Chapter 37
Syneca
Never finish a book you find open on a stranger’s table. The previous reader left it that way as a warning, not an invitation.
The forest roared.
Not an animal sound. Not wind through trees. Something massive moving through the air with enough force to shake the cottage windows, jostling Eda Mire’s herb jars violently and rattling the map right off the table.
Pip shot straight to the ceiling, wings beating so frantically she became a blur of blue and panic. “What was that? That sounded like something that wants to eat us.”
Lucy and I were already moving toward the door.
“That was dragon wings. Big ones,” she answered.
Pip flew to her side, giant eyes doubling in size. “How did you know that?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, shoving the door open and bursting into the Bloodwood clearing just in time to see Riot fill the entire space in full dragon form.
Enormous didn’t begin to cover it. Purple scales caught the morning light like jewels, iridescent and otherworldly, making him look less like a creature and more like a work of beautiful art given wings and teeth.
He was still catching his breath, sides heaving.
Three figures slid off his back with varying degrees of grace.
Calder landed like he’d done this before, boots hitting dirt and already scanning the area. The Oracle came next, guided down by Riot’s careful positioning. Wickett hit the ground last and immediately stumbled, one hand clutching his left side.
That’s when I saw it. Dark red soaked through his shirt.
“Fuck.” I moved before thinking, crossing the clearing fast enough that Lucy and Pip had to scramble to keep up. “Your stitches opened.”
“I’m fine. Just need to catch my breath.” Wickett’s voice was tight with pain, with pure stubbornness. He straightened, trying to project the Ripper mask he wore like armor, but failing spectacularly because blood didn’t lie.
I lunged, tucking myself under his arm to steady him. “You need help. How long have you been bleeding?”
Calder took his other side. “Since we went over the wall. Dragon flight isn’t smooth. And he refused to say anything until right before we landed.”
“Of course he did. Stubborn fucking hunter.”
A blur of movement caught my eye. Silas and Timber emerged from the tree line. The griffin snapped at the beast half-heartedly, more for show than actual aggression, and Timber ignored him, padding toward us with obvious concern.
Pip’s voice was so small, I almost didn’t hear her. “I’m glad you’re here. Can we please go back inside now? The Bloodwood is very scary, and I would like walls between me and everything that lives here. Preferably very thick walls. Maybe made of stone. Or steel. Probably both.”
We crowded into the cottage.
“Wickett. Chair. Now.” I was already gathering supplies. Water, clean cloth, needle and thread from Eda Mire’s collection.
Aureth pushed through, gesturing to the couch and a few random chairs shoved against the far wall.
“Everyone else, give them room.” Pip immediately claimed a spot on the armrest while Calder took position near the door, Timber settling at his feet.
Silas perched on the back of the couch, wings tucked tight as Riot stood near the table, staring out the window.
Wickett stepped back. “This can wa—”
I cut him off with the kind of authority Gran used to use when she was done with people’s nonsense.
“It absolutely cannot wait. If you finish that sentence, I will stab you myself just to make a point. You’ve lost too much blood.
If that wound gets infected out here, you’ll die.
Slowly. Painfully. Probably while complaining the entire time. So sit down and shut up.”
“You’re scary when you’re bossy,” Lucy observed from where she stood near a bedroom door. “I like it.”
“She’s always been a little scary if you give her enough room to be herself,” Calder muttered, but there was fondness threaded through the words.
After Wickett sat on the edge of the kitchen table, I pulled his shirt up. It was worse than I’d expected. All the stitches from last night had torn open. The wound gaped, its edges inflamed and angry, the blood soaking his clothes despite his body’s desperate attempts at clotting.
“You should have bandaged this tighter before you climbed on the back of a dragon and went joyriding over the city walls.” I moved my hands closer to the wound. “Aquaflux.”
Everyone watched as water streamed from the basin on the table to the wound. I guided it through the injury, unsure if this would even help at this point.
Wickett winced, but otherwise didn’t complain. “There was no time.”
Lucy walked over, handing me a fresh bandage and a bottle she’d pulled from the shelves. Antiseptic. “There’s always time to prevent dying from blood loss. That’s basic self-preservation. They teach that to children.”
