doubt it would be easy to move in, but I couldn’t quite figure out how I was meant to keep it in place.

“I might require some assistance,” I admitted.

“Of course. Here, let me.” Orion reached for my leg and tied the holster in place with strips of very thin pieces of leather looped onto the larger harness. His fingers brushed my leg through the fabric of my borrowed trousers, and his cheeks went as red as I imagined mine were beginning to.

“Starlight,” he started as he continued to work with the holster, “there’s something else about the Shade song. It’s the only way to save people, in a sense. Do you remember what I told you your first week here, about the others like us who I saw? The ones that Charon destroyed?”

I nodded slowly.

“They weren’t the only ones he’s done that to. He prowls the streets alongside us during the Unseen Hour. He enjoys the hour, even if he can’t be everywhere at once. I’ve seen him in action. There have been a few times where a Shade was struggling to sing out a soul, or resisting. Charon eliminated the Shade—and the resisting soul.”

I gasped.

“Eliminated? How⁠—”

“No resting in the Ether. No going to Death. They cease to exist in any form.”

“That’s horrid! Why kill his Shades, if he needs them?”

“He said once that a soul not easily separated from a body wasn’t useful to his purposes. If we don’t sing them out, he destroys them. It’s part of why I don’t work harder to resist the song, and leading the Shades with it. I know the consequences if I do.”

Everything I learned about Charon made him sound worse and worse.

What if that’s what had happened to my father, and Orion hadn’t been there to witness it?

Even if I managed to find my father, even if we escaped and Orion came with us, this was the risk we opened the world up to every year. And how could I help? If I did make it back, who would believe me? It was one thing to know the Unseen Hour killed people, quite another to show up announcing that a god no one in Emrys believed in was attempting to overthrow Death. To convince them that he had spirited peoples’ souls away to an adjacent realm where he was rallying them for some strange and hostile takeover. I barely believed it myself, and I was living it.

No, the only way to stop it was to defeat the Unseen Hour.

All I needed was for Death to return.

“Finished,” Orion announced, but he kept his hand on my leg.

Warmth shot through me, and an aching need.

When Orion moved his hand I nearly reached for it.

“I know it won’t be much help against a god, but it could help with a slycat. I’ll teach you to use the dagger. I’ll feel much better if you have it, and I want you to feel comfortable defending yourself as well.”

“I’d be glad for the help, but I can’t promise I wouldn’t try it on Charon if I ever do meet him. Especially after what he’s done to everyone I care about. To you.”

“Are you saying you’re growing fond of me, Starlight?”

I wanted to get closer. To feel him. We’d been in the Ether together for weeks. No one from Emrys was there to pry. No one to gossip or judge.

Just the two of us.

“And if I am?”

I stared at him, part longing and part determination. We had no idea what might happen to us before the hour. I wasn’t wasting the time we had remaining.

Orion’s eyes went wide; then, in a flash, his arm was around my waist, pulling me close.

“If that’s the case, I might have to admit I’m falling for you,” he told me.