Chapter 6
Syneca
When the Furies walk among mortals, note the ash in the air and the trouble brewing in the dark.
We moved through the Crook like people who had business that wouldn’t bear scrutiny.
The morning crowd was thinner than usual, but the heretics were out in force, a growing mob of people that most sane citizens gave a wide berth to, their ramblings about the end times having long since crossed from concerning into unhinged.
They camped on street corners like diseased birds, their voices raised in desperation.
“The Burning comes!” one shrieked as we passed, his eyes wild with fervor.
“Seek sanctuary in Dyssara!” Another grabbed at Vitoria’s sleeve, babbling about signs and portents until she shook him off with disgust. We paid them no mind.
Madmen had been predicting the world’s end since the last Burning, and they’d be predicting it long after we were gone.
Real danger walked quieter paths.
Eda Mire’s summons had come at dawn, delivered by the charming little sprite whose wings shook with nerves when he looked at the Heartless One.
Every time. She wanted to see us. Immediately.
That kind of urgency usually meant someone was dead, someone needed to be dead, or someone was about to make both those things happen to us.
Odd that I’d been included in the summons, though.
Typically, she kept her business with me separate from her other, darker deeds.
She’d been the bridge between Calder, Vitoria and I, linking us together to keep her business strong.
I provided runework, and the others provided the hand of death.
It worked out. Mostly. Because together, we’d become friends, and somewhere along the way, family.
One grump, one snarky little rebel, and me, a little afraid of the world, a lot guarded, and defiant only when it came to my truth.
Otherwise, I stayed in line. Kept secrets that needed keeping and made no waves.
“Think she heard about last night?” Vitoria asked, stepping around a puddle that steamed in the cold air.
“Eda Mire hears about everything,” Calder replied. “Question is what she wants to do about it.”
Above us, Silas wheeled through the gray morning sky, a black shape against darker clouds.
My anchor. The only creature alive who knew what I truly was, bound to me by blood magic so old it might’ve predated the Furies’ Ascension.
Through him, I could touch water magic—his gift becoming mine through the binding my grandmother had forged in desperation and love.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. I spent my days at the Chancellery carving runes in perfect isolation, surrounded by people who’d die before letting me touch their deepest secrets. But the biggest secret of all sat in my own chest, locked away where even my closest friends couldn’t find it.
Not Vitoria, who’d die for me without question.
Nor Calder, who’d already killed for me.
Not even Eda Mire, who’d given us shelter and helped raise me beside Gran when we had nowhere else to go. Somehow Gran had known her, and from that friendship came unquestioned protection from the dark and depraved.
None of them knew the Phoenix they feared carved their protection runes and shared their meals and laughed at their jokes while carrying the power to burn it all down.
Only Silas knew Gran’s knife had carved destiny from my flesh, leaving behind a scar that told the story of what I was meant to be. He’d become a lifeline to a broken young woman who needed an anchor more than she needed breath.
He’d never judged me for it. But lately, in the quiet moments when I thought no one was watching, I caught him studying me with those icy blue eyes. Like he was waiting for something. Like he knew something I didn’t.
Inside the Gilded Pestle, Eda Mire stood behind her counter, but she wasn’t working. No grinding herbs, no sorting stones. Just standing there with her hands flat on the wood, staring at nothing. She looked up when we entered, and I saw something I’d never seen before in those dark eyes.
Uncertainty.
“Shut the door,” she said. “Lock it.”
Calder obeyed without question. The lock clicked home with the finality of a coffin lid.
Eda Mire moved to the kettle behind the counter, but her hands shook slightly as she poured. Just enough for me to notice. “The city’s been... active since last night. My contacts are buzzing like disturbed wasps. Everyone knows something’s changed, but no one can agree on what.”
She set four cups on the counter, steam rising from the dark liquid. Not her usual healing tea. Something stronger. Something that smelled of mint and steel and things that only bloomed when shadows crossed the moon.
“Drink,” she commanded.
The liquid burned going down, but it cleared my head in ways that had nothing to do with exhaustion. Magic sharpened. Colors brightened. The edge of the world became as crisp as winter air.
“Truth serum?” Vitoria asked, eyeing her cup with suspicion long before she sipped.
