“How did you know about our corpse larder?”

  Ruth’s sharp voice startled the Wanderer. His head snapped toward her, eyes searching for the speaker—just as she’d hoped.

  Magic stirred in her veins, coiling around her voice, pooling behind her eyes. She bit her lip until blood welled, the taste of iron sharp on her tongue, the scent of lilacs thick in her nose.

  He smelled it too. His nostrils flared, shoulders sagging as he inhaled the magic she wove around him. His pupils widened, his breath slowed—his mind primed for her command.

  “Don’t move.”

  Her eyes flared violet, their heat clashing with the room’s chill.

  He froze, half-turned, still crouched over the corpse.

  She had him…

  … Until one of his rings blazed to life, lightning-blue haze crackling across his skin. A shield of magic snapped into place, her magic sizzling and dying against it.

  No, no, no—

  She had him. She had him. And then she didn’t.

  His protection wasn’t perfect. His movements were sluggish. But he was moving, and his eyes were clearing with every moment—

  She panicked.

  Her magic surged, reckless and raw, smashing into his mind like a battering ram. The scent of lilacs thickened, cloying, her own blood sharp on her tongue as she bit down harder, harder—

  "Stop. Stop. Stop."

  The words crashed into him, one after another, drilling deep, demanding compliance.

  It wasn’t working.

  With a jerky, strained motion, he pointed a finger at her. A second ring flared, this one sickly green.

  Ruth barely had time to react before the air between them rippled. She flung herself aside, his magic splashing harmlessly against her talismans—but her foot slid in the corpse’s thawing fluids—

  She slipped.

  He tackled her.

  The impact drove the breath from her lungs. Stone and ice pressed into her back, the corpse cold against her side.

  By the time she stopped gasping for air, the Wanderer had her pinned—one long-fingered hand wrapped around both her wrists, the other clamped over her mouth.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” he murmured, voice gentle, full of regret.

  She squirmed. He pressed a knee into her stomach, slow and deliberate, until it hurt. She stilled. He eased back.

  Fool. She’d been so careful all evening, keeping her distance. Why had she let herself get so close? Why had she let him catch her?

  And worse—how could she have misused her magic so badly? Mind magic wasn’t a hammer but a fishing hook, meant to slip in unnoticed and reel its target in without a struggle—to burrow beneath awareness until her will felt like his own. Overwhelming force only worked if she was strong enough to completely crumble his defenses.

  “I truly mean your family no harm,” the Wanderer was saying. “If you hadn’t come, you’d never know I was here.”

  She’d been arrogant, too sure she could overpower him when she should have relied on finesse. Her mother’s trust had swelled her head.

  She wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  Her captor glanced around, searching for a way to secure her, both hands occupied. “I’ll uncover your mouth. Don’t try anything—I don’t want to harm you.” He sounded sincere.

  Did he mean it? Or was his concern still guided by the lingering threads of her spell? She wasn’t about to wait for her geas to wear off to find out.

  Immobilized, she could only blink in agreement.

  This time, her attack would be smarter. His lightning-blue aura had dampened her attack, but it hadn’t blocked it entirely—his talisman was likely only tuned to repel strong surges of magic. If she could slip a tendril past his talisman and his notice and plant the first seed of control, the next would come easier. One careful hook at a time, until he was hers.

  He removed his palm from her mouth and reached for his belt to bind her hands.

  Softly, she said, “I don’t mean to harm you either.” She let a thread of fear slip into her voice, laced with the barest whisper of power. “Please keep me safe.”

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t look at her. Perhaps he knew the power of her gaze.

  She wished she were as charming and disarming as Lilith. Alas, if she couldn’t appeal to his protective instincts, she had other strengths. “There must be a way we can both get what we want,” she lied reasonably. Sounding reasonable and responsible come easily to her.

  He bundled her wrists in leather, head down, still avoiding her eyes. At least he didn’t tell her to be silent.

  She tried again. “We’re duty-bound to protect travelers from the terrors of the night. Harming our guests is the last thing we want.”

