Page 10 of What Is Dark Within Me

“Violet?” Garm said, eyes widening. “Oh, yes. I was a bad dog, you see. I ran away from home and heard a lovely voice calling me. It turned out the witchling had a scrying mirror. Is that prosciutto?”

She set the tray on the counter and took her time peeling back its cellophane. “It is,” Aleja said. “I’ll cut up a few pieces, give me a moment. What did Violet want with you?”

Garm tilted his massive head, both ears flopping to the right. “What does any witchling who summons a hellhound want? Information about Nicolas and the Dark Saints. She wouldn’t light the black candle and I didn’t have the answers to her questions, so she left me locked up, in case she needed me later.”

“What kind of information? What sort of questions did Violet ask you?”

She found a kitchen knife and sliced a small cut of meat. A long line of saliva dripped from the corner of Garm’s mouth.

“Oh, this and that. She had something inside her she wanted to get rid of, but I’m a hellhound, not an exorcist. Are you going to dangle that in front of my face all day, or shall I give you a paw first?” Garm said. His teeth flashed, and Aleja was reminded of the beast that had crushed one of her lungs.

“Something inside of her?” she asked, tossing him a piece of meat she hoped would be enough to entice him into answering another question.

“She didn’t elaborate. If I’m being honest, I was more concerned with being trapped in a scrying mirror. You should ask Nicolas. He’s nosy. He might know more.”

“But—”

Garm stood on his back paws and pulled another piece of prosciutto out of Aleja’s hands before she could draw it back. “Believe me, I’d divulge everything I could if you would set that tray down on the floor. Which you will, right, like you promised?”

Aleja took a long look into Garm’s dark eyes. “You said Violet wouldn’t light the black candle?”

“I’ll tell you for a large piece of cheese.”

She wasn’t sure what constituted large in Garm’s eyes, but she used the knife to chop a wedge from the half-eaten wheel on the tray.

Garm rose to all fours to chase the piece across the floor, snuffling as he went. His words were garbled by his smacking lips. “No. Even if she had, he doesn’t appear to everyone. There are rules. And some people he finds more interesting than others.”

“And he finds me interesting?”

“I would think so.”

For the first time, Aleja wondered if she should accept that Violet simply wandered into the woods and succumbed to the elements while she waited for help that never came. Aleja could go back to her life. Her scholarship was surely a lost cause, but she’d only missed two semesters in her master’s program. It would be difficult to catch up, but not impossible.

That other life was waiting through Agnes Flanders’s yellow front door. All she had to do was walk out and toss her bag of evidence into the nearest dumpster. Her heart felt like a vulture circling overhead—never landing, never able to settle.

“Just tell me one more thing, and I’ll set the tray down for you.”

“Go on,” he said, with such eagerness that she wondered if he might flop over for a belly rub if she offered.

“When Violet spoke to you did she seem hurt? Afraid?”

“Yes, witchling. Few people summon a hellhound if they aren’t desperate.”

Aleja looked toward the cellar door before setting the tray down. She tried to remember back to those weeks when Violet had seemed tired and despondent, when dark circles appeared under her eyes, and she’d made excuses to skip the lunches they shared on the lawn outside the college library.

What had Violet been hiding?

“The Knowing One always keeps his word, doesn’t he? No matter how horrible it is.”

Garm didn’t lift his head to answer. “You know as well as I do that an ancient magic presides over bargains—even older than the Knowing One.”

“Okay,” she breathed, staring at the open cellar door and the darkness beyond it.

* * *

Aleja hadn’t noticedthe stereo in the cellar, but as she descended the steps, a swell of classical music drifted toward her. The Knowing One had his back turned, but true to his promise, he’d waited for her. She took a moment to take stock of him now that his attention was elsewhere. He was tall, with wide shoulders framed by impressive wings; they were the black of a moonless sky, but their clawed tips lightened into the darkest of reds. The same color as Aleja’s hair.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked in a rumbling voice that harmonized with the cellos.

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