“He killed a hunter in the Oracle’s chambers,” Calder said as if that would provide a strong defense. “I doubt the wound was first priority on the list of problems this morning.”
My hands stilled mid-motion, water hovering between my fingers and the wound. I looked down at Wickett, really looked, seeing past the blood and pain and stubborn refusal to admit weakness, and finally spotting what it must have cost him. What it meant. “You killed one of your own?”
Wickett’s voice was flat, emotionless. “He was questioning my authority. Suggested you were a traitor. Implied the Oracle conspired against the Magistrate. It seemed appropriate to the situation.”
Wickett Veyne hadn’t just escaped. He’d burned every bridge he’d ever built, made himself a target for every hunter, chosen this group, chosen me, over everything he’d ever known.
Over his own future.
I returned to cleaning the wound, but my touch was gentler now, more careful. As if I could somehow make up for what he’d sacrificed by not causing unnecessary pain. “The antiseptic is going to hurt.”
“I know.”
“I don’t have anything to numb it.”
His eyes narrowed on me, and once again, I couldn’t think beyond that stare. “I know.”
I poured the liquid onto a cloth and pressed it to his wound, holding eye contact. The man didn’t even flinch. I laced the thread through the needle eye, but it took me three tries because everyone was still watching. He was watching.
“I can do it,” Lucy said from beside me, though I hadn’t heard her move. “I’ve stitched plenty of players up on the field.”
I nodded, handing her the string.
The only sound was the whisper of needle and thread through flesh. Each pull made Wickett tense, muscles jumping under skin that was too pale, but he just stared at the ceiling with the kind of control that came from years of learning how to suffer quietly.
Pip hovered nearby, watching with wide eyes full of sympathy. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’ll live.” Lucy said, tying off the last stitch.
I moved in with a fresh bandage and salve, and with delicate fingers, I covered the wound, careful not to make any more eye contact in a small room with far too many watching.
“Thank you.”
The words were so soft I almost missed them, barely more than a breath in the space between us. And because I was a fool, I met his gaze and found something there that made it hard to remember why distance was important.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “You still might die from reckless behavior before this is over. The odds are actually fairly good.”
Not the response I wanted to give. But the one that was safer.
With Wickett bandaged and everyone settled enough that nobody looked like they were about to die in the next five minutes, we gathered around Eda Mire’s workbench, the map spread out between us. The dagger and talisman sat nearby, markers of our desperate plan.
I walked them through it quickly. They listened with skepticism ranging from Calder’s open disbelief to the Oracle’s serene acceptance of what sounded like a fever dream.
“A lost city.” Calder’s voice dripped with disbelief. “Based on a children’s story that someone’s mother used to read. And we’re supposed to find it in completely uncharted territory far too close to the Erelith that circles this world?”
The look he gave me was hard to witness. He’d always trusted me. Even when it made no damn sense. But this? This was our lives. And I couldn’t fault him for drawing a line somewhere.
I held his gaze, refusing to look away. “We followed the evidence. This isn’t a coincidence. This is a pattern.”
“Or it’s a trap designed by someone who knew we’d follow this exact trail. Or it’s a city that existed four hundred years ago and is now nothing but ruins.” His voice softened. “I’m sorry, Syn. But even I have to question this one. It’s a huge gamble.”
“I know it is,” I replied quietly.
Wickett leaned heavily on the table. “What are our alternatives? We can’t go back to the city. Can’t search randomly. The Ash is too dangerous, too vast to cover before the oath takes us.”
Riot gestured at the blank space on the map. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything but the ocean here. If there were islands, they’d be marked.”
Pip sat on the edge of the table, running her fingers over the blank space. “Maybe that’s why no one’s found it. Because it’s supposed to be hard to reach. Because easy paths lead to places that can’t be secret.”
I picked up the dagger, studying the engraved symbol I’d seen a thousand times. “Vitoria knew about Dyssara. Had connections to it. Whoever summoned her at night, whoever gave her these weapons must have been from there.”
“And if she’s running, if she’s desperate and afraid and needs sanctuary, where else would she go?” Lucy added.
Calder and Riot stared at the map in turn. Then Calder scrubbed his hand over his face, exhaustion showing through the cracks in his control.