Page 49 of Darkness and Deceit
None of us are sleeping. Not when something feels… off.
Not when it’s been days since the last Rogue incident and that silence feels more like a setup than a relief.
“I don’t like this,” Simon says eventually. “It’s too quiet.”
“Want me to hum you a lullaby?” Vaughn asks without looking up. “Something soft. Sultry. Maybe a little jazzy.”
“Only if it comes with earplugs,” I reply, not breaking my stare from the forest edge.
“You’re all charm tonight,” he shoots back. “No wonder the shadows are your best friends.”
Simon snorts, but the sound fades quickly as his gaze flickers to Lilith. “We shouldn’t have trusted the Keepers.”
That kills the humor in the room instantly.
“I thought they’d protect her,” he continues. “That was the job. But I was wrong. They see her as leverage, not a life.”
“I told you that from the beginning,” Vaughn mutters, voice lower now. Less bite.
I don’t shift my attention from the forest edge until I hear her shift. The faint rustle of sheets pulls my attention.
Lilith stirs slightly, curling in tighter to Simon’s side. Her brow creases, her fingers twitch like she’s still caught somewhere between dreams and memory. It hurts to see her like this. So vulnerable and quiet, tucked against us like we’re enough to keep the world from burning.
“She’s getting stronger,” Simon says, almost to himself. “But not fast enough.”
I nod. We all feel it—that rising pressure. The sense that something’s closing in and we’re running out of time.
“She’s powerful,” I murmur. “But untrained. If she breaks before she learns how to burn… we lose her.”
“She won’t,” Simon says. “Not while we’re here.”
Vaughn goes to light his cigarette, but I send a thin thread of shadow to snatch it from his fingers and tuck it into my pocket.
“No smoking,” I remind him. “Lilith asked you to stop.”
He glares, but lets it go.
Simon exhales and looks at both of us. “Whatever happens next, we don’t let her out of reach. Not again. We keep her close. Always.”
I nod once.
No argument there.
Then it happens.
A line of blue fire explodes through the forest, racing through the trees like a blade through silk. It climbs high, unnaturally fast, devouring everything in its path with a roar of magic-fed hunger. The sky turns electric with its light.
And a beat later?—
The whistle.
That fucking whistle.
It slices through the air like a scream I can’t block out. Familiar. Wrong. Burned into the inside of my skull.
The Rogues.
They’re here.
