Crescent

14.1

The silence that fell over them choked the air from Vera's lungs. Her head was still spinning when Zeno stood, smiling as he slid his hand across the wall. Tiny claw marks ripped through the wallpaper where he touched, and his breathy laughter filled the room. There was an awkward limp to his steps. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, but it didn't stop him before he made it out of the dining room, leaving nothing but the dribble of silvery blood behind—if she could even call it blood.

Staring at it made her stomach curdle at the reminder that he was neither human nor fae but something else entirely, a creature born from magic and careful calculations. Somewhere along the line, he had turned on his own creators, and his power was far greater than theirs. A simple curse was all it took to change Orion's form entirely, if Zeno's words were to be believed.

She couldn't help but remember the room they had been in, where Orion's name was scrawled endlessly across the wall and it echoed with the distant sound of someone's sob. She touched her earring, grateful that the metal had turned cold once more. It had once belonged to a fae—one who was forever changed all because Zeno wished it so.

I could kill him, part of her whispered, a treacherous and reckless corner of her mind that guided her hand to the hilt of her sword. He's weak now. I could kill him, then he could never have the upper hand.

The key hummed against her chest, pulsing with a subtle yet steady rhythm. A warning and a reminder. Regardless of Zeno's past, the fae-killer still wandered the woods. Without him, she would be easy prey for it. If overcoming it had been easy, the rest of the fae would have done it ages ago. There would be no need to create Zeno, no reason to live in fear and watch helplessly as the moon dwindled to nothing more than a sliver of a crescent in the sky. He was created to kill it, and she needed him if she wanted to make it home. That hadn't changed.

He knew it, too, and that was why he wasn't afraid to share the truth.

The walls creaked. The house itself was laughing at her. Drenched in blood and hungry for more, it knew what she didn't—the past that Zeno dangled in front of her.

"I knew what I was getting into. I knew making a deal with him was a risk." She glared at the hole in the wall, the wound it bore from Orion's attack. Its splintered sides yawned like a gaping maw.

Deep in the shadows between the walls, a ghostly flame flickered. The sound of a sob crawled through her ears, low and hollow. Cold fingers trailed down her spine as icy breath puffed against the tip of her ear. Wrenching her sword from its sheath, Vera turned, blade poised to attack. But the room was empty.

Her heart stuttered. With a final glance around the sad state of the room, Vera ducked out into the hall. Splintered pieces of wood littered the foot of the stairs and formed an awkward circle around the place where the steps had caved beneath the grotesque creature's weight, where he had fallen into the hollow space beneath. Empty like a grave, the chasm yawned between her and the upper floor, the only place where there was a comfortable bed untouched by decay. The upstairs hallway flickered with the soft glow of candlelight, faint orange that washed the floral walls in deceptive warmth that faked life in the house. There was none.

Zeno made sure of that.

"Zeno!" she called, loud enough that her voice echoed through the empty mansion. His name became distorted as the sound drifted away. She ignored the rush of fear that shot through her veins. "Don't wander off on your own. I have medicine so you should let me take a look at your wounds."

You merely wish to question me. His words scraped together from the back of her mind. They prowled from the shadows, lurking around her jumbled thoughts as if they intended to hunt within her.