Chapter 27 Nerina #2
“He has something of mine,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “And I want it back.”
Something flickered in his eyes—interest? amusement?—but it was gone before I could read it.
I adjusted my tone, making it sound casual even though my pulse betrayed me.
“Small, obsidian. Spherical,” I said.
I’d barely finished speaking when his head tilted—just a fraction. “The Eye of Nareth?” he said.
I stilled, fingers tightening around the edge of the counter.
The Eye was not a rumor to him, but a certainty. “And you think Vesper has it?”
“I know he does.” My voice didn’t waver, even as my stomach twisted.
He leaned in close, the scent of pine and smoke curling off him, his voice a low growl meant only for me. “You’re wrong,” he murmured. “Vesper doesn’t have it,” he said.
A pulse of frustration spiked in my chest.
His lips curved in a knowing smirk. “But I know who does,” he murmured, leaning in close enough that the warmth of him brushed her skin.
I narrowed my eyes. “Who?”
The man leaned in, his voice warm against my ear, dropping to a low rasp. “A witch named Séraphine,” he said. His words slithered under my skin, each one worse than the last. “Carved out her own eye and put it in the hollow space—just so she could always see whatever it has to show.”
“Vesper collects leverage,” he said. “Séraphine collects outcomes.”
A witch named Séraphine. The name alone was enough to make my stomach turn, but his words kept echoing, festering in my mind.
Carved out her own eye. I thought back to her face—how one eye had glowed like a molten ember, the other black and depthless as obsidian.
I’d assumed it was magic, some strange glamour, not…
this. Not something stolen and lodged into her skull like a trophy.
Séraphine had looked at me like I was a problem to be solved.
Séraphine had spoken of Vesper with too much certainty. And suddenly I wondered if that certainty had never been about truth at all—but about steering me exactly where she wanted.
“Why should I believe you?” I asked, my voice more biting than I meant it to be.
He smiled then—slow, deliberate—the kind of smile that made you want to check the shadows behind you. “You shouldn’t.”
The words slid over my skin like cold water, and for a heartbeat, I couldn’t tell if he was warning me… or daring me.
Well, whatever it was, I didn’t have time for this.
“Then point me in the right direction,” I said, shoving the empty bowl away and pushing to my feet. “Or get out of my way.”
His grin widened, like my defiance was the most entertaining thing he’d seen all week. “Lucky for you, I was heading that way.”
He offered me a hand to step down from the stool, but I ignored it, sliding off on my own. The last thing I needed was to owe him more than a meal. I grabbed my glass instead, tossing back the last gulp of mead until it burned warm in my chest.
Every instinct I had told me not to follow him.
But every other path in Shadeau had already closed its doors to me — and I was done waiting for safer choices that never came.
Without another word, I turned for the door. The sunlight outside would be climbing higher soon, and every minute was a minute closer to Alaric waking up and finding me gone.
The door banged shut behind me, and I’d barely taken three steps into the square before heavy boots fell into rhythm with mine.
“What’s your name?”
I didn’t slow. “Why?”
His chuckle was low, the kind that made you wonder if you’d just stepped closer to danger or if danger had stepped closer to you. “So I know what to carve on your gravestone when Séraphine’s done with you.”
I just rolled my eyes.
He slipped ahead just enough to get in my way, his grin lopsided. “Well you can call me Rion. Easier for you to curse my name later.”
I almost told him my name. It was right there on the tip of my tongue—like an idiot offering up the first piece of herself to a man she barely knew.
But what I did know? He was trouble. The kind of trouble my mother had warned me about since I was old enough to swim on my own—broad shoulders, easy grin, eyes that promised nothing good. Dangerous, probably. No… definitely.
“Sirena,” I said before I could stop myself.
Brilliant. Real smooth. The fake name wasn’t even that different—might as well have just told him my real one and saved myself the trouble of feeling like an idiot. I kept my chin high, even as I mentally smacked myself. Real creative. Change two letters and suddenly you’re a master of disguise.
“Sirena,” Rion repeated slowly, like he was trying the taste of it on his tongue. His mouth curved, but it wasn’t exactly a smile.
He tipped his head, a slow smirk curling his mouth. “Sirena. That’s cute. Even for a bad liar.”
I bristled, heat prickling up my neck. “Well, it’s the only one you’re getting,” I shot back.
His eyes glittering like he enjoyed the game more than he should.
Rion led me past the clocktower and deeper into the maze, the air thick with the scent of roasting chestnuts and the faint, sour reek of tanner’s vats.
Shadeau twisted on itself, a labyrinth of streets that seemed to rearrange with each turn, but Rion moved naturally, he knew every bend by heart.
As we walked, I noticed how people seemed to move differently around Rion.
A shopkeeper paused mid-sweep to nod respectfully.
A fishmonger tipped his cap. Even the street urchins quieted as he passed.
“Sir,” they called him, polite and almost deferential—so different from last night when I’d walked this same path with Alaric.
Then, the streets had been full of glares and muttered threats, like every shadow wanted to swallow us whole.
With Rion, the shadows seemed to keep their distance.
People watched him the way sailors watch an incoming tide—quietly, without question.
Whatever his reputation was, he hadn’t earned it by accident.
And I wondered, briefly, how Alaric would react if he saw me walking beside a man who commanded that kind of presence. Probably with that infuriating scowl he wore whenever he thought I was getting too close to trouble—which, in his mind, was always.
