The book’s leather binding creaked as I passed it to Lysska. Outside, wind howled against the windowpanes, transforming the snowfall from a listless drift into a frenzied white swarm. Frost etched skeletal patterns across the gss, and every few seconds, a gust rattled the shutters hard enough to make the tea cups tremble.

  Lysska barely acknowledged the handoff, flipping the book over and thumbing through the pages like she already knew exactly where to look. Vyra was absent today—off on whatever mission Lysska had thrown her way.

  Even now, hours ter, I could still see the rigid line of Lysska's shoulders when we'd encountered that... clown entity at the ritual site. I’d never seen her rattled like that. There was something about it—something that set her instincts on high alert.

  I’d asked her, straight up, how strong the clown was. Whether there was any way we could just deal with it and move on. Her answer? “Strength isn’t the issue. That…clown…is a tripwire. Beating it wouldn’t be difficult… but the consequences would be dire. Destroy it, and whatever’s pulling its strings knows we’re onto them.”

  Which meant she saw something lurking behind that painted menace—something I was still blind to. She'd glimpsed the puppetmaster behind the marionette, while I still stared at dancing strings.

  And honestly? I was starting to miss Alice by my side… and Belle. Thador, I’d been trying not to think about them too much, but the worry coiled in my gut refused to loosen.

  At least I knew Belle was safe—our connection made sure of that. Like a second heartbeat in my chest, I could feel her emotions, and right now? No fear. No distress. Just that familiar manic glee she got whenever she spotted a particurly stubborn dirt stain after shifting into her new form.

  They were fine. They had to be fine. They were out there gathering intel on that Elven house, probably working cautiously, prying out secrets without drawing attention. I should be relieved they were taking the careful approach… but time was a ticking anxiety bomb strapped to my dragon heart.

  I exhaled sharply, shaking off the creeping dread. Focus. Trust them. They can handle themselves.

  I turned back to Lysska. “What exactly are you looking for? That clown has to be more than just some creepy ritual bouncer…”

  Her eyes darted from line to line, muttering under her breath before finally locking onto mine.

  “Confirming my worst fears,” she said. “And from the looks of it… they’re almost confirmed.”

  I followed her gaze to the book she had opened. An illustration stared back at me—a starved, multi-jointed creature hunched over a cracked clock, its body twisted in a way that set my instincts on edge. It looked eerily simir to what we had seen earlier.

  Beneath it, the caption read:

  Mindphage (Minor). Feeds on dimensional resonance, infects it to stay undetected. Powers: Space-reted.

  I frowned. “What do you mean? And is this the same thing we saw?” My mind flicked back to how oddly Lysska had acted when we encountered it—refusing to acknowledge its presence, warning me to do the same. Pretending it wasn’t there.

  “I’ve seen that entity before,” she said.

  I blinked but kept my mouth shut, lowering myself onto the sofa instead.

  She turned to the window, watching the snowfall in silence. “I… had a past. Like everyone does. There are things I’ve never told anyone, and I don’t pn to start now. But the past has a way of catching up to us in ways we never expect.”

  So there was history here.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “It’s tied to that clown we saw.”

  Lysska exhaled through her nose. “Yes. I’ve seen it before. Not once, not twice—many times. Even…” Her gaze darkened as it lingered on the page. “…used one myself. Not that exact one, but its kind.”

  Something in my brain smmed against itself, trying to piece together the implications, but I shook my head. “You said it wasn’t about the clown itself, but what it implies. So what does it imply?”

  Lysska didn’t answer immediately. She rubbed her temple, choosing her words carefully. Then, with a humorless chuckle, she flicked her fingers. Mana seeped into the room’s silence wards, locking our conversation away from any unwanted ears.

  “A shadow organization. A demonic sect. No… maybe more. Call them a cult instead.” Her lip curled. “The Vor’akh. ‘True Cws’ in the old tongue. A cult that predates the founding of the United City of Varkaigrad. Back when the Vraal’Kor first united, these zealots rejected it. They see this city as a perversion. They believe unity weakens us.”

  A chill that had nothing to do with the storm outside crawled down my spine.

  Lysska’s voice was sharp now. “This cult uses those things—Mindphages—as their eyes and ears. It’s one of the first lessons even their outer disciples learn. They have no qualms about breaching reality itself or ensving its denizens for their own ends. Every single one of their members employs Mindphages as spies and messengers. Sometimes, they use them for… more.” Her jaw tightened. “Like what we just saw. That thing wasn’t just watching. It was infecting the dimensional resonance of everyone around it.”

