Page 90 of Spark of the Everflame

Finally, we approached a set of arched iron doors engraved with the emblem of Lumnos—a flaming sun inset with a thin crescent moon—topped with the symbol of a crown. The doorway was flanked by two guards who bowed their heads in deference to the Prince.

He ignored them and flicked a wrist upward. Dark, twisting vines crept out from the doors’ edges, sprouting thorns and shadowy leaves as they slithered across the metal slab.

“Diem,” Maura hissed.

I stiffened. I’d stepped up to the door without realizing it, drawn by the pull of Luther’s magic. My hand hovered in front of me, reaching for a tendril of pulsing darkness.

“Careful,” Luther murmured. He watched me intently, though he made no move to stop me, nor any move to pull his magic away. “In this palace, the shadows are as dangerous as the people.”

I had no doubts about that.

Still... I couldn’t seem to tear myself away. Deadly as it was, there was something intoxicating about the unearthly power they wielded, some innate song that overrode my every survival instinct and lured me in.

Perhaps that was part of its danger, too.

“How does it work?” I asked, frowning at the mass of tangled vines. “In the mortal world, light and shadow aren’t solid, and they can’t hurt you. Why is your magic so different?”

A long silence stretched on, and I was sure he wouldn’t answer. But then—“Have you ever held up a magnifying glass to sunlight on a clear day?”

“My brother found a lost monocle on the street when we were little. We used it to start fires in fallen leaves in the woods.” I huffed a laugh. “If it hadn’t been such a rainy season, we might have burned down half of Lumnos.”

“Diem,hush,” Maura whispered, her wide, frantic eyes darting between me and the Prince.

The corner of his lip twitched in what might have been a smile, if the rest of his face wasn’t so dreadfully stiff. “Our magic works the same way. We conjure light and focus it down to its essence. At its purest, light can burn through almost anything.”

“What about the shadows?” I asked.

The two guards at the door shifted their weight, and one of them softly cleared their throat. From the disapproving downturn of their mouths, I suspected this was information mortals were forbidden to know.

Luther continued ignoring them, his eyes fixed on my hand where it lingered near the door. His brows pinched as a hazy spiral uncurled from the vine and stretched toward my finger, stopping just beyond my reach.

“Shadows work the same way. Darkness isn’t just the absence of light—it’s the absence of everything. No light, no heat, no air. True darkness can destroy even life itself.”

Something stirred beneath my ribs.

I looked at him. “That still doesn’t explain how you can make it solid. Even pure light and darkness can’t do that.”

His lip quirked again—higher this time. “That, Miss Bellator, is why we call itmagic.”

Despite the mile-long list ofreasons I had to hate him, his answer was so unexpected, so uncharacteristically charming, my grin spread from ear to ear.

For a moment so ephemeral it might not even have lasted a heartbeat, the stony fortress he’d built around himself lowered its gates, allowing a fleeting glimpse at the man who lived within. A man who might be something far different than I had once believed.

It was gone before I could make any sense of it. The square slant of his jaw flexed tight, and anything resembling a human emotion disappeared. He was once again a marble-carved statue—pretty to look at, impossible to know.

He raised a palm, and the ebony vines pulled the doors wide open. The colossal chamber inside was as elegantly appointed as the rest of the palace, but this room seemed warmer and more comfortable. The parlor was filled with overstuffed chairs, plush cushions, and gauzy curtains that hung along a wall of arched openings.

Luther led us into an antechamber housing a canopied bed carved from polished, swirling burlwood. A frail figure lay mostly shrouded under layers of coverlets. The Prince paused in the doorway, kneeling and dipping his head in respect.

King Ulther.

I had never actually seen him before. He had come to the mortal side of town on occasion—primarily to christen one of the edifices of the goddess Lumnos they sometimes placed around Mortal City as a subtle threat against any surviving worship of the Old Gods—but my mother had been careful to keep me at home on such occasions.

I felt a hard yank on my arm. Maura was bowing low over her cane and shooting me an insistent look.

Right.

Kneeling. Deference. Protocol.

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