Chapter 19
NICO
The dreamworld unfolded around us, shifting mist stretching endlessly in every direction, the air empty of smell, of sound, of anything that made this realm alive.
Beside me, Emberline’s hand was firmly clasped in mine, her delicate fingers threaded between my own, and I was acutely aware of all the places our skin touched.
“Don’t let go,” I warned before we headed off in a direction that might lead anywhere. Even though I’d been here too many times to count, directions defied logic, time passed in some hazy reflection of itself, as if we’d become the only fixed points in a world of intangibles.
We were here to find Emilia, but somehow, I knew we’d find the Underworld first.
I shared a bond with the thirsting darkness beyond that tattered veil, deeper than the secrets wrapped around my heart. Could still remember how the cold seeped into my bones, so deep, there were times I still tasted frost on my tongue when I woke.
I had forged my own deal with the devil in that place, back when I’d thought revenge was the only thing worth living for.
My shadows spilled out in front of us like a divining rod, forming a shifting, ephemeral path, and I followed where they led. They’d never failed me before, and I would trust them tonight.
“Well, what do you know,” Emberline muttered when the Underworld entrance appeared sooner than expected, the blowing veils fluttering in a wind that didn’t exist. Behind them, the darkness shifted, as if it somehow recognized her. Or the both of us.
“Emberline.”
Ottavia was outlined by the flapping torn edges, looking alarmed, no sign of Enzo.
“Don’t stop,” Ottavia hissed, coming closer on shuffling feet. “Stay away from the circle. The danger is in the markings.”
The same warning she’d given her daughter before, and I turned the words over and over inside my head, trying to divine their meaning.
Behind her, the darkness came alive, creeping around her like a thief, grasping tendrils winding around her arms, her waist, snaking through her hair. Fear flashed across Ottavia’s face, her mouth twisting, but nothing came out.
“Help her,” Emberline’s fingers dug into my arm. “Please, Nico. Can’t you do something?”
“Not from outside, and if I step any closer…” I shook my head. “We have to leave,” I urged, eyeing those hungry shadows, now creeping toward the opening.
“They sense you, Emberline. They sense both of us.”
I was dragging her away when the last thing I saw was her mother’s reaching hand disappear into a swirl of choking black.
Her hand tightened on mine, then we were running.
Following the dark, shadowy path in front of us.
We ran until the DiSange temple materialized around us, our footsteps falling strangely silent, surrounded by the soaring, vaulted ceiling, the black, gold-veined walls sparkling in the phantom moonlight.
Faint dust motes fell slowly through the air, outlined by towering columns that disappeared into darkness overhead.
The temple was abandoned.
There were no priests, no guards. Only us.
“Well, this seems too easy,” Emberline grumbled.
I had to agree, leading her quickly through the main section of the temple and toward Emilia’s chamber.
Time might be an intangible in this realm, but I wasn’t about to waste a single second. My shadows surged inside me, as if they wanted to escape, and while I completely agreed with Emberline about needing Emilia to win this war…
I needed Emilia for reasons of my own.
She had to lock my magic back down.
The darkness at my center had grown uncontrollable, and while it had been decades since I’d lost control, I was older and far more powerful now.
Far more deadly.
Like before, Emilia lay on a black marble platform like an offering, her white dress carefully arranged around her, hair spread in a dark fan, pale hands folded on her stomach.
Emilia DiSange was beautiful in her stillness. Terrifying, even in sleep.
Many, many years ago, she had saved me, and now I would save her in return by evening up the score that could never fully be repaid.
“Now what?” Ember whispered.
I was already moving, crossing the floor in two deliberate strides, bringing her with me until we both stood over Emilia, gauging the paleness of her cheeks, the depth of her sleep, the sheer power of the spell keeping her prisoner in her own mind.
I unspooled my shadows, letting them roam free, sending them surging up and over the sides of Emilia’s plinth until they touched her face with incredible reverence.