For someone like Rion, who claimed to have answers, he wasn’t asking for anything in return. That alone set my nerves on edge. I’d learned the hard way that nothing in Shadeau came without a price—especially help.
So why was he helping me?
The streets narrowed as we went, the buildings leaning in like conspirators. My sleeves brushed my wrists with every step—each touch a dull, pulsing reminder I tried to ignore.
Rion broke the silence without looking at me. “Pull up your sleeves.”
I stiffened. “No.”
He stopped so abruptly I nearly ran into him. When he turned, his focus fell—not to my face, but to my hands.
“Pull them up,” he said again. Not a request.
“I said no.” I folded my arms tighter, heat flaring in my chest.
His face smoothed—too carefully.
I took a step back.
He caught me by the elbow. His grip closed like iron as he tugged my sleeve up before I could twist away.
My breath left me in a silent rush.
Patches of skin had turned sickly gray-black, cracked and flaking. Beneath the peeling edges, flesh glistened wet and dark, mottled with rust-colored sores that looked less like wounds and more like decay taking hold.
Rion went still. “Fuck,” he muttered.
My other sleeve was yanked back before I could stop him. Both wrists burned now—throbbing, weeping, wrong.
“That’s Silver Salt,” he said. “And if we don’t get it off you, it will weaken you. Break you down piece by piece.”
Cold slid down my spine. “Silver Salt?”
He released me and turned, already moving. “Come on.”
I followed, legs unsteady, until we reached a stone well tucked between two leaning buildings. He stopped and nodded toward the low wall.
“Sit.”
I hesitated only a second before obeying.
He drew the bucket up, splashed water into a shallow basin, and knelt in front of me. His hands were careful now—almost reverent—as he took my wrists and lowered them into the water.
The pain flared instantly. I gasped, teeth gritting as the water hissed faintly against my skin, cloudy residue bleeding away like ash. He scrubbed gently and relentlessly, washing until the water ran clearer, until the angry gray began to fade.
He stopped abruptly. “Who did this to you?”
The question was quiet. Flat. More dangerous than anger.
I hesitated. My throat tightened. “A vendor and some other men,” I said finally. “They were wearing gloves. They burned—Treated with something—I didn’t know—”
“Silver Salt,” he cut in.
“Silver Salt?” I echoed. The word tasted wrong in my mouth. “What is that—and how do you know that’s what this is?”
His hands paused in the water. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he lifted his eyes to mine, steady and distant all at once. It felt like he was looking through me instead of at me.
“I’ve seen what it leaves behind,” he said. His mouth curved into something humorless. “Enough times to recognize it.”
He lowered my hands into the basin again, more firmly now, the memory, whatever it was, had steeled his resolve.
“And enough times to know,” he added, “that no one carries Silver Salt unless they mean to make a point.”
Something in his voice tightened the air between us.
“Used on skin,” he went on quietly. “In blood. On things people wanted weakened without killing too quickly.”
His fingers tightened just enough around my wrist to remind me he was holding back. The air around us felt suddenly heavier, coiling tight and electric.
“Are they alive?” he asked.
I looked up at him. “No.”
Something in his expression eased—not relief. Satisfaction. “Good,” he said, and went back to washing the rot from my skin.
The memory of the vendor rose unbidden—his grin, the gloves, the burn. Heat bloomed at my brow. Anger and fear.
Something pulsed beneath my hat—a soft, living warmth I couldn’t stop. Rion’s hands stilled. His focus lifted, sudden and intent, tracking the flicker of light that slipped past the brim.
“What’s that?” he asked.
I reached up instinctively, covering my brow. “Nothing.”
His eyes lingered there a moment longer than necessary. Then, quietly, he said, “It’s pretty.”
I thought I misheard him. The word caught me off guard.
Heat rushed to my cheeks, sudden and unwelcome.
My mark had been called many things but no one had ever called it that before.
Not once. It had always been something to hide.
Something strange. I looked away, heart racing, as he returned to washing my wrists—careful, deliberate—he hadn’t noticed the way something in me had flared in answer.
I didn’t like how aware I suddenly was of him.
He finished washing my wrists in silence, the last of the cloudy residue bleeding away into the stones. The burns still throbbed—angry and tender—but the worst of the gnawing bite had dulled.
Rion released my hands and straightened, already scanning the street. “Done.”
I pulled my sleeves back down, fabric sticking faintly where my skin was still wet. When I stood, the world tipped for a heartbeat, and his hand hovered near my elbow—not touching, just there.
We left the well behind and slipped back into the press of Shadeau, moving quickly now, weaving through bodies and noise until the streets narrowed and the sounds thinned.
We reached a narrow alley that wound away from the bustle of Shadeau’s main street. Rion stopped before a weathered black door set into the stone wall, its surface carved with curling symbols that seemed to shift if I looked too long. A dim orange light bled from the cracks.
“Here we are,” he said, glancing down at me with a smirk that didn’t bother hiding its challenge. “The witch you’re so eager to meet.”
I hesitated, pulse hammering. Would Séraphine recognize me? Would Rion notice that we knew each other—and if he did, would it help me or ruin me?
My gaze slid back to him. He carried himself like someone used to being obeyed. Exactly the kind of man my mother would have warned me to avoid.
And before I could change my mind, he knocked on the door.
The knock echoed like a drumbeat swallowed by silence. I thought maybe she wouldn’t answer. Maybe she wasn’t here—maybe I’d be spared whatever this was about to become.
Then, the lock clicked.