Page 66 of What Is Dark Within Me

Nicolas never left her thoughts for long, despite the distraction of training. He no longer seemed to avoid her around the palace and had once convinced her to scry with him again, venturing to a battlefield where their past selves had been blessedly absent. “Should we find one with Roland in it?” she’d asked.

“No,” he told her, a hand curling over James’s Unholy Relic, which he still kept around his neck. “If there ever were any, they’re gone now. Let’s take a break. There are some Raphael sketches on the third floor that we might find if the palace is in a good mood. Want to try?”

“Hell yeah.”

Aleja’s dreams were wavering spaces that smelled of vanilla and reminded her of an Escher drawing; staircases leading up and down, infinite in every direction, as though each would take her to the Knowing One whether or not she wanted it to. And she always did.

You’ll have to ask, he’d once said.

“Fuck,” she whispered, collapsing onto her bed before remembering her clothes were full of ashes and sweat. She wanted him—or, at least, she was curious. Aleja couldn’t deny that to herself any longer. But did he wantheror the person she had been? A person who no longer existed, even if her memories came flooding back this minute.

Because Alejandra Ruiz was merely Alejandra Ruiz; a cousin, a friend, a would-be historian; a lover of staying up too late, sad songs on an acoustic guitar, old churches that smelled like incense, and both the warm oceans of the southern Atlantic and the cold void of the Pacific.

Aleja wondered if the heaviness in her gut was mourning. Her past self had no grave, no monument where those who knew her could sit with their memories. There was just a painting—Persephone with her hands stained red. A gift that had never been given.

She lingered in the bathroom doorway for a long moment before deciding the tub was too tempting for her sore muscles to ignore. When the water ran cold, she warmed it with a little magical fire, giving herself only one pale blister on the top of her left knee.

It was twilight by the time she was scrubbed, dried, and dressed again. When Aleja left the room, letting the door close quietly behind her, she knew she was going to find Nicolas.

A light glowed behind the stained glass rose on his office door. She hesitated before knocking, then decided not to bother and turned the knob. There was a small passage to her right where the shadows rippled like a ship’s wake. The rest of the palace always smelled like incense and paint varnish and the savory smoke of Bonnie’s ovens, but the room it led to—which was dominated by an enormous mahogany table—smelled of iron.

A shiver moved down her spine. It was an old, wild sort of emotion—like she was a hare wary of hidden serpents that’d heard the rustle of grass and snapped to attention.

Nicolas had his back to her. This was the first time she had seen him without something covering his torso. His wings were glamoured away, and her eyes locked onto the vicious scar that bisected him from his right shoulder to his left hip. It was too ragged to have been made with a blade, but she couldn’t think of any creature with claws large enough to rip through a man’s body like this one had. Not even the Throne she had seen in memories.

He tilted his head toward her as he shrugged on a tunic draped over the nearest chair and moved a book he’d been hovering over into the shadows. She recognized it; it was the one she’d caught him sketching into several weeks ago.

“The opposite side conjured lots of nasty things to aid them in the war,” he said, in response to the question in her mind.

“Looks like it was bad,” she said.

“It was. You and Amicia saved both my life and my wings that day.”

“I can’t imagine Amicia on the battlefield,” Aleja said, though she figured it would be easier to win a fight with your opponents driven into uncontrollable acts of lust.

The glow of a red lantern hit Nicolas’s eyes. Instead of silver, they flashed like the embers she could now conjure at will. “There are many kinds of lust—bloodlust, among them. Amicia can be formidable when she wants to be.”

“Who chooses the Dark Saints?”

“Ultimately, me, though the Second must approve. But magic has a way of nudging those who would serve well toward the Hiding Place. As I’ve told you, there are things even us Otherlanders don’t understand. Speaking of which, I notice you haven’t been carrying your sickle.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that thing. Don’t you think the human skull on the hilt is a bad omen?” she asked.

“I think it looks cool.”

“Of courseyoudo. This palace is like the Barbie Dreamhouse for goths.”

He glanced at her with a fondness she hadn’t expected. “We’ll investigate its origins, but if it didn’t want you to wield it, you would know. Promise me you’ll keep it on you.”

“Why?” she asked. “Will it be breaking some sort of bargain if I don’t?”

“No. Because if you’re attacked, it’ll be useful to have a pointy object to kill your opponent with, especially if they’re Otherlanders.”

As she approached the table, she noticed it was dotted with figurines. Most were small people, some with bat-like wings; others crouched on four legs, monstrous and snarling like the Thrones. A few toppled statues appeared to be cast in gold, but they were as difficult to look at, as if she were trying to watch a 3D movie without the right glasses.

“What are they?”

He spoke an oddly distorted word. “Did you understand that?”

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