“Where were you all day?” I shot back.

It was Tristan’s turn to be awkward. That was the downside of our sibling relationship. We knew each other too well, and it was difficult to actually win an argument of any kind. “In the library.”

“Dork.”

“Seriously, Esme?”

“So you were here with Valaine when she was attacked?”

He sighed deeply. “She… She showed me something tonight. Something no one outside the royal circle knows.” I waited for him to tell me what it was that she’d showed him. When he didn’t continue, I poked him. “Ouch!”

“Talk,” I said firmly.

“I promised I wouldn’t tell,” Tristan replied, practically offended.

I smacked him over the shoulder. “Talk!”

“Dammit, Esme!” he hissed, and pulled me into his room, locking the door behind us. “The Black Fever is coming back,” he whispered, worried that someone might hear us.

The news hit me like a battering ram to the chest, knocking the air and the sense out of me. “Wha… What?” I managed, my knees surrendering as I dropped into one of the lounge armchairs. My pulse was racing, as a million worst-case scenarios began to form in the back of my head.

“Three infected Aeternae, so far,” Tristan said. “They’re keeping the situation secret, to avoid mass panic. The victims are quarantined in a basement infirmary, below. I saw them.”

“Isn’t it a little… early for the Black Fever?” I croaked.

He nodded again. “It is. Five thousand years too soon, and it’s strange, to say the least. Valaine will speak to the lord and lady about this, about us possibly helping them. I mean, they’ve already said we could try finding a cure—they just didn’t mention they already had three Aeternae affected.”

“This is all too weird,” I said. “The Darklings, the Black Fever… It’s… I don’t know, there’s something missing from this picture. Something big and important enough to matter. We need to find out what that is.”

“Should we go stealth?”

I shook my head. “Not tonight. Even with the invisibility pellets, we risk bumping into golden guards. There’s a lot of them out there right now. No, tomorrow is better, once the atmosphere relaxes in the palace.”

I would’ve given anything to go stealth tonight, but the risk of being discovered was too great. We couldn’t take that chance, not after what had just happened. The Darklings made the Aeternae flinch—at least the ones we’d seen, anyway. The Black Fever was no longer a distant issue, but an immediate threat. We’d certainly found one hell of a moment to show up.

“Turns out Visio isn’t as pretty as we’d thought,” I murmured.

But I was determined to get to the bottom of this, before the mystery swallowed us all. That was the trouble with lies and secrets. They festered, they ate away at everything around them, and eventually they came to light and destroyed lives. I just didn’t want ours to be among the casualties. A thought occurred to me, quite contrary to what I’d said less than a minute ago. I let a deep breath out, and Tristan was quick to notice the shift in my expression.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking we could pop an invisibility pellet and at least attend that emergency council meeting,” I said in an undertone. “It might be worth listening to what they have to say about all this, in our absence.”

A devilish grin bloomed on his face. “Sometimes, I think you’re actually able to read my mind, sister.”

“Ha, ha, funny. Dork,” I retorted, pushing myself back into a standing position, my knees still rickety. “But yeah… we should. I mean, if we’re going to go to Derek and Sofia with this, we might as well get a fuller picture. Don’t you think?”

“I agree,” he said, and took out a couple of pills and red lens glasses from a secret pocket in his vest. “One for you, and one for me.”

Nethissis

I was staring at a locked door, a massive thing made of black iron. I’d lost track of how many left and right turns I’d made to get here, but the air was foul. It reeked of danger and dead things, and I knew I’d found something. The only problem was that there was nowhere for me to slip through, even as a copperhead.

The door was expertly sealed. I felt cold as strange sounds emerged from beyond. Low whispers and growls that seemed familiar, yet I couldn’t exactly place them in a specific memory. All I knew was that I’d heard it all before. In a different place, a different setting. My skin tingled, my scales stiffening as I tried to keep myself calm while I searched for a way in. Out of all the doors I’d gone past, this was the one with all the juicy stuff. I knew it.

Footsteps startled me. I moved away, nestling inside a small nook in the stone wall. As the figure grew closer and larger, my breath hitched. It was Zoltan Shatal, and keys jingled on a heavy ring in his hand. He was well aware of where he was and what he was doing, and that fired up all sorts of alarm bells inside me.