  My stomach turned. “…To make them fragile enough to be sacrifices.”

  Her silence was all the confirmation I needed.

  I exhaled, my pulse thrumming. A part of me had expected the Elves to be behind everything, but of course, the world was more complicated than that. There were always other factions lurking beneath the surface.

  Still, my mind couldn’t shake the way Lysska had said it. I’ve used one myself.

  A thread connected in my head, pulling the implications taut.

  I looked at her, slow and careful. “You were part of this organization too… weren’t you?”

  I knew the unspoken rule: Don’t pry. Lysska would tell me what mattered. And if she didn’t? I’d get a half-answer or a well-crafted dodge.

  But this time, she met my gaze without hesitation.

  “Yes.” Her voice was steady. “While I won’t tell you much, I was indeed a part of that demonic cult.” She leaned forward, her expression unreadable. “And I’m telling you this only to make sure you understand just how dangerous these people are.”

  Lysska turned toward the blizzard howling outside. “Centuries ago, when the sects first swore peace, these traditionalists revolted. They cimed competition—conquest—was the Ancestors’ will. That to sheath our cws was sacrilege.”

  So if I was getting this right, this was an ancient sect of traditionalists clinging to the past.

  I snorted, trying to inject some humor. “So, they’d rather gut each other in the streets than share a meal?”

  Then immediately regretted it. There’s a time and pce for everything, Jade.

  Lysska’s smile was bitter. “They’re the remnants of the old ways. The ones who refused to move forward with the rest of us. To them, bloodshed is prayer. The strong devour the weak; that’s ‘bance.’”

  I stared. “That sounds…” My throat tightened. A primal heat uncoiled in my gut, scales prickling beneath my skin. Delicious, something ancient in me purred. Hunt. Cim. Feast.

  I dug a talon into my palm. Fuck. “Miserable,” I spat, too harshly.

  She tapped a finger against the book’s cover. “You know why Varkaigrad exists, right? Why it’s so important?”

  I had read about it before, and based on what she had just told me… “Because it’s the first true city of all beastkin sects—a united front. Proof that we can actually live together without tearing each other apart.”

  Something I hadn’t thought possible before coming here. The outside world painted Vraal’Kor as a nd of barbarians, a wild, fractured pce of warring beastkin. The exact vision those demonic cultists wanted to preserve.

  Lysska nodded. “Exactly. Proof. That’s what it is. Proof that we could rise above blood feuds and sect rivalries. That strength didn’t have to be defined by how many of our own we trampled to get to the top. And when the Alliance was formed centuries ago, this was the foundation that let us build something better.”

  She paused. Her gaze darkened. “But not everyone saw it that way.”

  “The cultists,” I murmured.

  “As I said, these people believed we were spitting in the face of the Ancestors.” Her voice hardened. “That we had to remain what we were—warring sects, fighting, bleeding, proving ourselves in constant battle. That was the only true way to honor the past. The Alliance? It was an insult. A weak, diluted dream that would drain us of everything that made us strong.”

  I exhaled slowly. “And they threw a tantrum when the Alliance started forming, I reckon?”

  “The demonic cult was formed to oppose it. They wanted to tear it all down. But the unification happened anyway. The city stood. They lost.”

  I waited. “And then?”

  A humorless smile curled Lysska’s lips. “Then they changed their approach.”

  Silence stretched between us. I just stared, because there were a dozen ways they could have done that—ways I’d already seen firsthand. Throwing away innocent lives like kindling, summoning something to sow chaos, forcing the city to tear itself apart from within.

  What if chaos was the goal? No master pn, no singur target. Just carnage for the sake of proving their point.

  “Terrorism,” I said.

  Lysska nodded. “Spot on. When the Alliance held, the Vor’akh didn’t fade. They festered. Now they pnt bombs in orphanages. Poison reservoirs. Stir old grudges until they rot into blood feuds. Assassinations, sabotage, anything to destabilize the peace. And the worst part?” She exhaled sharply. “They never stopped.”

  I swallowed. My thoughts raced. “And you’re saying that clown entity—”

  “—means they’re involved,” she confirmed. “This ritual, whatever it is, has their stink all over it.”

  “So the ritual at Viera’s birthday ball…” I growled. “They’re turning it into a sughterhouse.”

  “Indeed. It isn’t just a summoning. It’s a statement. The Vor’akh don’t want to destroy the ball. They don’t even care who gets sacrificed in the process. They want to desecrate it. To prove our unity is fragile. That beneath the silks and treaties, we’re still beasts.”

