23. Syneca
Syneca
To bind a promise, both parties must spit into the same fire. Witches break their word easily. Fire does not.
Dyssara had taught me to never trust a smile.
Ramiel stepped to my side as I stared at the heretics, his voice low and soothing.
“Relax, love. They see you only as a beautiful woman they might’ve seen before but can’t place where.
” He broke my stare with the woman, gently guiding me away from the crowd.
His hand on my elbow was steady, grounding me when I wanted to run.
Calder took my other side, forming a barrier between me and the chanting.
He brushed me with his shoulder. “Good news is, they’ve always been creepy.
Doesn’t matter if they know your name. Doesn’t matter if they know your face.
They’ll never get close enough to know anything else. I can promise you that.”
Dez let out a soft chuckle from behind us. “Imagine getting into a fist fight with a baby giant.”
“Who said anything about fists?” Calder answered, and anyone that didn’t know him likely wouldn’t have heard the softness in his tone.
“What’s your weapon of choice?” Dez asked, clearly trying to distract everyone from the pulsing tension as we walked beneath the banners.
“Whatever’s closest,” Calder answered. “Chairs. Bottles. My target’s own spine if I can get a good enough grip.”
Ramiel laughed. “Resourceful and brutal. I do enjoy a man who can improvise.”
“Survival isn’t about preference,” Calder said without looking at him. “It’s about efficiency.”
“Efficiency.” Ramiel drew the word out. “How practical. Though with all that height and presence, I imagine you could make breaking furniture look rather impressive.”
Dez cleared his throat. “Ram, you’re doing the thing again.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you flirt with anyone who shows the slightest competence.”
Ramiel waved him away. “I don’t flirt. I observe. And occasionally appreciate what I observe.”
“You appreciate a lot of things,” Dez answered.
“Last time I checked, so do you.”
Pip landed on my shoulder as the two of them continued, whispering, “Do you have any runes to make them kiss already? Because I’ll go find one if I have to.”
“I’d kiss a one-eyed gargoyle before him again,” Dez answered, coming forward to slide his arm over my shoulder, pushing Ramiel to the outside. “Now tell me about this Lucy…”
“She would literally eat you. And that’s all you get to know,” Pip said.
I wasn’t sure if anyone else caught the curve of Calder’s lips at the sprite’s protective tone, but when Dez had the nerve to act intrigued, I elbowed him in the stomach and pulled away from them all.
They were trying to distract me, trying to keep me from looking up.
But I’d made a habit of watching the skies for Silas.
I couldn’t stop. And something in me yearned for his steady, unamused mood.
Because if nothing else, his attitude was reliable.
We turned down a narrower street, stepping into the Crook, the darker part of Grimora where fewer people ventured. Still no hunters. The absence of them put me on edge more than their presence would have.
“Don’t you think this crazy hunter probably mentioned the witch has a griffin familiar that follows her around?” Dez asked, glancing up at Silas. “Not sure he should look the same as he did before when he was here.”
Ramiel lifted the collar of his coat to stave off the autumn chill in the air. “I offered to turn him into a vulture, but he threatened unspeakable things. Besides, he’s mostly hidden by clouds.”
Dez sighed. “Should have gone with a dragon. Everyone wants to be a dragon.”
“Speaking of dragons,” Pip said, quietly. “Why are we starting the hunt at the Gilded Pestle?”
It was the only lead I had. I hadn’t told them of things I remembered.
Of the things hidden within those shelves.
Knowledge Eda had kept locked away. Ingredients and books and secrets she’d never shared with anyone except maybe Gran, though even that was a mystery.
Still, my chest was already aching. I knew we had to go back. It didn’t mean I wanted to.
She’d taken her last breath on the floor while I’d been too much of a fool to help her. Where Vitoria had stolen one of the most important people from my life and I’d been too blind to see the betrayal coming.
“It’s the greatest wealth of stolen knowledge I can think of.” I said quietly. “Aside from Thistle and Thorn and maybe the record hall in the Chancellery.”
“And we’re visiting the scrivener’s bookshop next,” Dez added. “Per my request.”
I nodded, forcing myself to keep walking toward the shop where everything had started to fall apart.
I focused on the familiar details instead of the ache.
Laundry that hung between windows, gray and faded from soot that never quite washed out.
