Page 54 of What Is Dark Within Me

“I can’t believe these people don’t have wards,” she whispered, ignoring the heat of his hand.

“Oh, they do,” he said, speaking normally. “They’re quite good too. The person who owns this property must be an extremely powerful magician—for a human, at least.”

She rolled her eyes at the casualness with which he informed her she was in grave danger but followed him down a hall lined with elaborately framed mirrors. Though the way forward was obvious, the repeating reflections made it feel like there were infinite forking paths; a labyrinth she could get lost in, forever.

“Where did your family keep all their most valuable magical objects?” he asked.

“A secure room on the second floor of the estate,” she told him. “Shouldn’t we be looking for Violet’s doctor?”

“We will, but I’m curious where he got this relic. I want to see what else he got a hold of.”

“Nicolas, it’s not like we have all the time in the world here,” she said, struggling to keep up with his long strides as he climbed the stairs. “This is my second act of breaking and entering in… well, in however many days it’s been. I’m pushing my luck.”

He paused at the top of the stairs and turned to her. Though his wings had been glamoured away, they still framed him in shadow.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he admitted, with what sounded like genuine regret. One of his hands rose to the Unholy Relic, dangling from a chain around his neck. “I once kept this relic in the vaults deep below the palace in the Hiding Place. Vaults that are only accessible by a very select few. It’s why I was so eager to find out what Amicia knew about the missing Dark Saints.”

“What?” Aleja all but shouted, then dropped her voice back into a whisper. “How could you keep something like that from me?”

The question struck her as so funny that she almost laughed. What the hell else had she expected from the man who had only bothered to drop two massive truth bombs on her when his hand was forced?

But Nicolas frowned, diverting his gaze. “You’re right. We’re partners in this, whether by choice or luck. No more secrets. I’ve told you all I know. The vaults are well warded. Only the Saints have regular access to them. I do not know how long the relic has been missing, and it doesn’t seem wise to risk having you scry with it again, seeing as the bone’s previous owner has something of a grudge.”

“You think one of them betrayed you? I don’t understand why you can’t just find the missing Saints.”

“It’d be useful, but no. It’s always been this way; a sort of failsafe. If the Dark Saints felt that their Knowing One was not serving his position well, the Second wanted them to have the ability to usurp him.”

“Geez,” Aleja breathed. “Has that ever happened?”

“Not that I know of, but seeing as I’ve lost both half my power and half my Saints, maybe I’ll make history.”

She watched his back as he turned away, pushing aside the stab of sympathy in her gut. Aleja had always assumed Violet was her best friend, that they shared everything, but Violet hadn’t mentioned she was back on chemotherapy. As much as Aleja missed her, she couldn’t pretend that every time they uncovered another secret, it didn’t come with a hint of bitterness. Aleja would have trusted Violet with anything. She’d thought Violet felt the same.

This hall felt more like it belonged to a regular home. An open door led to a clean, tiled bathroom. Another to a closet filled with board games. Nicolas ran his hand along the doorknobs as he passed, and not for the first time, she felt his power. It reminded her of a term she had learned early in her art history education. Something that invoked both awe and terror, a reminder of the viewer’s smallness in the face of grandeur.

The sublime.

She thought of the storm-kissed ocean, of a forest fire, of all the churning forces beneath the earth that threatened human life while they strolled above it unaware.

Nicolas wasn’t just an Otherlander. He was a force of nature.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Testing the wards. Our doctor is a secretive fellow, but this door,” Nicolas said, giving the knob an extra tap, “This one is particularly interesting. Think of the defenses around the house, then triple them.”

Aleja didn’t want to mention that she hadn’t felt the wards, other than the brief spark in her dental fillings that always came when she stepped into another witch’s home. “Can you get through?” she asked.

Nicolas sent her a grin as he turned the knob and the door popped open.

“Oh, just go, Knowing One. We know you’re all-powerful.”

She followed him into a room that would have made her rich cousins drop their jaws. There were shelves full of jars, some of which were so cloudy Aleja couldn’t see their contents, but others had flowers suspended in liquid, or small lights that flared as Nicolas entered.

“Has this guy ever lit the black candle?” she asked, examining the bookshelf. Some titles she’d seen in her family’s collection, others she had never heard of or were written in the looping script of the fey.

“No,” Nicolas said. “Part of the reason he intrigued me. I would have thought a magician of his caliber would have done it at least once, out of curiosity.”

“Would you have answered?”

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