“As you will,” the priestess replied, and I listened to her receding footsteps.
“I guess we’ll check the Reapers’ memories later,” Unending whispered. “We can’t give Shezin or his servants any reason to doubt us right now. There is more to this than we’ve seen. Did you notice how often Death found him away from the cabin? In the memories, I mean.”
I nodded. “You’re right. Quite often, if I remember correctly.”
“He gave her seemingly reasonable excuses every time, but what if Anunit is one hundred percent right on this? We have to keep digging. We have to find out what makes him worthy of a death sentence.”
With that in mind and unable to hide the baubles under invisibility magic, Unending and I braced for this new day and walked out, hoping the wards she’d placed on the door would keep any curious priestess or even Shezin himself away. It was strange to me that Death had chosen to wipe him from her memories altogether, but her grief must have been cosmic to make her feel like it was her best option.
My parents had taught me that there was a lot to be learned from a broken heart. But Death was Death. I figured the saying didn’t have to apply to her, a force of nature that had already seen and heard everything. Then again, Death had never loved before. Shezin had been a painful first in that sense. Unending was right, however. We needed to understand what had happened between then and now to make Anunit so against him. He must have done something. Something heinous. But what?
Dafne
A five-hour sleep felt like pure luxury. Mornings in The Shade were always dark and starry, and in that way, this fake world had fooled me. For a moment I thought I was home, nestled in my bed in the Black Heights. My back felt warm, and a pair of arms held me close as a soft pillow caressed my cheek. I must’ve been dreaming, or I was still in a dream, only partially conscious. I wasn’t even sure I’d slept five hours. I had no idea why I’d counted five hours, or how.
Someone stirred behind me, and my eyes suddenly popped wide open. Within seconds, I was aware of my surroundings. I’d slept in one of the bedrooms on the upper floor in Phoenix and Viola’s treehouse. No, wait—in the clones’ treehouse in the fake Shade. Ugh, that hadn’t been a nightmare at all but a gritty reality.
I was in bed. I’d been sleeping. And someone was holding me. Someone unnaturally warm, a hard body spooning me beneath a puffy blanket. Snippets from the previous night began to resurface like distant memories. Jericho and I had agreed to share this room. He’d take the couch by the window, and I’d take the bed. We’d done just that, yet somehow… he’d ended up in bed? With me?
My heart stopped beating for a second, then became a rapid drumbeat. Boom. Boom. Boom. I needed a deep breath just to get it under control before I cleared my throat and raised my voice over Jericho’s soft sleeping hum. “What the hell are you doing here?” I snarled, outrage flaring through my voice, then spun around and quickly regretted it when I found my lips mere inches from his.
The hum stopped, and Jericho’s heart rumbled. Thump. Thump. Thump. I could hear it. A minute went by in awkward silence as he opened his eyes slowly. Parts of the previous night were still foggy. I must have been absolutely exhausted. “You were really cold. Shaking, even,” Jericho said.
“Wait, what?” I asked in a trembling voice. My heart was racing, and I had a hard time not losing myself in the pools of turquoise in his eyes. “I’m an ice dragon. I don’t get cold.” In an instant, I pushed him away with enough strength to nearly throw him off the bed.
“You were cold last night. I swear,” he blurted, raising his hands in a defensive gesture as he got up, his hair a shaggy mess. “You woke up from all the shaking.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of what he’d just described to me. It sounded foreign. Impossible. Not in my nature. Yet… what reason would Jericho have to lie? It hit me then, like a cold shower. The memory itself, barely a fuzzy moment in the back of my head. I’d woken up trembling, my teeth chattering, and Jericho asked me if I was okay. I’d told him I was cold. I didn’t know why, but I was cold.
“You said it must be the effect of this place somehow,” I murmured, lowering my gaze, suddenly ashamed. An ice dragon feeling cold was simply unheard of. It made me feel like I was… faulty. “That it’s impacting each of us. For Astra, her energy levels oscillate too much. For Thayen… we’re not sure yet, but he’s got to be coming down with something, too. For Soph, it was the speed of her reactions, right?”
Jericho nodded. “Exactly. And I complained about my bones aching after the last shift back to my human form, just before you asked me to keep you warm since I’m full of fire.” He chuckled softly. “Frankly, I thanked all the stars for that, because I was feeling quite hot, myself.”
“Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow, not sure if he was joking.
“Yeah, I swear. There is something about this place that’s messing with us the longer we’re here. We didn’t even notice it at first,” he said. “How are you feeling now?”
I thought about it and asked myself the same question. How did I feel? “Better, I think. Warm and toasty, as if I’ve slept in front of a roaring fireplace. I’m not used to it.” My response came out as a sullen grumble. I needed my walls of ice, not his heat!
“I’m refreshed, as well,” he replied, with a genuine smile. “I hugged a block of ice all night, and I feel great.”
Yes, except he melted it away, and I felt defenseless all of a sudden. “Well, good for you,” I muttered. “It’s weird, though. If that’s what the fake Shade is doing to us now… how bad will it get? What else will it do? Makes me wonder.” Fills me with dread, more likely. Good grief, I slept in the arms of a fire dragon. My dad would break down from the laughter…
“Yeah. Sorry if you had a weird awakening. I reckon you were half-sleeping and not really conscious when the cold made you ask for me.”
“I obviously wasn’t conscious, otherwise I wouldn’t have made such a request,” I said, raising my chin in defiance. My whole body tingled. I’d enjoyed the feel of his arms around me. But Jericho didn’t need to know that. It would be my secret, I thought, feeling the ice coming back up and enveloping me in its familiar coldness.
“By the night, you two should really get on with it. One’s pushing, the other’s pulling, I’m getting frustrated,” a man’s voice cut through the room, and I jumped out of bed as if it were about to explode, while Jericho whirled around, ready to fight. Brandon sat on the window ledge, casually plucking pieces of nut out of a hard, brown shell and chewing them with a curious look on his face. “I think this would be better roasted. Food’s not my thing anymore, but I do miss it sometimes…”
“What the hell?!” I hissed, ready to kick him out the window.
“Pardon me,” Brandon replied when Jericho approached him. The foreigner raised an arm to stop him. “Don’t be stupid. I’m here to help.”
“How’d you find us?” I asked.
“And why the hell were you prowling like that?” Jericho added, fists balled at his sides.