Page 95 of Darkness and Deceit
“This way,” she says simply, then turns and leads me into a private antechamber. With a flick of her wrist, a shimmering veil of silence settles around us, warding the space from any prying ears.
Keepers do not lie. That is one of our central tenets. But there are truths we do notspeak. And standing here now, I can already feel the weight of the truths I am about to withhold.
Before she can speak, I begin.
“We found a passage,” I say, voice low. “A hidden underground cavern ripe with dark magic.”
Mara’s expression does not change. She absorbs the words without flinching, like stone beneath rain.
I press on.
“There was evidence of Magnus. Not just trace energy. Physical signs. Magic still active in the rock. His signature was everywhere, woven into the very walls. He wasthere.”
Still, no reaction. Just the faint furrow of her brow, like the information is a footnote, not a warning.
“And when you say ‘we’?” she finally asks.
“Lilith and I.”
A pause. Then—“You entered the forest together?”
“I went alone, but she found me. Followed me. And… she stayed.”
A beat of silence passes between us.
“She saved my life,” I add.
Shechoseto fight beside me. With me. For me. She was not obligated. And yet she stood in front of a wave of Rogues and made a shield from her own body. The kind of thing only a Protector would do.
Only… she is not my bonded Protector.
Mara says nothing, but I can feel her gaze narrowing.
There is a part of me that wants to confess everything—the way her magic fused with mine, the heat that surged between us when our hands met, thepullthat has not left my chest since. But I do not. Not yet.
Because if I tell her what I suspect—if I give voice to this thing that is already unfurling between us—it will not simply be questioned.
It will be severed.
So I say nothing.
Mara studies me in silence. Long enough that I begin to wonder if she already knows. If the air around me hums too loudly with borrowed magic. If the touch I shared with Lilith has marked me somehow—changed my signature, stained me with something the Balance would disapprove of.
Then she nods.
“For that, she will have our eternal gratitude,” Mara says softly.
My stomach knots.
Gratitude? That is what she takes from this? As if Lilith saved me from a wayward storm or something nonsensical. As if this was noteverything. As if the danger is notstilllurking beneath our feet.
“With all due respect…” I start, but Mara’s eyes flash in warning. It is a look I have seen many times before. But this time, I do not stop.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I continue. “Why Magnus was imprisoned here. Why this was hidden from us. Why students—children—were placed near such danger. Why no one thought to question it.”
“There is a reason for all that happens to us,” she says, the words falling from her lips like doctrine. “You know this, Augustus.”
“I used to,” I say, before I can stop myself. “I used to believe there was always a reason.”