Much like the Drax, all I sensed was a void, an endless stretch of nothingness.
“As I thought, this is Blackwood’s magic, sealing her inside her own mind. But I can undo his spell,” I muttered, cracking my knuckles. “Just give me a minute to think this through.”
The spell—like layers of black spider silk, woven around Emilia’s memories—didn’t merely force sleep. This magic convinced her that time itself did not exist. Centuries of dust could settle on top of her still body, and she would never know; she was that thoroughly locked inside her own mind.
“Stand over there, by the door,” I told Emberline softly. “If anything seems… wrong, you get through that door and get back outside, into the mists. Dante will sense something is wrong and wake you up.”
“What about you?” She set her hands on her hips, defiant to the bitter end.
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you,” I lied. Chances were, if this went wrong, I’d be trapped inside stasis with Emilia until I found a way out, but I didn’t intend for Emberline to pay the price of my own hubris. True, I was here to repay an old debt to Emilia, but more than that…
I wanted to undo Lord Blackwood’s magic.
If only to prove to myself I could.
As soon as she was safely away, I whispered an ancient unbinding spell, the finely woven strands writhing like serpents as they thinned… then, one by one… snapped.
Each severed end slashed through the stillness with a violent hiss, finally exploding into a cloud of black. Every thread breaking sounded like bones cracking, and I pushed my magic deeper, harder as Blackwood’s spell frayed apart.
All that unleashed power clogged the air, immersing us in near-total darkness, but color was returning to Emilia’s face, her eyes moving back and forth behind her closed lids.
“Per vetus sanguinem et noctem, solve hanc quietem.”
When only one layer remained—the original one, the most difficult one—I murmured the final piece of the spell, pouring my shadows into that tangled knot, thick, blackened threads pulsing with malice, like infected heartbeats. The magic shoved back, then the knot unraveled.
For one suspended moment, the world held perfectly still.
Then Emilia’s eyes flew open, and inside their depths, fury blazed.
Power rippled through the room, sending Emberline and me stumbling back, the shock crushing the air from my lungs. For a moment, I thought Emilia might kill us, then, finally, recognition dawned.
“Emberline.” Her voice was a cracked echo of her husky tone. “Nico.”
She surged upward from the plinth, then collapsed, frowning, confused by her own weakness, by the realization she didn’t know where she was or how long she’d been here.
“You dare trespass inside my head? I’ve killed for less.”
“This was the only way to break you out of stasis,” Emberline explained in a thin voice. “Since you forbade us from setting foot on your island ever again. You could say thank you, but I know better than to push my luck. Still…” Her eyes flashed. “You’re welcome.”
Emilia stared at her, black eyes full of deadly threat before the corner of her mouth turned up.
“Always finding a way around the rules, aren’t you?”
“More like always wondering why rules exist in the first place.” Emberline managed a shaky smile. “It’s good to see you, Emilia. We need your help.”
“Ah. Now that makes more sense.” She frowned at me, tipping her head to take in the shadows covering the floor. “You need me to rebind the spell, I see. How long was I out?”
“Weeks, as far as we know, but could have been longer. Vincenzo has been keeping you well guarded, but…” I paused, knowing what I was about to say would send her into an absolute rage. “It wasn’t your sons who put you in stasis. It was Blackwood.”
“My sons,” she spat. “They aren’t actually…
” She frowned, gaze turning inward, as if searching for the truth.
“The last thing I remember was dinner with Paolo and Vincenzo and… the wine was too sweet. Cloying. I should have recognized the signs, but one gets complacent when they trust the wrong vampires. My mistake.”
So her own sons had drugged her, and Blackwood had incapacitated her.
Well, there’d be hell to pay now.
“They can’t know it was us who woke you up,” I explained the obvious. “No one can know about Emberline being inside your dream. Or me. Tell them you broke the spell yourself.”
“Oh, I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine. If anyone knew I was taken down by too-sweet wine in my own home by my own godsdamned… sons, I’d never hear the end of it. So, Blackwood is still allied with Giovanni?”