  A slow breath left me. My fingers twitched, then morphed into cws.

  Destruction was beautiful. Not the wild, frothing kind the Vor’akh peddled—that was just glorified tantrum-throwing. True destruction had rules. A rhythm. Like pruning dead branches to let new growth breathe, or shattering a corrupted crystal to free the pure core within. Even my draconic instincts followed patterns—calcuted burn paths, controlled colpses. Chaos wasn’t mindless. True chaos was a scalpel, excising rot while sparing the healthy flesh. It chose its victims. Rewarded those who understood its dance.

  But this?

  The Vor’akh’s “chaos” was a child smashing its toys because it couldn’t win the game. No purpose. No precision. Just insult masquerading as ideology.

  My scales prickled at my neck, mana boiling in my core like magma seeking a vent. I didn’t just want to stop them. I wanted to carve their doctrine into their bones, to make them choke on the irony of their own contradictions.

  …And they’d revel in it.

  The realization doused my fury like ice water. These zealots wanted martyrs. Craved the pyre. To them, even defeat was a sacrament—proof of their “unwavering devotion” to ancestral savagery. Fighting them head-on would just feed their mythos.

  “Huh…” I muttered, flexing my cws back into flesh. “So how do we stop a death cult that thinks losing is winning?”

  Lysska’s smile slowly returned.

  “We don’t py their game,” Lysska said.

  Her cws curled against the book’s cover.

  “We burn the board.”

  I exhaled sharply. “Don’t py with metaphors, Lysska. Eborate.”

  She clicked her tongue. “I knew pieces of my past were creeping back into Varkaigrad. The Vor’akh have been quiet here for a decade—but the moment I caught their traces in the slums, I knew they were pnning something. Only now, thanks to you, do I realize just how big of a game they’re pying.”

  I stayed silent, prompting her to continue.

  She sighed. “The ruling families aren’t blind. Gold-cored elders don’t earn their titles sniffing roses. They’ve raided Vor’akh safehouses for decades. Just st month, I helped the Iron Pact track alchemical stockpiles beneath the Butcher’s Row tanneries.” Her lip curled. “Void-bck ichor vats. Enough to melt a district.”

  “Then the rumors began.” Her voice dropped. “Shadow Bde Keth’rak—one of their high elders—had slipped into the city. So for the past few days, the house heads have been waiting. Trackers. Diviners. Mercenaries with blood-oath contracts. The second he shows his face, they’ll intercept him.”

  Slowly, the pieces started falling into pce.

  “Wait.” Ice flooded my veins. “If the heads are all hunting this Shadow Bde during the ritual…”

  “Precisely.” Her smile was a bde’s edge. “Distract the lions, and the hyenas feast. All the heads will be occupied. Taking down a gold core while protecting their surroundings and innocent lives isn’t something anyone can do alone. And that’s exactly what those bastards want.”

  The more I listened, the worse it got.

  “So what can we do?”

  Lysska exhaled through her nose. “I need to alert the Sablethorn head somehow. I have some connections, but it won’t be easy. We have to be subtle—those Vor’akh bastards have already infiltrated the city. It’s highly likely the Sablethorn head is surrounded by vipers. And that teacher you mentioned? The one tutoring the Sablethorn princess? There’s a good chance he’s one of them. Pray to the Ancestors you didn’t do anything reckless before.” Her eyes met mine, sharp with warning. “Or you’d have a big, glowing red target on your back right now.”

  I went still.

  That… was terrifying.

  Also infuriating.

  I almost wanted to peel that bastard’s skin off in strips—slow, sloppy strips, the kind that leave tendons glistening like raw sausage casings. Let him scream through a throat full of his own piss while I salted the meat for even thinking about hurting someone I considered a friend.

  But nah. Too fucking merciful. I’d need to get creative. Maybe shove a hive of corpse-fed wasps up his ass and seal it with molten lead. Let ’em chew through his guts like he was a week-dead raccoon.

  Either way, we were in deep shit.

  Shit deep enough to endanger my life.

  And somehow, that thought made me happy.

  Because when the reaper’s breath frosts my neck…

  That’s when Lotte finally unclenches her jaws.

  I exhaled, pressing my fingers together.

  It was finally time to consult her.

  Fingers crossed I wouldn’t get another cryptic, non-expnation.

  PLEASE, FOR ONCE, LOTTE!