Chapter 26
The last flower was dying.
Elara turned the stem between her fingers, feeling it give, fibers splintering softly. Each day in Luirigh had leached a little more life from it—its petals now browned and curling inward like small hands.
Downstairs, the sounds of evening drifted upward through the old floorboards of her room—muffled laughter, the scrape of chairs, the soft clash of dishes as Aoife and Reynnar bickered amiably over who had left the pot to scorch.
They had spent the whole day buried in Odhrán’s ledgers, scouring columns until the ink blurred.
Nothing new had surfaced to tie the disappearances together.
By dusk, whatever hope she’d nursed had thinned to habit.
Eamon had returned around midday and stayed silent through it all, that taut, restless quiet of his pressing against the room.
He’d kept his distance, but she felt his gaze more than once. She hadn’t met it.
Now the lamp guttered beside her, painting thin shadows across stacks of parchment and the worn spine of a book left open at her elbow. She’d excused herself early, claiming a headache—but what she really needed was a few minutes alone.
Between her fingers, the flower’s stem turned and gave faintly, splintering. Brittle stalk, hollow core, the last of its nectar clinging inside—her final chance to reach that gray nowhere where Ivan waited. A gentle pinch along the break coaxed a single drop to gather. She pressed it to her tongue.
The sweetness spread slowly, coating her throat with its familiar creeping numbness. But beneath the calm it promised, dread coiled tight. Once this flower was gone, there would be no path back to him—not until they left Luirigh.
“Please work.”
The door opened without a knock.
“You know,” said a voice, smooth as oil on water, “most sane people don’t plead with their medicine.”
Elara’s breath caught, eyes snapping to the doorway to find Eamon there, smirking, one shoulder resting against the frame. Heat climbed her throat. She tightened her grip on the stem, but he was already moving, closing the distance.
“Field narcotic,” he said, plucking it from her grasp before she could react.
He spun it, watching the last trace of nectar gleam across its surface.
“They used to give this to soldiers after the worst campaigns—the ones who couldn’t sleep for the screaming in their heads.
” His tone held a trace of distaste. “Half of them wasted away chasing the quiet it promised.”
Her pulse hammered. “It’s for pain.”
“Is it?” His gaze dropped to where her tunic had slipped down—to the jagged scar running from her collarbone to her shoulder, still pink with new flesh. “Interesting,” he murmured, “that you’d choose to keep it as a reminder.”
Heat climbed her throat as she yanked her shirt closed. “Thank you, by the way, for leaving it as it was.”
Amusement flickered across his face. “Who am I to rob death of her handiwork?”
He tossed the stem aside, and Elara watched, her heart in her throat, as the last of the nectar seeped into the wood—dark, slow, final. Her hands threatened to shake.
“Does Reynnar know you’re taking this?” he asked, folding his arms.
Her shoulders squared, tension pulling tight between them. “He’s not my keeper.”
One brow lifted. Nothing more. Then—
“How much did you take?”
“Only a little,” she said, glaring—she wanted him to leave. To take his probing, dissecting gaze and his endless questions back through the door he’d come in. No doubt he’d go straight to Reynnar with whatever conclusions he’d drawn, but she couldn’t face that conversation tonight.
Eamon only nodded. “All right.” He crossed to the table, pulling his gloves from his belt. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“You were right earlier. We’re chasing shadows while the real answers sit locked behind the Concordium’s doors.” His eyes flicked to the dagger on her nightstand. “I want you to show me how it works.”
Elara moved before she could think, stepping between him and the weapon.
His smile returned—slow, indulgent. “Protective of it, are we?”
She ignored the bait. “Reynnar will never agree to this.”
He rolled his shoulders back—lazy, but edged with something dangerous, like a cat stretching before a strike. “Reynnar is not your keeper…isn’t that right?” A beat. “And besides, he isn’t invited.”
She crossed her arms, feeling her pulse hammer beneath them. “Why would I go anywhere alone with you?”
He tilted his head, mock concern settling over his features.
“Still sore about the arrow?” His tone dripped with theatrical remorse.
“Tell me—how must I grovel for your forgiveness? What does Reynnar do to earn your favor? I’ll do it better.
