Page 50 of A Fate Everlasting

My shoulders dropped, feeling the weight of what I had just given up. The card was gone. Still, we had our way forward.

The black tent did not belong in the market. Its fabric was made of deepest black, as though it had been cut from the night itself. The entrance shimmered like a mirage. One step too close, and the world seemed to tilt. The air shifted as the tent flaps swung shut, fluttering softly in the char-scented breeze.

Hugo’s hand brushed mine again, lingering longer than it should have. I was grateful he came now, and for the steadiness he offered without asking for anything in return. He’d sacrificed a lot for me. Ihadto find him a way home.

The inside of the tent was impossibly vast. Obsidian pillars arched overhead, mirrored surfaces distorting the room in endless, fractured reflections. The floor beneath us was like fine black sand, or ash. My breath caught. It wasn’t just the scale, it was the sense that the space itself had reshaped by her will or magic.

At the center of it all was the throne made of broken sea-glass, edges catching the low candlelight. And at the throne’s heart, waiting, sat the witch. The Dowager of Knots, Ruler of Fates.

The fabric shifted around her full silhouette like liquid shadow as she rose. Her dark eyes pierced through me, the feeling like looking out to sea in the middle of the night. “My, my,” she purred, descending languidly. Her voice unfurled into the air like ink spilling through water, wrapping itself around us before settling in the hollows of my ribs. “What a lovely little surprise this is.”

I forced my spine straight, meeting her gaze head-on. “We seek Dante Darkblood and his deck of cards.”

“You just missed him.” She sighed, wistful.

“Where did he go?” I asked.

Her fingertips trailed the glassy arm of her throneas though contemplating the weight of our request. “I do not give information on my customers freely.”

“Name your price.” Dorian stiffened next to me. “We are willing to pay it.”

Her attention drifted, detached yet discerning, skimming over Dorian before settling on Hugo, and then on me. Her smile split wide across her face. “You are something curious, girl. I would relish collectingyou.”

Dorian stepped in front of me. “We are not trading souls for information. Something less.”

“Less!” The Dowager shrieked. “I don’t offer discounts, boy. And yet…” She turned to Hugo again, then back to me. “Tethered souls,” she mused, tilting her head in quiet amusement. “How rare. Something like this… I would savor.”

I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “Tethered?”

She stepped closer, her skirts pooling, the scent of sea-brine thick around us. “You do not even see it, do you?” She chided. “How blind you Luminari are.”

“Blind?” I asked.

Her skeletal fingers wove absently through the air, gesturing between me and Hugo. A golden thread shimmered in the dim light, imperceptible before, now gleaming in her wake. “Between the two of you, a bond has formed, woven deep, wrapped tight. Your souls are no longer separate threads, but one stitch. I would like to possess that bond very much.”

I felt suddenly lightheaded. Hugo's hand found mine. “Arabella, don’t listen to her.”

Why him? Why us? I thought of the way Hugo was so protective, how he seemed to anticipate what I was thinking. Had we been bound together by something all along? I let out a trembling breath. It didn’t matter.It didn’t matter.

“Done.” I nodded at Dorian and Hugo before turning back to the Dowager.

“We really don’t have much time. Dante Darkblood came to you with the Arcana Deck. Did he trade it with you for something?” Dorian asked urgently.

The Dowager’s lips curled, a knowing smirk unfurling. “Dante Darkblood,” she echoed, tasting the name as though it were a vintage wine. “You speak his name so casually. Brave. No… he did not trade the Arcana. He sought a powerful binding spell. I can tell you where he has gone.” She let the words linger, an invitation, a trap. “I can tell you where he has taken the cards.”

“A binding spell? Why?” Dorian’s questioning grew more frantic. “Is there some power he is trying to set free?”

“Binding, notunbinding.”The Dowager leaned in, her voice silken. “Dante is not looking to free what’s bound within the cards.”Bound within the cards?She drummed her nails against the arm of her throne. “He is looking to keep the deck bound.”

“What?” A cold chill slid down my spine. I stepped forward. “Keep what bound?Why?”

The Dowager’s lips curled, the glimmer of a deeper truth flashing behind her eyes. “Perhaps he knows something you do not.” The air in the room felt too thin. “I will tell you this much. Dante fears what is inside that deck.” Her fingers tapped once, twice against the wood. “And perhaps you should, too.”

“Why?” The air trembled and a deep, thrumming force coiled around me.

“Tell us where heis,”Dorian urged.

“East,” the Dowager said, curling her open palm into a fist. “Track the Serpentine River all the way until it turns to tar. He has entered the Court of Midnights, where the High King of Elsewhere resides. But be warned. He knows you are following him and he has sent word.”

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