Two overlapping shapes, two meanings, forged into one sinister purpose. Binding. Opening. A variation of the demonic possession spell, maybe? But why did Belanor specifically want a Nightmare?
Collith might have more insight. At the very least, he’d be a fresh perspective.
I was reaching for his shoulder at the same moment my senses prickled. Suddenly there was power in the air, so potent that it felt like static electricity. I pulled my hand back, frowning. No one who intended harm could step foot onto Cyrus’s land, that was what Savannah had told me. So it couldn’t be an enemy entering the barn. Unless Savannah had botched her spell.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
The power didn’t retreat. It didn’t become any stronger, either. It just… hovered there, as if it were waiting for something. I lifted my head off the pillow to see the alarm clock. Unease trickled through me when I saw the numbers. The Witching Hour. I stayed there for another minute, my heart pounding harder. Trying to determine if there was anything threatening about the presence that had appeared at the edge of my psyche. I only detected a mild expectancy from that roiling strangeness.
I considered waking Collith again. But the consciousness brushing against mine didn’t move or change. An enemy probably would’ve entered the loft already or set off my internal alarms.
The rug was soft against the soles of my feet. Setting the covers aside, I stood up and retrieved my clothes from the various spots they’d been discarded in our rush. Once I was dressed, I took a small pistol out of the nightstand and quietly loaded it. Collith slept on, his eyelashes a dark fringe against his high cheekbones. My gaze lingered on him as I opened the door and slipped through.
Despite the hour, there was nothing eerie or unnerving about the loft. Emma had left two lamps on, and their gentle glow only made the space cozier. I crept across the floor, moving as silently as a faerie because of the thick rugs.
On the off chance there was an assassin in the stairwell, I flattened against the wall on the left side of the door. Then I reached with my right hand, holding the gun up in the other. I didn’t give fear a chance to take root. In the next instant I grasped the knob, took a steadying breath, and yanked the door open.
Silence hummed in the air like an electric current.
Holding my breath, I pressed my eye to the crack between the door and the wall. My visitor’s scent wafted past, so subtle a human wouldn’t notice it. I knew that scent. Frowning, I dared to poke my head around the door now, still keeping half of my body wedged behind it.
When I saw who stood in the shadows, my frown deepened. I lowered the gun and shifted into the open. “Jacob? What are you—”
I caught sight of his reflection and the rest of the question stuck in my throat.
The man in the mirror was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. More shining than Laurie, more lovely than Collith, more detailed than Oliver. He wasn’t especially tall, but he had wide shoulders. His body was slender and his hips narrow. His high cheekbones accented his clear blue eyes. His hair was longish and silky. Golden. He wore a button-up white shirt with the sleeves shoved to his elbows and fitted jeans. A tattoo encircled his wrist. His very skin seemed to glow.
I forgot all of this when I finally noticed his wings.
They were so dark that they blended with the night. Huge, unmoving, dangerous things. The edges looked as sharp as razors, and though I’d been led to believe from Mom’s lessons that wings were things of feathers, these clicked and clacked in layers upon layers of metal.
“Who are you?” The air was so still that it felt as if I had shouted the words.
“I am a friend,” the thing wearing Jacob said. His voice was nice. Calm and lilting. We were still looking at each other through the mirror. “Thank you for leading me to this host. He’s not quite strong enough for my needs, but for now, he will do.”
“Who are you?” I repeated quietly. A ringing had begun in my ears.
He tsked gently, making the sound sensual, somehow. “Do you really not know who I am, Fortuna? I thought you were more perceptive.”
The way he said my name was terrifying. As if this wasn’t the first time we’d met. As if he knew me. As if he could sense every hidden impulse and every secret yearning. It was a whisper on the edge of my subconscious, like a bubble struggling to the surface.
Comprehension slammed into me.
Suddenly it felt like I’d been walking through the dark all these years, but now I’d been given a single spark that was enough to send other lights lighting up along the edges of my path. I could see it in my mind. With each light I walked past, making it brighten, a strangely beautiful domino effect seemed to occur, and the next one flared to life.
First, I heard Åsa’s voice insisting that I’d been promised to someone. The memory of her voice brought the rest of that night back in vivid detail. My parents had stared back at her, their faces so drawn and pale, even as Dad raised his gun. They’d been willing to commit murder to protect me from what they’d known was coming.
What they’d known was coming, I thought again. The next light on the path inside my head was Savannah. I saw her tear-streaked face and the mad light in her eyes as she spat, Someone is coming for you. The aura is closer now. That night, you opened a door that shouldn’t have been opened, Fortuna. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?
She’d been talking about the Door I opened by making a deal with a demon. A Door to Hell.
Hell. The next light shone eagerly, pulling me toward it. Feeling numb, I thought of the sulfur smell Vulen had detected within Belanor’s mind. What we’d mistaken for demonic possession had just been manic devotion. Belanor was nothing more than a tool, a pawn. He’d been a vulnerable child, scorned for his weakness, and someone had seen potential in a young royal’s pain. That someone had sent a witch to carry out his bidding. The terrible spell that had been forcibly performed on Belanor wasn’t to allow a demon to take hold… it had been to give someone access.
The spell. The brand. Yet another light came on along the brightening path. I remembered Jacob’s horror when he realized the binding on my power was gone. His laughter rang in my ears. You think our kind has been pushed to the brink of extinction because of hunters?
It hadn’t been hunters, I could see that now—it had just been one. One creature who could communicate with anyone that performed dark magic, like Åsa and the witch from Belanor’s violent childhood memory. I’d already figured out that Åsa and Belanor had both been desperate for Nightmares because they’d both served the same master; I just hadn’t put together that it had involved my entire species. All of us hunted and slaughtered for one agenda, one sinister purpose. A powerful individual with access to a variety of Fallenkind to search for Nightmares, far and wide, like Jacob Goldmann, Fortuna Sworn, and a countless number of others throughout history. Fallenkind that included Belanor and the cherubim.
Another light winked into existence within my head. The cherubim.
Just before Laurie killed Arcaena, the faerie and I had spoken briefly. I’d blamed her for the creatures that destroyed Bea’s bar, and even then her surprise had seemed genuine to me. Cherubim, you say? They are the mongrels of the underworld. You have made some powerful enemies, little Nightmare, if cherubim are after you.