I fake a yawn, stalling for time as I try to figure out a vague answer to whatever question I missed. But I’m saved from answering at all by a rustling of skirts coming down the hallway, followed by the clicking of claws on the wooden floor.
The eldest of Evander’s two siblings, Elibeth, appears in the doorway. Three of her greyhounds, blinking their liquid amber eyes, poke their heads into the room by pushing past their owner’s billowing skirts.
“We’ve been sent a raven,” Elibeth announces, casting a quick smile my way. I like everything about the future baroness, who as eldest will inherit the manor, from her sparkling green eyes, to the claw scars all over her hands and arms, to her bobbed, feathery brown hair. And I absolutely adore the pack of long-legged, skinny hounds that follow her everywhere. Like a matched set, all have white fur with large blue patches, but I know she has several other dogs here in the manor. I’d expect no less from a beast mage who maintains the royal family’s fox-hunting kennels for a living.
Elibeth unfurls a piece of parchment, clears her throat, and reads, “Evander. And Odessa, if you’re there: We must discuss what happened tonight. Get some rest, and meet me at the graveyard behind Noble Park tomorrow before noon.” She sets the parchment on the dining table and adds, though we already know who it’s from, “Signed, Master Cymbre.”
Cymbre and Nicanor retired as of last week, having seen our training through to the end. But Cymbre seems to want to keep guiding us even now that we’ve come of age.
“She probably wants us to help her hunt down the Shade that did this,” Evander mutters, picking up the parchment and crumpling it in his fist.
Elibeth’s delicate brows shoot upward, and she grips the back of her mother’s chair. “The Shade that did what?”
One of her greyhounds whines softly, as sensitive to her mistress’s every shift in mood as Elibeth is to theirs. Another curls up on my feet under the table. I take comfort in the rhythm of its beating heart and the warmth of its fur as Evander sighs and repeats the night’s events for his elder sister.
*
Once Lyda and Elibeth and her many hounds are fast asleep, I join Evander on the back end of the manor’s roof. It’s a quick climb from the balcony off Evander’s bedroom to the rooftop, and the chairs he keeps out there are the perfect boost for getting onto the shingles. We can make it to the top in near silence thanks to years of practice.
I don’t even flinch when the bandage on my aching arm snags on a patch of roof. Evander quickly helps me free it with a gentleness that’s surprising from such strong, rough hands. I can always count on him to untangle me.
Once we’re seated, we dangle our legs and kick at the brisk night air, thick with the familiar, comforting scents of bergamot and lemons, the restless sea at our backs. Around us, the stately homes of Noble Park are bathed in moonlight, all trying to outshine one another with the grandest balconies and the prettiest rose gardens. I never tire of the splendid houses, at least not at night, when their occupants are how I like them best: asleep.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get any rest at all tonight.” Evander takes my hand in his, rubbing his thumb over my palm. “I can’t stop thinking about it, Sparrow. Every time I close my eyes, I see him. What was left of him.”
I hate the roughness in his voice, those tiny cracks of fear and hurt. I hate the monster that took Master Nicanor and burned the horrible image of his final moments into both our minds. “We’ll fix this, Van. We’ll get revenge when we kill the Shade.”
I’m reminded of the flash of the bony, rotting figure I saw in the Deadlands grove. Of how fast it moved. Faster than the other Shades we’ve glimpsed in the past. Of how hard we’ll have to train if we want to fight it. But Evander doesn’t need anything else troubling his thoughts tonight.
I wrap my arms around him, and for a long time, we just breathe.
It isn’t until the sky lightens to a pearly gray that Evander lays a hand on my back and clears his throat. “I’m sending a raven to Kasmira after breakfast. As soon as we find and kill this Shade, we’re booking passage out of here on the Paradise.”
I draw back to give him a sharp look, suddenly alert despite my lack of sleep. He knows as well as I do that it’s illegal for any Karthian to sail away from our rocky shores. Of course, that doesn’t stop people like Kasmira and her smugglers from exploring under cover of darkness when they should be running routine supply ships up and down the coast. But if the king somehow got wind of our escape attempt before we set sail, he wouldn’t hesitate to bind me in chains for the rest of my life. Just to keep me, his most prized necromancer, at his side. And when I think of it that way, leaving never seems worth the risk, even though staying means having to sneak around Evander’s overbearing mother.
“We’ve talked about this before, Van,” I say at last. “First of all, we have a home here, and now a job that brings the kind of riches most people only dream about.”
Evander grins, undaunted. “So we’ll build a new house and raise the dead somewhere different. People are always dying, and the gates into the Deadlands are always moving. Mages with our talent must be needed elsewhere, too.” He lowers his gaze to my now-empty right pocket, where my coffee beans are usually hidden. “Kasmira and her crew get your treats from someplace outside Karthia. Another island.”
“That’s what she says.” I shake my head, unable to hold back a slight smile as I think of her. “But people who trust Kasmira’s word tend to wind up broke, lost, or dead.”
“My point is, if she’s telling the truth, we already know of one island where we could settle after exploring,” Evander presses, his eyes gleaming as he pictures it. “Imagine—a shore full of coffee beans! And best of all . . . a place where we can marry.”
I start to say something, but Evander beats me to it, taking both my hands in his. “Just think about it. There’s nothing for us here. We can’t get married without my mother’s blessing, and Elibeth will inherit the manor and title besides. All I’ll inherit—all I’ve ever been given—are my father’s dreams.”
I never met Baron Crowther, but he lives on through Evander’s stories. He used to captain his brother’s trading ship after his brother was crippled in an accident. And once, when he got knocked off course during a storm, he swore he saw a strange island. He became a Shade before he ever got a chance to retrace his path, to learn what was out there.
“The island, you mean?” I tentatively ask.
“Exactly. We can find it for him, together.” Evander presses a kiss to my cheek. “That is, if you’ll still come with me.”
I shake my head to clear the cobwebs of exhaustion. “You’d go without me?”
Evander loosens his grip, drawing back to look at me with shining eyes. “I—I didn’t mean I’d just take off—”