Page 46

He turned a page in the book he was pretending to read. “I said I would.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

Silence stretched between us, heavy. The cuffs almost mockingly pressed against my skin.

“I…” I hesitated, the words catching in my throat. “I don’t know why I did what I did last night.”

He said nothing, his gaze fixed on the pages before him.

I swallowed; the effort was almost painful. “It wasn’t you I meant to punish.”

That made him look up. Just a flick of those now calm grey eyes. An unreadable glance. But it was enough.

I crossed the room, my bare feet cold against the worn wood, and my fingers brushed the rim of the dusty copper kettle, more for grounding than for warmth. “Will you take them off?” I asked, my voice still rough, as I rubbed my wrists. “Please.”

He watched me for a long, assessing moment, his expression still unreadable. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. “No.”

I nodded again, this time with an almost painful exhale. Not because I was angry. Not anymore. But because I knew, with a chilling certainty, that I deserved this. “I…understand.”

He set the book down, finally giving me his full attention. “I need to make sure you are safe.”

With hesitation, I let an unasked question hang in the air. “I don’t want to go.”

He sipped his tea, his quiet gaze over the rim of the mug. Watchful. “If you’d rather not go,” he said softly, “we can remain.”

Something inside me, something I thought long dead and buried, cracked at the devastating simplicity of his offer. The idea was so gentle, so utterly unlike the torment and turmoil that defined our existence. And for one treacherous moment, I let myself believe it, let myself imagine a world where such a thing was possible.

A flicker of a smile, small and sad and achingly honest, touched my lips. “I’d like that,” I said, the words a whisper of a forgotten dream. “But we can’t.”

He nodded once, his expression somber.

“Lysanthe might still be alive.” The name was a weight on my tongue.

“Yes,” he said, his gaze holding mine. “I hope she is.”

The address we both received held a house, and it was all alone. It exuded an eerie, unnatural emptiness. Its very ordinariness, its mundane facade, made it all the more unsettling. The house wasn’t boarded up or visibly broken. Instead, it stood unnaturally still, as if time had forgotten this corner of the world.

Remiel and I stood across a narrow cobblestone street, the surrounding air stagnant and silent. The neighborhood itself seemed weary, its ancient buildings untouched by the frantic present. Its worn streets, rusted ornate balconies, and tightly shuttered windows all spoke of an age long past. But this house? This house seemed as if it had been meticulously erased from memory.

The curtains within hung lifelessly, drawn tight against the gray Prague sky and sealing away any hint of what lay within its shadowed rooms. The small garden patch before it was barren, devoid of weeds or even the usual city trash. An eerie, sterile expanse of earth. It was as if someone, or something, had systematically extracted the very essence of life from the soil, leaving behind only a desolate shell.

I swallowed hard, the slight, almost imperceptible tug of the cuff thread between us a faint chilling reminder of my unwilling connection. I mirrored Remiel’s grim silence. When he finally moved to open the rusted iron gate, I instinctively grasped his wrist, my fingers cold against his skin.

“Let’s not do anything foolish, Remiel,” I said, my voice low.

His lips curled into a slight sardonic smile, a flash of arrogance. “That’s usually your forte…”

The gate groaned open, its ancient hinges protesting with a sound like a drawn-out scream that had lost its will halfway through. We knew without speaking that it was time to split up.

I ventured down the left hallway, heading toward what might once have been the parlor and the kitchen. My boots unnaturally echoed on the dusty floorboards that moaned and creaked beneath me. Every inch of the house felt suffocated under a thick layer of neglect, of desolation.

Then the auras hit me—thousands of them. It was like stepping into the heart of a raging invisible storm.

They were all fragmented, scorched impressions clinging to the walls, to the air. They weren’t fresh. But they were still here, potent and raw. Screaming silent echoes of terror, of unimaginable pain, and they were all layered over one another like a grotesque, decaying mosaic of lost souls.

I couldn’t breathe. The air was too thick, too charged with their suffering. I clutched the grimy wall for support, my own shadows hissing a frantic warning. My tongue felt thick and useless behind my teeth. Every step forward was a monumental effort, a battle against the unseen.

It felt like something had fed here. Not just on bodies but on souls. On hope. On light.