Page 5

His silver tongue flickered out, and he gave a low hiss. She was sure he hated her. The feeling was mutual. Even if he was the last of the dragon line, she couldn’t warm her heart to him.

“I said get, you meddling creature.” She reached for the ritual bowl again.

Lance darted upward suddenly, his narrow head hovering inches from her face. The rasping sound in his throat stopped her cold. A warning for something outside. He shot towards the porch. Idonea swore under her breath and followed.

The night air hit sharp and freezing, then the smell reached her. Rot, wet cabbage, and spoiled meat. Daemon flesh, and it was fresh. Her stomach turned. Lance darted across the grass and coiled into a defensive knot, hissing. His yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness.

Idonea approached carefully. She knelt where he was and nudged his side, earning her another sharp hiss. He’d curled around a daemon sigil.

The sigil formed a rigid, symmetrical design: a spiked crown set atop a narrow cross, bound by a horizontal bar like a clasp. She had seen it once before in one of Nellith's books, on a page Nellith had closed quickly. Vinea, a daemon archduke. Archdukes were not meant to cross over from the Nexis. Idonea was looking at a sigil that should not have been drawn in this world.

The Current shifted violently around her. Idonea spun. Lance growled.

Darkness swallowed her vision. The daemon stench flooded her lungs. Rot. Blood. Something ancient underneath.

Light. She needed light. Idonea reached desperately for the Current.

Pain arrived first, hot, sharp and wet. Grass dug into her palms. Idonea opened her eyes slowly to find Lance hovering above her head, wings beating hard enough to scatter frost from the ground.

Still night. Her stomach dropped. How long? She shoved herself upright too quickly. The world tilted.

There was no daemon, no movement, only silence. Her hand rose to the side of her head and came away bloodied. She staggered towards the porch.

The front door stood closed now. A bloody handprint smeared across the wood. Human, and deliberate. Someone wanted her to see it. Her mouth dried instantly.

Her fists curled, nails sharpening into claws.

Chapter 3

Lance jabbed her hard beneath the ribs. Idonea swore, curling tighter into herself on the chaise and resisting the feral urge to swat him across the sanctum. Her head throbbed as though it'd been cleaved open.

“Give me a moment.” Her voice scraped coming out.

The Iaculus ignored her suffering. Grey morning leaked through the sanctum windows.

Idonea pressed trembling fingers against her forehead and breathed shallowly through the nausea. Anything deeper made the pain behind her eyes pulse harder.

This was no rogue spirit, no stray from the Nexis that had wandered through a thin place in the veil by accident. Not random, but planned. The daemon had waited until she left, and it'd taken Nellith alive. That part mattered most.

Lance hissed sharply again.

"Yes, yes. I'm moving."

The sanctum tilted unpleasantly when she sat upright. Lance perched nearby atop the bookshelf, body twitching irritably against the wood. Idonea rubbed at her eyes and forced herself to stand.

The house creaked softly around her. The silence underneath remained worse. She stumbled downstairs towards the kitchen, one hand trailing the wall for balance. Lance trailed behind her, hoping she'd move quicker.

The stove lit on the second strike. She fixed herself a cup of black tea infused with dried nettle and powdered obsidian root; Nellith's morning recipe, the one she'd been making in this house since Idonea was a child. The smell of it filled the kitchen. Idonea drank it standing while weak daylight spread through the kitchen windows.

The tea steadied her hands. She carried the mug back upstairs and stopped in the centre of the sanctum. Lance settled onto his perch.

Nothing appeared disturbed; no overturned furniture and no blood. Nellith wouldn't vanish quietly. Unless she intended to. Idonea's eyes narrowed.

Nellith had removed her ring before disappearing. An intentional placement.

The grave dirt errand. Lance absent. The timing. It was a distraction. Nellith had known something was coming.

Of course she hadn't warned her.