  “You store corpses.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Of course we do. When Father clears out a bandit camp, we keep the bodies for identification. When an adventurer falls, we preserve them for their loved ones. It’s no different from what a guardhouse would do. But we’re so far from town—we can’t make the trip every time someone dies. So we store them, then send an ice cart when our storage is full.”

  She soaked more magic into her voice, urging him to trust her, to ignore the human rumps and briskets hanging from the ceiling.

  “We don’t like people knowing about it,” she continued, “because some guests are sensitive. They don’t sleep well above corpses.”

  The Wanderer didn’t call out her lie—perhaps he wanted to believe they could come to an agreement. That was the key to a good geas. Why question what you wish for? Why resist?

  She had her hook in him. Now it was time to reel him in.

  “There’s no reason we can’t—Auch!”

  As planned, her sharp cry brought his gaze to hers.

  Her grey eyes—now swirling violet—caught his dark ones. His talisman still hampered her magic, but his will no longer fought her. The longer she worked, the stronger her geas would become.

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “The buckle dug into my wrist. It’s better now.”

  He glanced down instinctively, but her eyes trapped his—mesmerizing.

  “You never answered my question,” she murmured. “How did you learn about this place? If there are unpleasant rumors… I wouldn’t want to scare off guests.”

  Her magic urged him to be honest.

  Under her spell, he answered. “I learned about it from one of your father’s guards—Yona.”

  Ruth frowned. Yona?

  He’d been among those sent to Dustmere for flour—young, a little boastful, but trustworthy enough to join the exclusive circle of servants privy to her family’s secrets. She wouldn’t have expected him to blab, especially with Mother’s geas sealing his tongue. But that was no guarantee. She needed more.

  “Did you overhear him? Was he in his cups? Were there witnesses?”

  “You have nothing to worry about.” The Wanderer’s smile was a touch dopey. “He was already dead when I found him. Just like our friend here.” He patted the frozen corpse.

  Dead? Had her magic confused him? Unless Yona had left a ghost behind, this made no sense.

  “Poor fella got into a fight over a girl,” he explained. “I’m told knives were involved. I found him at the cemetery, next to his killer.” He blinked owlishly. “Your flour’s delayed because their deaths triggered an investigation. I should’ve mentioned it at dinner, but I’m not very good at lying, and I didn’t want—”

  It was fun making him babble, but she had more pressing concerns.

  “You didn’t repeat Yona’s words to anyone?”

  “Not a soul.”

  Excellent. Their secret was safe. And he was fully hers now. If she asked, he’d add himself to the pantry without a second thought. Caution dictated she should remove him now. For all he had seen, she couldn’t risk letting him go…

  …But he’d been nice to her. So genuine in his wish to come to an agreement. If he hadn’t truly wanted to spare her, he wouldn’t have fallen so easily to her geas.

  She couldn’t bring herself to kill him. Not yet. A few more questions first wouldn’t hurt.

  “Show me your hands.”

  He obeyed, and with her bound wrists, she slipped off his defensive ring.

  “Untie me.”

  He cut the tight knots with an obsidian stiletto.

  “Thank you.” She took the weapon away. “Now, tell me how you learn from the dead.”

  The compliant Wanderer lit up. “I can show you.” He moved to the corpse and pointed a chisel at the sticky hair and balding scalp. “Look.”

  Ruth trusted her magic, but she wasn’t about to repeat her mistake. She circled the body, keeping a safe distance. From here, she could see it clearly—the skull had been cracked open, grey matter staining the edges.

  He parted the matted hair and inserted the chisel into the cavity. “If you look here, in the hippocampus, and here, in the amygdala, you’ll see a strong concentration of magic. It’s faint—come closer, you can’t see it from there.”

  Not a chance. “Just tell me what you’re doing.” She compelled him.

  “Have you ever tasted memories?” His pallid cheeks pinked. “No, of course not. Most people disapprove—violates the dead’s privacy, they say. But I ask you… how can you disrespect someone who… isn’t? Dead is dead.”

