Page 104 of Darkness and Deceit
My head jerks up, eyes darting around frantically. It’s empty, just cold, unyielding stone walls and an oppressive silence that presses down on me.
I’m not in the corridor anymore. Somehow, the shadows brought me here.
Then, in the dimness of the far corner, something catches my eye. A pair of glasses sits abandoned on the stone floor. The lenses are cracked, one missing entirely, and the frame is twisted, as if someone stepped on them.
My heart seizes in my chest, then stutters back to life with a painful jolt.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no?—”
I lunge forward, fingers scrabbling to gather up the broken pieces, as if somehow I can reverse what happened. As if holding them will conjure Tony back to life. But the glasses are just a shattered remnant of someone I failed to save.
He was the first person who treated me like I wasn’t dangerous. Just… Lilith.
I curl around the glasses like they’re a lifeline. Press them to my chest like they’ll still carry some part of him.
I can still hear his bright and weird and too loud laugh echoing through the library until we were shushed. I can still see him slipping me shitty snacks between classes and pretending they were “gifts from the gods.” He believed in me. Trusted me.
And I didn’t save him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
There’s no answer. Only the cold stone. Only silence.
I failed him.
Like I failed my Shadows.
Like I failed everyone.
Tony is gone. My Shadows are gone. And I don’t even know how I’m still breathing.
A shudder courses through my body, and a brief flicker of violet energy sparks at my fingertips before it fizzles into nothing. Drained. Weak. Useless.
I don’t know where I am. Only that I’m not alone.
The hair on the back of my neck stands. Something, orsomeone, is watching me. My breath catches, every instinct in my body screaming to move, to run, to dosomething—but I stay frozen, hands clenched around Tony’s broken glasses.
The shadows in the corner begin to stir. They recede in slow, deliberate ribbons, like a curtain drawing open on a play. The darkness parts, layer by layer, until I see him.
Magnus.
Seated on a throne of writhing shadows, high-backed and twisting, more suggestion than structure. The tendrils curl around his shoulders like they’re alive, like they’readoringhim. Worshiping him.
His face is bathed in silver light, like a fucked up spotlight pouring down from above. He looks younger than I expected. Maybe around my father’s age, but it’s hard to tell. Sharp jaw. Raven-dark hair swept back like he stepped out of some forgotten portrait. He’s handsome in the way a predator might be—built to lure you in before he tears you apart.
His violet eyes gleam from within the recess of darkness, catching mine.
And he’ssmiling.
Like he’s been here all along.
Like he’s been waiting for me to wake up.
My pulse spikes. Rage and terror crackle down my spine in equal measure.
“You,” I breathe.
His smile tilts up. “Me.”
