“Afraid I’ll run off into the night and get eaten by whatever horrors Jasper warned us about?”
“Yes, actually.” He moved to straighten a crooked painting on the wall.
I immediately walked over and tilted it back.
The dust swirled in the air as we moved around each other in the dim room. Thorne reached for the heavy curtain, pulling it back to let in more of what passed for light in this realm. I waited for him to cross the room before I put it back.
“So this singing we’re supposed to avoid,” I said, watching him straighten a candlestick on the mantel. The moment his back was turned, I rotated it slightly to the left. “That’s Irri?”
“Most likely.” He moved to adjust a chair that sat at an odd angle.
I waited until he’d walked away before nudging it back with my foot. My heart shouldn’t have fluttered when his lips twitched at the sound of wood scraping against stone.
He’s playing you, Sylvie hissed.
“Shut up,” I snapped back, before realizing I’d said the words out loud. “Sorry,” I whispered. “That wasn’t meant for you.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Thorne ran his fingers along a row of books, arranging them by height. “Irri’s song was always haunting. Beautiful in a way that made your soul ache. She could take the most broken things and make them feel whole again, even if just for a moment.”
I crossed the room and pulled one book halfway out, disrupting his careful arrangement. His exasperated sigh sent an unexpected warmth through my chest.
“She doesn’t sound particularly threatening,” I drawled, watching him fidget with the window latch. “For all this warning about covering our ears.”
He turned to face me, and something in his expression made me still. Gone was the careful mask of control, replaced by genuine uncertainty. “She wasn’t. Not really. But this place…” He gestured at the twisted architecture around us. “It probably changes people. She was the Goddess of Broken Things. Now she’s surrounded by everything that’s ever been forgotten or lost. I don’t know what that kind of power might do to someone, even a god.”
I leaned against the wall, studying him. “You’re worried she’s absorbed it all? That’s why everything is broken here?”
“Or that it’s absorbed her.” He smoothed a wrinkle from the bedspread. I immediately sat on it, earning a look that was somewhere between amusement and frustration. “She was gentle once. Kind. She could look at the most shattered pieces of existence and see how they might fit together again. But here? I don’t know.”
The vulnerability in his voice caught me off guard. This wasn’t the all-powerful Keeper speaking, but someone genuinely worried about what we might find.
“And you’re telling me this because…?” I watched him adjust a vase of long dead flowers, fighting the urge to knock it over completely.
He’s trying to manipulate you, Winter warned.
“Because I need your help,” he said quietly, and the simple honesty in those words made my breath catch.
I slid off the bed and moved to the vase, turning it slightly askew. “You’re asking for my opinion? You? The god who thinks he knows everything?”
“Yes.” He reached past me to right the vase again, his proximity sending unwanted shivers down my spine. “I am.”
“Will wonders never cease,” I murmured, but my usual sarcasm felt hollow. The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken things. He moved to straighten a crooked table runner, and I found myself watching his hands, remembering how they felt against my skin.
Focus, a chorus of voices hissed in my mind.
“There’s a reason Alastor let you come with me and it wasn’t to do either of us a favor. I think we’re going to have to use your Huntress power to find her.”
I stilled, my hand halfway to messing up another of his careful arrangements. “I’ve never seen Irri nor have I touched her. That’s not how my power works.”
“But Sylvie has and Alastor knows she’s in your mind. She knows her mother’s essence better than anyone.”
Say you’ll do it.
“But why was Irri banished in the first place?” I asked, turning back to him. “If she was so gentle, so kind, what could she have possibly done to deserve this?”
Something dark passed over his features. He moved back to the window, his shoulders tight with tension. “I did something unforgivable. I let my pride, my need to possess what I thought was mine, destroy everything.”
“What did you do?”