Her words dripped with venom, and I almost felt sorry for those two fuckers. Almost.
This time I kept my arm behind Emilia as she sat up slower, bracing her hands on the edge of the altar.
“He is, and things have gotten worse.” I briefly recapped the past month, Emberline chiming in occasionally until we caught her up on current events.
“Everyone’s been busy in my absence, I see. Can’t leave you lot unsupervised for a minute, can I?” Emilia inhaled slowly, like she was trying to get her bearings, then smiled. An all-teeth-and-fangs sort of smile that made me very happy I wasn’t the one who conspired against her.
“Good thing I’m awake to put this Dynasty back in order. Starting with Cesare Blackwood.”
Just the sound of his name sent a shudder spiking into the deepest, darkest part of me, the place where all my secrets were buried.
Secrets that would never see the light of day.
“He nearly executed Gabriel. And Rocco,” I cautioned. “He’s dangerous, Emilia.”
“You don’t say?” Her voice was perfectly calm. “Well, then it’s time he learns he’s not the biggest shark in the sea. Come find me tomorrow morning. I’ll grant you safe passage onto my island, and we’ll have a much-needed chat. And a big breakfast.”
“What are you planning to do in the meantime?” I asked.
Her wolfish smile only widened.
“First? Put my own house to rights.” Then Emilia’s grin faded away into the shadows, leaving behind a wisp of smoke and an empty altar.
“What… where did she go?”
“She woke up. In the real world,” I clarified, Emberline staring at that empty spot, her mouth slightly ajar. “Now we have to wake up, too.”
“How do we do that?”
“Outside this place, for sure. Waking up in a known location from the real world has been known to… cause problems.” I caught her hand in mine and headed across the main floor of the temple, heading for the exit.
Toward the comparative safety of the shifting mists.
I would let Emberline wake first so I knew she was safe, then once I was sure nothing followed us back… I’d leave this place. Let it shrink to a pinprick in my consciousness…until the next time.
I felt lighter, my breaths came easier, and every footstep was strangely silent as we hurried for that exit.
Emilia was back. Finally, something had gone right.
With dust motes dancing wildly in our wake, we’d reached the center of the room when blinding light exploded through the chamber. All around us, thousands of candles blazed to life, as if they’d been lit at once by an invisible hand.
At our feet, ancient runes ignited in midnight black stone, magic glowing like the floor caught fire, racing round and round…
Forming a perfect circle.
“Go. Move,” I shoved Emberline toward the edge of the circle, shoved her toward safety. But a wall of power slammed into us first, shimmering barriers surging upwards to the ceiling, their magic ancient and unbreakable.
A containment field.
“Shit,” Ember cursed, reaching out her fingers to touch the glowing magic. I snatched her hand back.
“We don’t know what this is or what it does. Until we do, stay behind me and don’t touch anything.” I was debating the odds that Emilia had betrayed us when out of the silence a slow, mocking clap echoed from the darkness.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
My blood turned to ice as—impossibly—a familiar figure materialized, striding confidently toward us as if he belonged in this place, a figment of my worst nightmares made real.
Tall and elegant, dressed in a fitted waistcoat and an immaculately tailored jacket, dark hair slicked back from his regal face and that permanently cold smile on his lips, Lord Blackwood could not have been more amused at our predicament.
“As always, Niccolò,”—he drifted closer, malice and approval glittering in his silver eyes—“you continue to surprise me.”
I stepped in front of Emberline, weaving a shield of shadows around us. Blackwood just chuckled, a low, delighted sound; he knew how inferior my magic was against his.
“I must say, I didn’t think you had it in you to break my spell. While that was a fine piece of work, surely you don’t expect Emilia DiSange to change the balance of power.” He tilted his head, eyes gleaming like liquid mercury. “I can see that you do. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
“But then, you always were so predictably short-sighted… son.”