31. Syneca #2
“You won’t need it,” I promised, drawing on my power. “Adhesio levis.”
The fire answered just as it had the last time Silas and I left this clearing behind. The magic was warm, weaving from my palms into the space where my body met his. The bond between us sealed itself without ceremony.
But our connection was different now.
It had been different since Dyssara. Since the Underworld and the training room and every terrible honest moment in between.
I felt him breathe beneath me and knew the rhythm of it, had memorized it without knowing what I was doing when I’d needed the griffin.
Now it wasn’t just the rise and fall of him.
It was the warmth that came off his skin, it was the huff of disapproval he gave as the beast and the demon, it was the protection he promised.
The time he gave. It was the look in his eyes when he brought down the Chancellery to save a sprite.
Each moment settled amongst the plethora of warnings I’d heard of demons and their play over one’s darkest desires.
I’d been fooled once. Never again, no matter how much this bond to Silas made me deeply aware of how he felt as a beast between my legs.
He launched without warning, and I pressed low against his back as the Bloodwood fell away beneath us.
We flew north along the coastline. Below us the ocean was black and absolute, the smell of salt cutting clean through the Ash.
Pip remained in the satchel, wings flat, breathing steadily. Asleep within minutes.
After only a few hours, the city appeared.
Streets lined with lanterns glowing warm against the dark.
It was beautiful despite the chill of late autumn settling in.
From above, the buildings looked aged and uneven with crooked gables, black stone, and towering chimneys exhaling smoke that disappeared into the night like ghosts.
Pumpkins and various carved gourds flickered on sills and steps, scattering the streets below with small pools of orange light.
The entire city felt suspended in that eerie space between beautiful and haunted.
Only a handful of people moved through the streets at this hour, bundled in long coats with their heads lowered against the cold.
Still, with the sprites zipping through alleyways, their tiny glowing bodies flickering blue and gold against the dark like wandering stars, it was familiar. More home than Kiamond would ever be.
We landed just inside the city, smothered in the shadow of an alley until we oriented ourselves.
“Hood up,” Silas said, eyeing the scattered banners floating above us, and only then did I realize we hadn’t asked Ramiel to hide my features.
He stepped before me, his broad shoulders blocking the streets ahead of us as his fingers gripped the sides of my fallen hood.
For a single second, the eyes of the familiar I’d lost locked with mine and I felt my heart stutter.
I felt it ache in sadness. But as quick as the feeling had come, it vanished and I couldn’t help but wonder if those were his feelings or mine.
“It smells like cinnamon and pumpkins and caramel crispies,” I said, seeking a distraction.
“Are you hungry?”
“No. Just remembering what it was like to enjoy the small things.”
He dipped his chin, holding my stare. And suddenly it was only us standing in the middle of a city that knew nothing about who we’d been to each other.
No history. No lies. No ghosts trailing behind us.
For one impossible moment, it felt like we could become something else entirely.
I saw it on his face too, that quiet, devastating ache for a life neither of us were meant to touch.
His knuckles brushed my jaw as he pulled the fabric forward. “Just in case.” But his eyes lingered on mine a second too long before he stepped away.
I slipped my hand into his before I could think too hard about it, my fingers curling around his as though they belonged there. He glanced down at the movement briefly, something unreadable crossing his face before his grip tightened once in return.
The city moved quietly around us as we wandered, our steps muffled against the streets. I kept my hood low while I searched every street sign we passed, trying not to linger too long on any one corner. We couldn’t afford to look lost.
There were fewer banners here than in Grimora, at least. Parts of the city had none at all.
As if the enchantments holding them up had grown weak.
Or maybe the hunters had been less diligent.
There was something odd about the city though.
Maybe not odd, but different. Where Grimora had been stifled by runes, Brathen seemed to be alive because of them.
Perhaps that was just the way of the outside world though.
More freedom for witchcraft, though it didn’t seem likely.
“Pitsea Place,” I murmured under my breath, pretending to admire the glowing display of enchanted watches in a shop window etched with the words ‘Pendulum and Pine’. “I think we missed it.”
