Lorne Ashveil's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Three days after Nyx exposed the lie, Lorne still could not read the boy. Damien said little. He studied the runes and kept his hands where Lorne could see them. But study was easy to fake. Lorne needed the truth, and only the fairy could show it to him. So he climbed to the blossom grove and called her name into the branches. Nyx dropped down, wings scattering colored light. "You want to know what your boy does when you sleep," she said. "I can show you. Everything he touches. Everywhere he goes." "Name your price," Lorne said. "That's the trouble." She grinned. "You've got nothing I want. Your secrets bore me. Your staff bores me." She flicked a blossom off her knee. "Come back when you're interesting." She rose and vanished, leaving Lorne with no eyes on the boy at all. Lorne walked back to the cabin. Vines wrapped its wooden walls, and bright particles drifted across the porch. A woman sat on the bottom step. Black hair, a dark dress, red eyes that watched him climb the path. He had never seen her, yet she waited like she belonged there. "Where's Damien," she said. Not a question. She said the name wrong, softening it. "Inside. Who sent you?" "Nyx." She stood. "To take your boy from you. That's the job." She stated it flat, the way a person names a chore. "The fairy holds my name until it's done." Lorne gripped his staff. The blue runes woke and glowed. "Then why tell me?" "Because you asked me straight." Lilith looked at the cabin door. "He's done nothing wrong. I've done this before. I know how it ends for them." She met Lorne's eyes. "I want out. Not this way." Lorne understood then what he held. Nyx wanted nothing he owned. But Nyx owned this woman, and this woman wanted the one thing Nyx could grant. Her freedom was the price the fairy had refused to name. "Nyx watches everyone," Lorne said. "She'll see what Damien does. If you carry her orders, you stand close enough to hear her." "You want a spy on the spy." "I want the truth about the boy. You want your name back." Lorne set the staff down. "Fail your task slowly. Feed me what Nyx sees. When my successor is proven, I'll take your name from her myself. I have leverage she does not expect." Lilith was quiet a long moment. She sat with the silence and did not fill it. Lorne marked that. "Yes," she said at last. The door opened. Damien stepped onto the porch and stopped when he saw the woman. His eyes moved over her, and something in his face shifted, softened, opened. Lorne watched it happen and knew the danger had already begun. He had bought his eyes back. But the trap Nyx set was now inside his own house.