The Witch of Fading Echoes A Fading Witch. Four Fallen Gods. One Deadly Bargain. #4
Pain moved across his face.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“That ritual,” he said, “was never meant to summon luck spirits.”
Selene’s throat tightened. “Then what was it meant to summon?”
His gaze lifted to hers.
“Us.”
The attic seemed to tilt around that single word.
Ronan remained kneeling inside the circle, one hand resting on his bent knee, severe eyes fixed on Selene like she was the only unstable thing in the room.
Lucien leaned against a shelf of last words, smiling as if this was all delightful and not horrifying.
Dorian stood between Selene and the attic door without looking as though he meant to block it.
The fourth man remained seated on the trunk, grave and watchful.
“Your name,” Selene said.
He inclined his head. “Elias Nocturne.”
The last jar on the shelf stopped glowing.
Silence fell.
Not natural silence.
The kind that gathered before a blade dropped.
Selene forced herself to breathe. “I summoned minor luck spirits.”
“No,” Elias said softly. “You read bait and called it a ritual.”
Anger came quickly because fear had nowhere else to go.
Selene pointed the saint-bone knife at him. “I used salt, thread, ash, and coin. I named no gods. I opened no divine door. I called for minor spirits of fortune and bargain.”
Lucien touched a hand to his chest. “Fortune, yes. Bargain, certainly. Minor wounds me.”
Ronan’s gaze cut to him.
Lucien’s smile sharpened. “What? She deserves honesty. Or at least a beautiful lie. I’m deciding which she’d hate less.”
“I want out of the circle,” Ronan said.
“I want answers,” Selene snapped.
“And I want the Choir to have forgotten how to track a summoning pulse,” Lucien said. “We are all doomed to disappointment.”
The word Choir struck the room strangely.
The last words stirred in their jars.
Selene noticed.
Elias did too.
“What Choir?”
Dorian looked toward the covered mirrors. “Hollow Saints.”
Selene’s blood chilled.
Every child in Bellgrave knew stories of the Choir of Hollow Saints. White-robed hunters with silver masks. Men and women who cut witch-marks from skin and called the wound mercy. Fanatics who believed fallen gods hid in bloodlines, bone relics, and forbidden spellbooks.
Selene had always assumed half the stories were exaggerated.
The four men’s faces told her the stories had not been cruel enough.
Ronan rose.
The ceiling seemed lower once he stood.
Selene took one step back and hated herself for it.
His eyes dropped to the movement. Something flickered in them. Not satisfaction. Not predatory pleasure.
Restraint.
“We are not here to harm you,” he said.
“Men who appear in locked attics after false rituals don’t get to lead with that.”
Lucien gave a soft laugh. “Oh, I like her.”
Dorian said, “You would.”
Selene kept the knife raised. “What are you?”
Ronan answered first. “Fallen.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one that matters.”
Elias looked at Ronan, then at Selene. “We were worshipped once.”
The attic went colder.
Selene felt the truth before her mind accepted it.
It pressed into the room. It bowed the beams. It made the old mirrors beneath their black cloth tremble on their hooks.
Gods.
Not spirits.
Not minor anything.
Gods wearing human bodies as if flesh was a borrowed coat.
Ronan Blackthorne, once prayed to at crossroads by soldiers, widows, fugitives, and desperate women with blood on their skirts.
Lucien Foxglove, patron of wagers, masks, beautiful lies, and the last lucky coin in a dying man’s pocket.
Dorian Voss, god of blood-oaths, battlefield luck, impossible victories, and men who kept fighting after death should have claimed them.
Elias Nocturne, keeper of patterns, secrets, and futures stolen before they could bloom.
The knowledge did not come from them.
It rose inside Selene’s magic like something remembering.
She swayed.
Dorian moved.
Ronan’s hand lifted.
Lucien stopped smiling.
Selene steadied herself before any of them could touch her.
“No,” she said, though she was not sure which of them she meant it for. “No. I don’t kneel to gods.”
Ronan’s expression darkened. “Good.”
That startled her.
Lucien tilted his head. “Kneeling is overrated.”
“Lucien,” Elias warned.
“What? I meant for worship.”
Selene’s face burned despite the terror clawing beneath her ribs. “You need to leave.”
“We cannot,” Elias said.
“Because of the circle?”
“Because of what answered when you called.”
The roof groaned.
Rainwater leaked through a seam above Selene and struck the back of her neck, cold enough to make her flinch. She smelled wet wood, burnt rosemary, old dust, blood, candle smoke, and the men.
Ronan smelled of iron, smoke, and winter roads.
Lucien of spiced wine, clover, and something sweet she could no longer taste.
Dorian of forge-heat, leather, and old blood.
Elias of ink, rain, and night air before dawn.
Their scents filled the attic, too vivid, too intimate, too alive.
Selene hated noticing.
“You said the Choir could track this,” she said.
