Page 90 of A Dusk Of Stars

My eyes land on the wooden stairs first, jutting out of the snow like broken bones. Then they drag up the staircase all the way to the house itself, a crumbling wooden structure with hollows instead of windows and doors, shooting high up into the sky and leaning a little forward, as if the holes are about to swallow us whole. The sight makes my breathing shallow.

“I think we’re at the spot,” I hear Bane say just as I spot the bit of red Authority tape showing under the fresh snowfall just at the foot of the stairs.

“So,” Bane snaps me out of it. He’s turned to me, hands in his pockets and a mocking little smile on his face, “nowwhat, oh Chosen One?”

How does he always stay this relaxed? I throw him a fake smile. “Now we finally prove you wrong.”

Finally getting here is actually making me feel much better. We’ll just do this real quick and get the hell out.

Alaric and Raven come closer as I take the crystal out of my bag, holding it tightly. “You say this is Divine Magic,” I tell Bane, “not Nature Magic as the Authority claims or a curse as theOrderclaims.”

“Will you stop it with the smugness?” he asks with a scoff. “Or don’t you realize you haven’tearnedit yet?”

“Khm khm,” Alaric says. He doesn’t evenpretendto actually clear his throat, he just says the words.

It makes blood rush to my face, when Raven tugs at his coat sleeve and asks, “What is going on, Alaric?”

“Yeah shhh,” he says, but he’s looking atme. Knowingly. “I don’t want to answer that question.”

I roll my eyes at him, but I clear my throat and I turn serious. “The crystal,” I say as I lift it up for them to see, “it’s been enchanted to react to magical force fields. When I let it hang by its thread, if any magic has been cast here, it’ll start vibrating. If it’s Nature Magic we’re dealing with here, it’ll start pulling us in the direction of the source. If it’s Divine Magic, the source of the magic is a person that’s not here so it’ll just keep vibrating.”

“And if it’s a curse?” Alaric asks.

“Same thing, just vibrating.”

Bane frowns. “So how will we tell them apart?” Squinting at me, he grumbles, “You didn’t really think this through, did you?”

“You really didn’t,” Alaric agrees.

“No,” I insist, “youcan’ttell them apart using just the crystal.” I lean a little forward, dropping my voice. “But there’s the feeling you get when you arrive at a cursed place. It’s creepy, get it?” I ask Alaric with a smile, referring to how he described the woods when we’d just arrived.

“Yeah, Novak,” Bane cuts in with an incredulous drawl, “we’re in the middle of a forest, in the dead of winter, with a heavily overcast sky. I’d say the creepiness could be called subjective, wouldn’tyou?”

I roll my eyes. “Why don’t we get a move on.”

We do, climbing the stairs up to the house, Bane insisting on going first. No one objects.

Since there’s no door, we just walk inside, finding ourselves in a dark room with broken wooden beams blocking the way across the frozen ground littered with sad, dirty remnants of the life the inhabitants used to lead — a rusty old cast-iron pot, pieces of fabric, smudged paper, a doll head.

You shouldn't be here, my wolf warns from the shadows.

“I thought you didn't care,” I tell her.

Still, her warning makes blood curdle in my veins. Then my eyes land on it.

A wide-open mouth on a face in agony.

I stumble back, feeling the fear lodge itself in my throat. Glancing around, I see that the others have discovered the other two corpses.

They’re all sitting on the ground, their hands resting on their thighs with palms up, their heads thrown back and their mouths open in that same unsettling way.

There seem to be no bite marks, just as the Authority said, but their bodies are still unambiguously drained of all blood.

I keep staring at the one I’m standing in front of, transfixed by the very thought thatthiswas the place one of four Baldur’s pieces lay dormant until not that long ago.

I can’t help but wonder which one it was and where it went once it was stirred from its slumber.

It makes my heart skip a beat, when the image before me flickers and I see these shadows creep across my field of vision. I hear a click of a tongue boom inside my head, followed by this deep, male drawl asking, “What are you doing here, my darling? Is itmeyou’ve come to see?”

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