He stopped in front of my mystery door, and I poked my head out to get a better look. He picked out a key from the ring and used it to let himself in. For a brief moment, I had a choice to make: stay back and report to Derek and Sofia on what I’d seen so far, which reeked of suspicious behavior, or keep going and sneak inside with Zoltan.

The reasonable Nethissis would’ve called it a day right here, right now. But I was never known for being reasonable or reserved in my actions. Unrepentant, I snuck through the open door, seconds before Zoltan shut it behind him. Hidden in the corner, I found myself inside a narrow corridor leading into a massive, circular room with a low ceiling.

The sounds I’d heard earlier were clear, now, and they filled me with dread as I finally recognized them. Ghouls. There are ghouls in here.

Zoltan walked into the room, and I followed, moving slowly and carefully as I analyzed the entire scene. My blood froze at the sight of four ghouls, with wrought-iron collars and chains keeping them tethered to the left side of the room. Symbols were engraved on the bands, and I was instantly furious, recognizing the art. Reaper magic.

The creatures hissed and snarled and communicated between them. The amber light from wall torches reflected across their almost translucent skin. But these weren’t ordinary ghouls. They were huge bastards, with bulging muscles and thick necks and claws that could cut through a person like perfectly sharpened swords.

And Zoltan was well aware of them. He wasn’t bothered or fearful, and that just made me break into a cold sweat as I slithered along the right side of the room, keeping to the shadows. Up ahead, three prisoners had been chained to the wall. They were Rimians, skinnier than most and beaten to a pulp.

Their eyes were swollen, and they could barely see through the red-and-purple eyelids. Blood crusts covered their injuries. Their clothes were caked with dirt and stained with blood. They’d been tortured, repeatedly, and my heart broke for this predicament they’d found themselves in. Two black armor guards stood to their right, their gazes wandering between them and the ghouls, who kept snarling and begging to be freed. I didn’t need to understand their language, when their desperate twitches and jumps said so much.

“Have they said anything yet?” Zoltan asked the guards.

They both nodded. “We’ve thought about letting one of the ghouls loose,” one of them replied. “Maybe they’ll be willing to speak if a ghoul is chomping on their legs.”

“No. Not yet,” Zoltan said. “I’ll give them one last chance.”

Holy crap, this was a torture chamber, and their instruments of choice were ghouls, kept under control with Reaper magic. How was this even possible? Where had they gotten this kind of knowledge? Did any of the Reapers know? Did Death know? I couldn’t use Telluris in my snake form, but I was definitely going to reach out to Taeral for this. Someone needed to bring Death up to speed here, because something terrible was brewing in the basement of Visio’s royal palace.

I wondered if Danika or Acheron knew about this… of course they did. They had to. This was literally happening in their house. They had to know.

Zoltan stopped in front of the three prisoners, annoyingly calm. “I’ve been asking you to tell the truth for a week, now. I’m not sure how much more your bodies can take,” he said. “As you might’ve already noticed, I haven’t fed the ghouls. The moment I let them loose, you’re the ones they’re coming for.”

The Rimians, three young males, didn’t even look at him. They kept their brownish red eyes fixed on the dirty, wet floor, their bodies shaking from the cold. I could only imagine what it all felt like.

“First, they’ll eat you alive. They’re accustomed to raw flesh. Then, they’ll eat your souls. By the time they’re done with you, there will be nothing left. No body. No spirit. Nothing,” Zoltan continued, matter-of-fact in his approach. “Is that really how you want it all to end?”

“We don’t turn on our people,” one of the Rimian boys replied, his voice raspy and weak.

“Tell me who your leaders are, and I will give you a quick and easy death. Take me to them, and I will bestow upon you riches that your kind has never even gazed upon,” Zoltan insisted. “My offer still stands.”

“Screw you, bloodsucker!” the second Rimian spat.

Zoltan shook his head. “Civility is such a rare thing to find these days.”

The guards smirked, definitely enjoying the show. With no other option left, Zoltan selected another, smaller key from his ring and walked over to the ghouls. “Very well. No one can blame me if I go ahead with this. I’ve tried everything. Bribery. Torture. Reasoning with you people is almost impossible. That fact that you have the audacity to claim that you have rights beyond what we give you is downright ridiculous,” he said, then looked at the ghouls. “Sit. All of you, sit.”

Like obedient dogs, the ghouls’ hinds hit the floor. Their muscles twitched, bursting with anticipation, but they did as he asked.