Page 25 of Invidia

“I hear Roan is being primed for a junior position on the Council of Shades,” Caius said bitterly. I blinked in surprise. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him speak Roan’s name.

“How did you hear that?”

“One of my customers. I hear more than you think, you know.”

I waited to see if that was a pointed remark and that he’d heard something about my life, but no follow-up was forthcoming.

“You’re better qualified for a seat on the Council of Shades.”

Caius shot me a look that could freeze shadows. “Obviously, I know that.”

“Well, why not put yourself forward? Holding the family seat isn’t the only criteria. Your education is better suited to it, as is your temperament.”

Caius had his flaws, but Roan was both arrogant and lazy, and seemed to grow more so with each year that passed. His only redeeming feature was that, deep down, I suspected he knew how unqualified he was.

“It’s pitiful how naïve you still are after all this time,” Caius said with a heavy sigh, shaking his head before returning to his pipe.

I stood quietly, taking his words as a dismissal and silently excusing myself from his home. I’d tried. Someday I would learn not to bother.

Caius didn’t run away from me. He didn’t reject my presence outright like most Shades in the realm did. I should be grateful for it.

At least the visit with him had bridged the empty hours between waking and starting my shift—time I’d once spent with Tallulah. When the captain wasn’t so busy with tracking down the missing ex-Hunter, I would request a meeting with him to discuss adding a couple of extra hours to the beginning of my shift. In the absence of having anything else going on, it seemed wasteful not to.

Today wasn’t that day, though. I exchanged a nod with Captain Soren in the in-between as he and his mate headed for the human realm where they’d been monitoring the uncertain situation. At least, the captain’s mate had more muted scents than the others who’d come here from the human realm. The scent of ex-Hunter—sad, happy, or otherwise—was playing havoc on my emotions lately.

I headed in the opposite direction from the duo, walking one of the several preplanned routes I had, though I selected one at random each day in case anyone was watching my movements. Unfortunately, this one took me past the spot I’d always brought Tallulah to, and I did my best to maintain my quick pace as I passed it, not allowing myself to linger in the suddenly oppressive darkness.

I’d never struggled with it before. In the past, I’d found the emptiness freeing. It was expansive, unlimited potential. It was space and time and possibility.

It was nothing. And nothing had been enough for me. It had been all I’d expected from my life. But I suspected that I’d met everything, and now I was struggling to find contentment in goddamn anything.

I shook my head, focusing on my surroundings. There was no point moping over Tallulah any more than I already had. She’d ended it. She’d wanted a safe way to explore intimacy between herself and a Shade, and I’d provided her with that.

It was enough.

The memories were enough. The in-between was enough. And for a Shade like me, enough was all I could hope for.

With the exception of a group of shithead kids I’d had to chase off, the in-between had been quiet. Almost eerily so, though it had been this way for days now. The realm seemed to be holding its shadows, waiting warily to see if the missing ex-Hunter would return or whether she’d stay in the human realm—whether by her choice or someone else’s. For all the royal couple’s apparent calm about the new way of filling the energy stores, the realm as a whole was less confident that we wouldn’t imminently starve to death if King Allerick didn’t allow us to travel to the human realm again soon.

But I couldn’t think about that.

If I thought about feeding, I thought about Tallulah. Every path led me directly back to her.

I’d already hung around beyond the end of my shift, but I couldn’t put reality off any longer. I made my way back to the portal, hoping there would be some warm food left at the barracks tonight and that no one would cower in horror at the sight of me, but an odd scent had me veering right. Something—someone—was in here. Someone who didn’t belong, and who hadn’t been here ten minutes ago when I’d passed this spot.

“Show yourself, by order of the Guard,” I called out, calling my shadows to my palms, trying to place what the strange smell was. It almost smelled like a Hunter, but there was an astringent, sterile overtone to the scent that I’d never encountered before. With a muffled noise of surprise, I stumbled back, realizing I’d almost stepped on them.

Shit.

Shit.

Here was the missing ex-Hunter. Lying, seemingly half-dead, on the cold ground of the in-between. How could I have missed her earlier? No, it was impossible. Not with the strange scent clinging to her. Surely, I would have noticed that.

I scooped her up as gently as I could, alarmed by just how cold to the touch she was, before jogging through the portal, yelling for help before I’d even fully stepped foot on palace grounds. How had she gotten there? The portals were still closed on the human realm side, I’d have felt a disturbance if the Hunters had activated them again. Right now, the in-between was only accessible to a Hunter if a Shade was guiding them.

While I liked to think that no Shade would be so callous as to have dumped her in the in-between, alone and frail, I couldn’t rule that scenario out. Nothing else made any sense.

The palace staff scattered to alert the necessary higher-ups while I brought her to the Healers’ wing, following their guidance to deposit her on one of the empty beds before I was ushered out of the room so they could warm her up.

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