Page 82 of What Blooms from Death

“…Have you?”

He nodded. “I was wondering if you would care for a proper tour of the city?” He didn’t explicitly state it, but it was clear enough by the way his eyes focused on me and only me: He intended for this to be a private tour.

Aleksander’s stare was like a tangible blade carving into my back, suddenly.

Desire curled through me before I could guard against it.

We weren’t finished with what we’d started, regardless of how quickly I’d made my escape.

And for a brief moment, I wanted him to stop me. To show concern. To challenge the sovereign of Erebos on my behalf. To drag me off somewhere so we couldfinishthings.

For aninstant, I thought perhaps we could be more than a pair of wayward souls caught in this strange hell, forced together by confusing, unfortunate circumstances.

But the King of Light didn’t move from his place at the top of the steps. He’d redirected his glare to the ceiling, his face betraying no hint of concern for anything below it. Certainly notforme.Our experimenting for the day was over, and, clearly, he didn’t care what I planned to do next.

Kaelen cleared his throat, expectant.

I shouldn’t have answered that expectation. I knew this man—this so-calledReaper—before me was not someone I could trust. But more than any of that, I wantedanswers. Even if it meant taking a risk to get them. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d danced along the edge of a wolf’s mouth to get what I needed.

So I calmly turned to Kaelen and said, “Lead the way.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Nova

The city felt even moremassive and difficult to comprehend as Kaelen and I took our time walking through it.

We wound through streets paved with shadowy stones that glistened as if wet—even though there had been no rain, as far as I knew.

Did iteverrain in this realm?

I looked to what I could see of the violent-colored clouds above, pondering the question. But any expanse of sky was difficult to see, given the city’s jagged roofline, its towering black spires, and the banners hanging from many of the houses. Almost all of those banners featured the same thing: A golden stag with a torch burning between its vine-wrapped antlers.

We eventually came to a corner where stalls were set up, strange wares on display for the countless wandering wraiths making their way through the area.

I stared the longest at a table containing neat rows of diamond-shaped containers, each with a swirling mass of some sort of cloudy grey substance inside. The merchant who stood behind this table had eyes that danced restlessly between shadesof orange and red, like the flickering flames of candles. They fixed in my direction, and he beckoned me over with a curl of his long fingers—but Kaelen placed a hand on my shoulder before I could even consider taking a step.

“Memories of our living world,” he explained, nodding at the diamond-shaped containers. “You break them and breathe in the mist, and it’s like being back there for a bit.”

I gaped, barely resisting the urge to run over and grab one to try for myself.

Kaelen’s grip on my shoulder tightened, as if he could sense my desire. Annoying, at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was probably right to protect me from myself; dropping into a clear memory of the living world right now would do nothing to settle the vexation I felt after everything that had happened today. I was working hard to bury the part of me that wanted to abandon my mission and run back to the world above; tempting myself with visions of that world would be foolish.

My gaze fell instead to the table beside the memories, where small vials in several different sizes and colors were lined up in equally orderly rows.

“And those are strong emotions, bottled up for consumption,” Kaelen said under his breath, his tone suggesting he didn’t fully agree with them being displayed so prominently.

“How?” I asked. “And why?”

“Thehowis by way of relatively simple magic. Thewhy…” He hesitated. “It’s easy to forget the sensations these spells create, even here in the protective walls of my city. I see to it that my citizens never have tofullyforget. Some get more addicted to the spells than others, though, and would ruin themselves chasing down an emotion if they could—so it’s an important commodity, but one that must be regulated.”

My curiosity fully piqued, I watched the colorful fluids shining, bubbling, rising up and tumbling down in their vials. It was likely similar to what Orin would have calledparlor-trickmagic—generic spells that anyone with the right ingredients and a bit of knowledge could pull off. Nothing that would leave any lasting impact, in other words.

I wanted to experiment with these things, anyway—to experience what such common magic tricks might be like in this realm. But I also had no money to buy any of said tricks; coins had not been on the list of things I’d thoughtI would need for the Underworld, after all.

There didn’t seem to be much exchanging of money or goods going on, anyway. Although, one transaction didcatch my eye: A squat little woman with pale violet hair was holding up her wrist to one of the merchants across from the memory dealer, affording him a good look at the caged flame dangling from her bracelet. They were speaking in quick, hushed tones; the lady seemed distraught about something.

My eyes jumped from the flame around her wrist to another one around the wrist of the merchant assisting her, and then to all the other fires on all the other beings around us.

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