The smell that’d changed. Less food, more smoke and metal from the factories that ran day and night.
Steam hissed from vents in the street, curling around our ankles as we walked.
A woman hurried past carrying a basket of something that seemed to hum. She didn’t look at us. No one did. That was the rule in the Crook. You minded your business and everyone else minded theirs.
Shops lined the narrow street, most of their signs worn and crooked. A locksmith. A charm-maker. Something that advertised “Discretion Guaranteed” in peeling paint. I knew every one of them. Had walked this route a hundred times with Gran when she needed ingredients Eda Mire kept in stock.
The Gilded Pestle sat at the end of the block, its windows dark. We approached the front door and I tried not to look over my shoulder. Tried to ignore the feeling that someone was watching, that any second hunters would pour out from the shadows.
I took the key from Pip, her tiny fingers pressing the metal into my palm with more solemnity than the moment probably required. “Maybe we should just go to the bookshop. If you don’t want to go in there…”
The runestone clasped into the skeleton design at the top of the key caught the dim light as I traced it with my thumb before sliding the key into the lock.
“Indelianous,” I said quietly, activating the magic. “I have to do this, Pip. But you can stay out here if you want to.”
The mechanism clicked and the door inched open.
“That’s an interesting key,” Dez said from behind me.
“Eda Mire was an interesting person,” Calder answered. His voice carried that careful tone he used when talking about people he’d respected. “The Mistress of Blades, they called her. Not because she wielded them, but because she could forge a blade from a man.”
His voice faded into background noise as I stared at the gap between door and frame. The last time I’d been here, there had been a body on the floor.
I reached for the bond with Silas without thinking, needing the comfort and steadiness that came with it. But I didn’t feel him respond through the connection, and when I looked up to search the skies where he’d been circling, he was gone.
Rather than his constant point from above, Silas stepped from the alley beside the Gilded Pestle, already in human form, already watching me.
Our eyes locked across the small group. He crossed to me in three strides, close enough his shoulder brushed mine as he reached past me and pushed the door wider.
His voice was quiet, just for me. “Take your time.”
We held each other’s gaze. A conversation that didn’t need words. A promise to protect me, even if it was only from looking weak in front of the others. Even if it was only from having to face this alone.
With that, I stepped inside.
Silas positioned himself in the doorway, blocking the view. I heard him speak to the others, so calm and absolute. “Give her a minute.”
The familiar smells hit me first. Ink and magic. Old wood and potions that used to brew in the back room. My memories of a beautiful witch who’d taken me in when there was no one left. Who’d taught me things Gran never would have. Who’d made me feel like maybe I belonged somewhere.
But even that had been a lie.
Eda Mire had never been a witch. She’d been a fury-born hiding in plain sight, and I’d been too blind to see it.
I opened my eyes, bracing myself for the golden blood stains on the floor. For the reminder that I’d gotten everything wrong.
But there was no blood.
Only an old leather book lying exactly where her body had been.
I knelt and lifted it carefully. The cover was worn smooth from age, the leather soft beneath my fingers.
But something was missing from the cover.
Tiny, bent prongs encased a divot in the leather as if a runestone had been carefully pried from its home.
I searched my memory trying to find a hint of familiarity in the book, but there was nothing.
I was confident I’d never seen this before. I opened it and fanned the old pages.
A letter drifted out, falling silently to the floor.
The handwriting was elegant and precise, the kind of script that belonged to someone who’d taken great care with her lettering.
Syneca,
The path twists in ways we cannot always see, yet each step leads where it was always meant to go. What feels like chaos is merely the pattern revealing itself.
Eda Mire’s final gift was not the Gilded Pestle, though it is yours to claim should you wish it. Her true bequest rests in your hands: a book with mysteries even I cannot unravel. Perhaps it will show you what you need to see.
Trust what unfolds, even when you cannot yet understand it. I’m told it’s the bravest thing one can ever do.
—Aureth
Aureth. Who was she to speak to me of trust when she’d led me straight into chaos and let me follow blindly. Who was she to speak to me at all when she never really said anything of consequence.
“Fuck your trust.”
I whispered, “Ignis,” and watched the paper catch fire. The flames crawled across the Oracle’s words, turning them to ash. I let the ember reach my fingers, feeling the heat but not the burn, before I opened the book again.