8. Syneca #2
“I don’t know yet. But at least we know where he is. He’s on our side of the veil. That’s something. That’s more than we had yesterday.”
She was right. But knowing Calder was here, trapped in some demon’s court, unable to reach us felt worse than not knowing at all.
I woke to breathing that wasn’t mine.
Not Pip’s light flutter. Not the distant sounds of the manor settling. Not the sound of Silas padding down the hall in griffin form, brooding. This was something else. Someone else.
My eyes snapped open.
A figure stood at the foot of my bed. Male. Tall. Features I couldn’t make out in the darkness but the intent was clear in the way he moved toward me.
I reached for the bond instead of my magic, instinct driving me. Years of relying on Silas.
The connection stretched toward him and hit nothing. Empty space where power should have been.
The demon lunged.
I threw myself sideways, hitting the floor hard. I scrambled for fire Gran had warned me against as a child. Fire I’d learned to bury so deep no one would ever find it.
Nothing happened.
A witch stripped of her craft was just a woman in the dark, and that was exactly what I’d become.
The demon’s hand closed around my ankle, yanking me backward.
I kicked, connected with something solid, and heard him grunt.
But he didn’t let go. He yanked me closer.
I couldn’t see his face within the shadows of his hood, but I could see narrowed eyes before fingers wrapped around my throat.
“You’re mine. Tell me you’re mine and I will release you. ”
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t speak. His fingers were wrapped too tightly around my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I kicked and bucked and threw fist after fist, trying desperately to remember every lesson from Calder. But I had no weapons and no leverage to break away.
Panic clawed up my throat. I pulled again on magic that should have been there, should have answered, should have—
The door exploded inward.
Silas filled the frame. Not the careful, controlled demon who’d been avoiding me for days.
Something else entirely. Something that made the air crackle with violence.
He crossed the room in a blur. Grabbed the demon by the back of his neck and threw him off me like he weighed nothing.
The man hit the wall hard enough to crack stone.
Before he could slide down, Silas was there, fist connecting with his face once, twice, the sound of breaking bone obscenely loud in the small space.
The demon tried to fight back. Claws extended, reaching for Silas’s throat.
Silas caught his wrist and twisted. The snap echoed.
I inched backward, watching my griffin grab the demon's throat, pinning him to the wall.
“Who sent you?” Silas’s voice was calm. Empty. More terrifying than shouting would have been.
The demon spat blood. “Fuck you.”
“Wrong answer.”
Silas’s hand tightened. The demon’s struggles grew weaker before he went limp.
Silas held him there for another few seconds. When he released him, the body crumpled to the floor.
Shadows erupted from the corners of the room. Living darkness that wrapped around the corpse and pulled it down, down, until nothing remained but clean floor and the faint smell of sulfur.
Silas turned to face me.
We stared at each other. His chest heaving. My heart trying to break through my ribs.
His eyes raked over me. Searching. Scouring. Making sure I was whole.
Then he was moving.
Breaking the careful distance he’d been keeping for days to storm across the room in three strides, dropping to his knees beside me.
His hands found my arms in a touch too gentle for hands that had just killed someone. “Stand up,” he said, but he was already lifting me. Pulling me to my feet.
I stood on shaking legs, and he didn’t let go. Just kept his hands on my arms like he was afraid I’d fall if he released me.
“Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn. Around.” His voice broke slightly on the words.
He guided me through the spin himself. Hands steady on my shoulders, turning me slowly, scanning every inch. Looking for injuries. For blood. For anything that would tell him I was hurt.
When I faced him again, his hand came up to cup my face as his eyes searched mine for pain I wasn’t divulging. “Are you okay?”
I could only stare at him as his thumb traced my cheekbone with devastating gentleness.
His eyes dropped to my throat. To where the demon’s hands had been.
His expression changed.
The gentleness bled away, replaced by something colder. Harder. His thumb moved from my cheek to my neck, rubbing carefully over marks I could already feel forming. Bruises in the shape of fingers.
“Syn.”
My name in his mouth was a low, dangerous thing. His jaw clenched so hard I heard his teeth grind. The hand on my face tightened. Not enough to hurt, just enough that I felt the leash on his control starting to fray.