” She scrunched her face in disgust, but he was already laughing—low, rich, and utterly without warmth. “You’ll come with me.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Is that right?”
“It is.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping.
“Because there’s something else in the Central Concordium’s archives you might be interested in seeing.
Records from the noble houses—bloodlines, family histories, birth registries going back centuries.
” He held her gaze. “If you truly are what you suspect—then your name might be there, too.”
Her name.
The thought sent a shiver through her. The room wavered, the air shifting with the faint sigh of curtains against the window. A record—not a vision, not a theory, but something verifiable. Her name written among the lines of a house and bloodline. It would mean proof. A place to begin.
And—more than that—if she went with him tonight, they might uncover more in hours than they had in weeks.
Fingers curling at her sides, Elara drew in a measured breath and lifted her gaze. “Fine,” she said. The word came out more composed than the thoughts that led to it. “But if this turns out to be another of your clever little games, Eamon—”
His smile came easily, careless as ever. “What then? You fetch Reynnar, he knocks out a few more of my teeth, and everyone sleeps better for it?” His gaze flicked toward the door, as if already imagining it. “I must say, he does enjoy that part.”
Elara didn’t reply. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her blade and stepped toward him. Candlelight slid along it as she turned it once in her palm. Eamon’s gaze followed the motion.
“No,” she said slowly. “I wouldn’t trouble Reynnar. I’d see to you myself.”
Another step.
“Tell me something,” she went on. “Do you know what it is to stand inside the Void? There’s no sky.
No ground. Only shifting currents beneath you and darkness without end.
Your thoughts turn on themselves—every word, every mistake—again and again, until you forget there was ever a world outside it.
I imagine yours would be especially loud. ”
Eamon swallowed, disguising the anxious tell with a thoughtful tilt of his head.
“If I wanted,” she said, almost lightly, “I could open the Veil right here. Push you into one of those currents. You’d drift for a very long time.
Long enough to start begging for me to come back—for me to end it.
” She closed the final inch between them, lifting her chin until she could feel the warmth of his breath.
“If this is another manipulation,” she said softly, “I don’t give a damn what the others think of you—how they trust you.
I’ll leave you in there—and I won’t come back. Not even to see what’s left of you.”
The oil lamp flickered, light washing over Eamon’s eyes—pupils blown wide—then slipping away. He drew in a slow breath. “Well,” he said. “It appears we’ve come to an understanding.”
Elara held his gaze a moment longer, then turned toward the door. “If we’re doing this,” she said, “I’ll need a map—and somewhere quiet to calculate the crossing.”
“Calculate?”
She didn’t look back. “You’ll see.”
They had taken refuge in the linen closet at the top of the stairs—the only place in the house large enough to spread the maps without drawing attention, and small enough that no one would think to look for them there.
Shelves of folded sheets and blankets rose on either side, the air smelling faintly of soap and lavender.
Elara sat cross-legged on the floor, the maps spread open between her and Eamon.
Odhrán’s city plan lay beneath the stolen architectural drawings of the record hall, the two sheets weighted together with bits of charcoal and inkstones.
Candlelight gathered weakly in the cramped space, turning the web of streets and corridors into a maze of dark lines and shadow.
Her hair was twisted loosely at the base of her neck, though several curls had already escaped, falling forward whenever she bent toward the parchment. The margins of both maps were crowded with her notes now—rows of calculations climbing into spaces the cartographer had never meant for ink.
She had started with the simplest measures first.
Linear distance between the house and the archive tower.
Her quill moved steadily across the page as she marked the streets that lay between them, then the outer district wall, then the height and depth of the tower itself.
A crossing through the Void ignored the obstacles of the surface world, but mass still mattered.
Stone displaced space differently than air, and the Veil bent around it accordingly.
The first column of numbers came quickly.
The second did not.
Across from her, Eamon sat with his back against the closet shelves, long legs stretched loosely across the boards.
He had been silent for some time now. The earlier tension in his expression had softened into something more contemplative as he watched her work.
Elara had forgotten he was there twice already. But she felt his gaze now.
She paused mid-scribble and glanced up. “What?”
He leaned back, studying the sprawl of figures. “All that for a doorway? I thought it was a matter of pulling it open and stepping inside.”