“If I thought you’d lie, I’d draw out my truth runes. It’s clarity draught,” Eda Mire corrected. “I need to know exactly what you saw last night. Every detail. Every face. Every word.”
So we told her. The games, the memorial, the Ripper’s approach. His questions, his suspicions, the way he’d studied us like specimens in a jar. Through it all, Eda Mire’s expression grew darker.
“He followed you out?” she asked when we finished.
Calder nodded. “For a while. Lost him in the crowd near the docks.”
“The docks.” Something flickered across her face. “Vitoria? What else did you hear? Besides the usual smuggling gossip.”
Vitoria frowned. “Nothing much. Some dock workers talking about unusual cargo shipments. More witches moving through than usual. But that’s been going on for weeks.”
“Months,” Eda Mire corrected quietly. “Ever since the rumors started.”
“What rumors?” I asked.
Eda Mire moved to the window, peering through glass so dirty it turned the world sepia. “That one of the fury-born has been spotted in the city. The Oracle, they say. Walking among us like a common citizen.”
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
The Furies were legends. Nearly goddesses.
The three sisters had stormed this world and remade it in magic’s image.
They mostly stayed hidden in their sanctuary with their female descendants, protected by four dragons and secrets older than memory.
It was rumored you could no longer tell a Sister Fury from a fury-born, their children, and that’s how they preferred it. Camouflaged among their own kind.
The Oracle was one of the few that left the sanctuary, but she didn’t take strolls through city streets. She was destined to deliver prophecy around the world, and she’d been doing it for a very, very long time.
“I’ve never heard of her coming to Grimora,” I said. “In fact, rumor at the Chancellery is that the Magistrate holds some kind of grudge against the Furies for refusing his numerous invitations.”
“Hmm. I’ve met her once, a long time ago.
The timing is interesting. It can’t be the games.
Why would she care for mortal entertainment?
” Eda Mire turned back to us, her face grave.
“You’re sure you saw nothing? She’s blonde, blind and wears a tattered blindfold.
Last time I saw her, she kept a large black raven close by. Think hard.”
We shook our heads.
“She usually travels with a man. Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed like any sellsword, yet there’s a gravity to him. Something carved into the line of his jaw, the way he holds himself as if born to command. His eyes burn too bright, like embers trapped behind glass. Not a man. A—”
“Guardian,” Calder said, cutting in. He closed his eyes, and I did the same. “Give me his physical description.”
“Dark brown hair, amber eyes, the dragon marked on his neck would give him away if he isn’t hiding it.”
I felt the clarity drought brightening my mind as I thought back to the crowd. Everything slowed as I scanned those I’d taken in, even whispers I didn’t realize I’d heard, anything that would confirm the Oracle’s presence. Nothing.
“Maybe she’s not here. And if she is, it makes no difference to us,” Vitoria said, sliding her cup back toward Eda Mire. “All races come and go through this city at one point or another.”
“If the Oracle is here, it’s to deliver a prophecy.
A great change. A warning. I can promise you that.
” She moved around the counter, and for the first time since I’d known her, Eda Mire looked every year of her age.
“The Furies are beloved, protected even, because they gifted this world magic, and some fear they can take it away. The Oracle is not to be taken lightly. She is truth. She is premonition.”
“What do you want us to do?” Calder asked, setting down his empty cup.
Eda Mire’s smile was as sharp as winter.
“Survive. Same as always.” Her eyes searched my face with an intensity that made my breath catch.
“Whatever happens, remember that this is your family. Each of you is important. Protect each other. If the Oracle is here to further damn the witches, do everything you can to save each other. Go home. Keep your heads down. And if anyone comes asking questions about last night, you were drunk and celebrating like half the city.”
“What about you?” I asked.
Her smile turned oddly soft, almost maternal, touched with something that might have been regret. “I’ll be fine, child. I always am.”
But as we left through the back door, I caught her reflection in the grimy window. She wasn’t watching us go.
She watched the street as if she expected someone to follow.
Our apartment felt oddly normal after Eda Mire’s warnings, like the world was pretending nothing had changed. Because it hadn’t.
Vitoria was right. Even if the Oracle was in Grimora, it truly made no difference to us. Were we supposed to be afraid? To hide?