  Dead is dead. That resonated with her. Perhaps he wouldn’t judge them for their pantry. A faint sense of kinship blossomed in her chest; so few understood her family’s peculiarities. She smiled warmly at him.

  He smiled back. “It’s the purest way to extract information. Let me demonstrate.”

  From his pack, he withdrew a set of precise, rune-marked tools, talking all the while. Her magic had loosened his tongue—trust built bonds.

  “Yona’s corpse was quite the find for me. I didn’t want to reveal this when we were strangers, but I’m heading to the mountains. I mean to infiltrate the fortress.”

  “Do you, now?” Ruth was curious, but not surprised. Between his caginess and his earlier questions about Captain Draeven, she’d suspected as much.

  “Oh, yes. So, when I heard Yona was a soldier from the wastelands, I had to interrogate him. You can imagine my disappointment when I realized he was stationed at your inn, not the fortress. I was about to give up,” he continued, carefully dissecting the brain with silver tweezers, “when I found the most delicious memory.

  “In a recent raid on the mountain brigands’ camp, I recognized the name of their commander—Khordad, one of Draeven’s lieutenants. I followed the memory to see what became of his corpse, and when I learned it had been taken here, preserved so well… well, you know.”

  Gently, he pulled a delicate string of tiny, grey blobs from the skull and placed them in a vial.

  “This is a single memory,” he explained reverently.

  The sight was as grotesque as it was fascinating—but Ruth’s mind raced.

  Captain Draeven, the Iron Vulture, was a mean bastard. His connection to the bandits was an open secret—it was high time the kingdom dealt with him. But how did this Wanderer fit into the puzzle?

  “Are you the king’s investigator?”

  He chuckled, adding a green liquid to the vial and stirring it with a specialized tool. “No. I’m here to assassinate Draeven. It’s personal.”

  He crushed a dried leaf between his fingers and sprinkled it into the potion. “My family were merchants in a town under Draeven’s rule. I was thirteen when the Vulture—only a few years older than me—decided he wanted an enchanted sword from our store. My mother refused him because it had already been promised to another. He wouldn’t hear it, calling us traitors for putting another before our lord’s son.” He sighed. “Things escalated. There was a fight—he had guards. I watched my father die while I stood there, doing nothing.”

  “You were a boy. There were armed men—what could you have done?”

  “A lot.” He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall into the mixture. They watched it froth. “I’m gifted with lightning magic, but I had ambitions. I didn’t want to make an enemy of a noble. I hesitated too long.”

  Ruth frowned. Lightning magic was inherited, like her own mind magic. But he’d shown no sign of such a gift—only human sorcery, learned and guided by artifacts.

  “You have lightning? Never use it against me,” she ordered, shuddering at how easily he could have knocked her out.

  For a moment, confusion flickered across his face—there and gone. He recovered quickly. “Not anymore. I… failed in my duty. I didn’t protect my family. The lightning is gone.”

  He stared at the vial, then shook himself. “What the Draevens did was illegal. But his family hid him, shielded him from justice. I only recently learned of his whereabouts. This time, I won’t fail.”

  He looked up at her, eyes dark with pain, lit with a flicker of hope.

  “I will avenge my father. Then, perhaps, I’ll be worthy of my magic once more.”

  She understood. She didn’t want to deprive him of his redemption. He was so close.

  And yet, as he said, duty could not be denied.

  Her duty was to protect her family. The Deadland’s Rest Inn was a sanctuary for their family of reviled mind mages. The Duke had been magnanimous in granting them a place where they could be both useful and isolated. Others wouldn’t be so understanding. Fear of her family’s power, of losing their free will, would drive people to destroy them. It always had.

  She had no right to risk their lives and secrets simply because she liked a strange man.

  He swirled the vial with a trembling hand. His eyes, though sad, had cleared.

  “There is nothing quite like the taste of memory.” He looked at her with an inviting little smile. “Would you like to try?”