He stepped back, putting distance between us with visible effort and for a fraction of a second, I was completely lost in his reaction.
In those eyes that hated everything in the world, but had held me so gently just now.
In the crack of his composure. I had no idea how to process any of it.
But it all vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
The concern was gone. Buried under obvious fury.
“I tried to use my magic,” I said, needing to fill the silence. “It’s gone.”
His voice turned flat. “It’s not gone. You used it to latch on to me when we flew across the Ash.
You just can’t control it. It doesn’t bend to your will.
And now they know you’re here.” He took a step closer, and the fury in his eyes made me press harder against the wall.
“I’ve been doing my best to hide it. Dez and I have been pouring our magic around this manor for days, trying to camouflage you.
But your power is born from emotions, Syneca.
And every fucking time you get scared or worried or sad, every time you feel anything at all, there’s a flare we can’t hide. ”
“So, I’m not supposed to feel? That’s the problem?”
“You’re dripping with power.” He stepped close again. “I can feel it from across the manor. They can feel it from across Kiamond. The only reason you’re still alive is because we’ve been working ourselves to exhaustion trying to mask it.” His jaw clenched. “That ends tomorrow.”
“I’m not using my power in this realm.”
“Look what the fuck just happened in this room.” He gestured sharply to where the demon’s body had been. “You’re screaming to every demon strong enough to hear that you’re powerful. Yet you don’t have the ability to protect yourself when they come for you.”
Shame burned hotter than fear. “I don’t need to unlock my magic. You just need to give back my access to yours.”
“No. That’s not an option here. But if you could learn to control it,” his voice went deadly quiet, “you could shield it. Lock it down so tight no one would feel a damn thing. You could save us all the trouble of playing defense while you cry in your room and send up flares every time your heart breaks again.”
He might as well have struck me.
“Isn’t that your job?” I shot back. “Isn’t that what you wanted when you and my grandmother bargained for my freedom? To protect me? This sounds like a you problem. Because what happens to you when I die, Silas? What happens when the first bargain you ever made breaks?”
“Your death isn’t going to break that bargain,” he ground out, and it sounded far more like a threat than a vow. Something flickered in his expression. Pain, maybe. Or more anger. Hard to tell when they looked so similar.
He moved forward. Not fast but carefully. Each step eating the distance between us again until I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to watch you almost get killed because you’re too stubborn to accept what you are?”
“I know what I am.”
“Do you?” He was close enough now that I could feel the heat coming off him.
Close enough that my back hit the wall and I had nowhere left to retreat.
“Because from where I’m standing, you’re a Phoenix who’s spent twenty-seven years pretending to be a puddle.
And now you’re in a realm full of demons who can smell the fire on you, and you can’t even strike a match to save yourself. ”
My breath came faster. “Get away from me.”
“Why?” He braced one hand on the wall beside my head. “Does this scare you? Being close to someone who might actually hurt you?”
Wickett’s face flashed through my mind. His hands on me. His blade in my stomach. The way he’d looked at me while Gran died.
Silas saw it. Saw the moment I went somewhere else, and his expression shifted into something I couldn’t name. “I need you to look at me and hate me, Syneca. You’re doing it so beautifully. Keep seeing the monster.” He stopped, swallowing whatever he’d been about to say.
I forced myself to focus. To see him instead of Wickett. To remember that this demon had spent years keeping me alive.
“I don’t hate you,” I whispered.
His hand curled into a fist against the wall. “You should.”
“I know.”
Finally, Silas pushed away from the wall. Put distance between us that felt both like relief and loss. Like letting go of the steam was something I hadn’t even known I’d needed until he’d forced it out of me.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice back to that careful control. “You learn to use your magic. All of it. Or the next demon who comes through that door won’t give me time to stop them.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.” He turned toward the door, then paused. “And Syneca? Lock your door. The manor’s protections only work if you actually use them.”
Then he was gone, and I was alone in a room that still smelled like sulfur and violence.
My legs gave out. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, hands shaking, heart still racing.
Tomorrow, I’d learn to control magic I’d spent my entire life running from.
Tonight, I’d just try to remember how to breathe.