“No,” Silas said quietly beside me, his thumb brushing once against the inside of my wrist beneath our joined hands. “I think it’s close. The last three streets ended in Place.”
I took his word for it, and we kept going, letting the smells of autumn gardens pass by until we found the street we needed.
As we moved further out of the heart of the city, we picked up the pace, watching the numbers get smaller and smaller until only one house remained. 52 Pitsea Place, Brathen House.
Dark gray stone ran the full perimeter with a copper gate breaking it at the front.
The scrollwork was simple, the hinges green with age.
Behind it the black house rose two stories, with a steep roof and every shutter closed.
There was no wear on the path. No ground disturbed anywhere near the door.
Nothing had come or gone from here in a very long time.
Silas tried the gate first, but the second he reached for it, a hissing sound filled the night, causing him to jerk his hand away. “Fuck. It’s warded.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is.”
Pip rustled from within the satchel, wings drooping as she lifted free with another deep yawn. “I’ll go over.”
I didn’t have time to warn her before she bounced back off something invisible above the wall with a shriek.
I jerked around, watching the nearby houses, making sure no one heard the absolute commotion we were making.
When no one appeared at a lit window, I stepped forward and ran my hands along the gatepost, reading the runes layered beneath my fingers.
This was old work. Years of it, built up carefully.
And there, at exactly the height of my hand, a piece of amber set flush into the stone.
Small and smooth and warm despite the cold.
Inside it, a deliberate gap. Not a flaw. A space left waiting.
I pressed my palm against it.
“Stop.” Silas’s hand closed around my wrist, pulling it back. “Your magic. Not mine.”
“I really don’t think it’s time for—”
“For once in your life, don’t argue with me. The journal with the same monogram as that—” he pointed at the worn ‘S’ on the lopsided Brathen House sign. “—burst into flames in her shop. If you weave the rune wrong, you may not have another shot. Use fire and go carefully, for fuck’s sake.”
I glared at him from beneath the hood. “I don’t need lessons on how to be a witch from a demon.”
“Perhaps,” he said, gesturing to the gate, “Prove me wrong.”
“To be fair,” Pip said, settling back into the satchel, “If Eda Mire meant for Syn to come here, which we don’t really know if she did, she’s the one that taught her how to weave runes with water. Makes more sense to me if that’s how she does it.”
I jerked out of Silas’s hold. “A rune isn’t changed because it’s woven with fire or water. In the end, it’s about the depth of power, not the root of the spell to mark the damn stone. That’s like saying you have to use blue ink in order to write certain words.”
I touched the rune and spoke, drawing on him anyway, purely on principle. “Aquaflux.”
He could have taken away my reach, but he didn’t, instead, he held my stare as magic moved into the amber, giving me the ability to control who passed through. The gate swung open without a sound.
We stood there a moment longer than we needed to. Silas broke first, looking at the open gate. Then at me. The muscle in his jaw worked once. “I was wrong.”
“I know.”
From the satchel came a sound, small at first. Then Pip’s laugh broke free entirely, bright and helpless, and she had to grip the strap with both hands to keep from tipping out of it entirely. “He was so sure,” she wheezed.
“Oh, he’s quite sure about many things,” I said, walking through the gate without looking back at him. But I was smiling and we both knew it.
The gate swung closed behind us with a soft click and I looked back at it once.
Eda Mire had put that there. Had left that specific stone and warded this house until nothing breathing could cross the threshold, and then left exactly one door open.
Had she known I would need somewhere to go or was it truly a safe house?
Or perhaps she hadn’t built it for me at all. Perhaps she had simply left a door for whoever needed it badly enough to look. Perhaps even now she was still moving pieces on a board she’d abandoned. Still three steps ahead of everyone, including death.
Pip flew to the door handle and tugged. Nothing. She pressed her pointed ear flat against the wood and listened for a moment before pulling back. “It’s not warded like the gate. It’s just locked.”
Just locked. I thought about that. Thought about Eda Mire, who never did anything without reason, who had warded a gate with amber sized for my palm and a spell I’d been using since her first lesson.
Who had given me one key and one spell and trusted me to understand that one was enough for everything she’d left behind.