Lucien’s eyes flicked toward the window. “If they haven’t already.”
“Why would they care?”
Ronan stepped to the edge of the circle. The salt hissed but did not break. “Because they stripped our temples, slaughtered our worshippers, and chained what was left of our true divinity beneath this city.”
“And because,” Elias said, quieter, “your curse is tied to the same prison.”
Selene forgot the knife in her hand.
“My curse?”
Ronan’s gaze moved to her mouth.
She understood before he spoke.
Taste.
He knew.
All four of them knew.
Her grip tightened until the saint-bone handle bit into her palm. “What do you know?”
Elias stood from the trunk. “Your senses are not failing because of ordinary magical decay.”
“I never said they were failing.”
“No,” Lucien said softly. “But you looked at that bowl of sugar downstairs like it betrayed you.”
Selene’s stomach dropped.
“You were watching me.”
Ronan’s jaw tightened. “Not by choice.”
“Then whose?”
No one answered.
The silence was worse than confession.
Elias took one careful step toward her. “Someone tied your senses to the Hollow Gate.”
The name moved through the attic like a draft from a tomb.
The black cloths over the mirrors stirred.
Selene’s heartbeat quickened. “What is that?”
“A prison-door,” Elias said. “Older than the Choir. Older than Bellgrave. It was used to seal things that could not be killed.”
“Things like you?”
Lucien’s smile returned, but it was thinner now. “Among others.”
“Every spell you cast feeds it,” Ronan said. “Every sense you lose opens it wider.”
The blue candle flame shivered.
Selene’s first instinct was to deny it. Her second was to demand proof. Her third was to remember the dead-child voice in the candle.
One sense given. Four crowns hidden. Five losses open the gate.
Her hands went cold.
“You can fix it,” she said.
It came out too quickly.
Too close to begging.
Shame burned through her.
Lucien noticed. Of course he did. His expression softened in a way she distrusted more than his smile.
Ronan said, “We can slow it.”
Dorian added, “Maybe heal it.”
“Maybe?”
“Divine healing requires an anchor,” Elias said.
Selene looked from one face to another.
The attic had become too small. Four gods. One broken witch. A storm beating at the roof like a warning.
“What kind of anchor?”
Ronan held her gaze. “Life.”
“No.”
“You have not heard the terms.”
“I heard enough.”
Lucien spread his hands. “Terms are where bargains become interesting.”
“Bargains are where witches get buried.”
“Only the dull ones.”
Dorian’s voice cut through them both. “One year.”
Selene turned to him.
He looked back without ornament or mercy. “One year of your mortal life bound to each of us.”
The words landed slowly.
Ronan did not look away.
Lucien’s smile had vanished.
Elias watched her as if he already knew every way this moment could break.
“One year,” Selene repeated. “To each of you.”
“Yes,” Elias said.
“Four years.”
“Yes.”
“Of my life.”
Ronan’s voice was low. “Bound. Not taken.”
Selene laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “That is the kind of distinction predators make before they bite.”
Lucien’s mouth curved faintly. “Sometimes bites are honest.”
Ronan shot him a look that could have cut stone.
Selene pointed the knife at Lucien. “Say one more thing like that and I’ll see how well gods bleed.”
Lucien’s eyes brightened. “There she is.”
Dorian moved, slow and deliberate, placing himself just slightly between them. Not shielding Lucien.
Shielding Selene from what her own anger might invite.
That unsettled her more.
Elias spoke gently. “The bond would give us access to the curse. It would let us take part of the strain. Guide the unraveling. Keep the Gate from using you all at once.”
“And what do you get?”
No one answered immediately.
Selene’s smile felt like broken glass. “There it is.”
Ronan said, “An anchor works both ways.”
“To what?”
“To you.”
The attic seemed to pulse.
Selene stared at him.
Ronan’s face gave nothing away, but his stillness had changed. It no longer felt like indifference. It felt like a door held shut from the inside.
Lucien’s voice softened. “We have been hidden a very long time, Ashwick.”
Dorian said, “Chained.”
Elias finished, “Dying slowly.”
Understanding moved through Selene like cold water.
The bond would help her.
It would also help them.
Four fallen gods, starved of worship and severed from their divine fragments, wanted a mortal woman’s life as a tether.
Her life.
Her years.
Her body standing between them and whatever waited beneath Bellgrave.
“No,” Selene said.
Ronan’s eyes narrowed. “You will lose another sense.”
“I said no.”
“Then another.”
“I heard you.”
“And then another.”
“Stop.”
“When the fifth is gone, the Gate opens inside you.”
Selene’s anger cracked. “I said stop.”
Ronan did.
Instantly.
That obedience, clean and immediate, shook her almost as badly as his warning.
Elias’s voice came quietly. “There are very few paths where you live.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“No. It is supposed to make you move.”
The attic window rattled.
Not from wind.
Selene looked toward it.