“It’s almost too hot to touch,” Armannii said, wincing when he pulled the pen out of the bag. They had reached the outskirts of Bayan Village. However, Armannii had stopped them before they got too close. He handed the pen to Diomedes, who almost dropped it when it burned his skin.
“We should keep going,” Diomedes said, nodding toward an area up ahead that was lit up with lanterns covered in light runes. He tossed the pen back to Armannii, who hissed out air between his teeth when the gold made contact with his fingers. He put it back in the bag, but Diomedes began to wonder how long it would be before the pen was so hot it either lit the bag on fire or melted through.
“Two things before we go.” Armannii lowered his voice until both Diomedes and Blanndynne had to step closer to hear him. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
Diomedes glanced at Blanndynne, who shrugged. “Bad news, I suppose.”
“Well, if anyone here finds out who you are, we’re all dead.”
“Dead?” Diomedes raised an eyebrow.
“Deader than Raylee.” Armannii nodded, though his voice carried with it a hint of a joke. “Which would be unfortunate.”
“To say the least.”
“So, what’s the good news?” Blanndynne asked, though she didn’t seem perturbed about the potential threat of death—not like Diomedes.
Armannii glanced over his shoulder in the direction they’d been traveling. “Most of the people in the Dark have lived here their entire lives, so at most, they will have heard your name. In theory, they won’t be able to recognize you, so as long as we don’t call you by your name, we should be fine.”
Diomedes scratched his cheek, mulling over Armannii’s words. “All right. Can we go now?”
“Yes,” Armannii said. However, he paused, his face lighting up more than Diomedes had seen it do since they’d entered the Dark. “Oh, and I almost forgot the best news.”
“Which is?”
“The person we need to meet after we get Raylee’s remains lives in the Dark.”
Having been so focused on finding his ancestor’s burial site, Diomedes had almost forgotten about the second part of the plan. “That actually is good news.” He ran his fingers over his chin. “Saves us a step, I suppose. Shall we?”
“Keep in mind that nearly everyone here has magic. It might be a bit difficult, but try to fit in, Didi.”
Diomedes grunted, his hands tightening into fists by his sides. What he’d come to recognize as envy trickled through him in a stream, and it took several deep breaths to return to the mental state he’d been in before Armannii’s quip.
The village was unlike any he had seen before. None of the small buildings had windows, and none of the doors had handles. The houses were built into and between the closely knit trees. Even the main street they walked through had trunks to be avoided every few feet.
Pulling his hood over his face, Diomedes avoided eye contact with the inhabitants of Bayan Village. However, that proved difficult because he wanted to look around and take in his surroundings.
People had scrawled runes on every house, and Diomedes would occasionally recognize one. From what he could tell, most of them were for protection against breaking and entering, a rune Armannii had a talent for getting around. Diomedes was peering at such a rune when a voice near him made him jump.
“What are you looking at?” a gruff voice said. He struggled to find who had spoken until he realized it had come from a tree directly in front of him. Well, not the tree, but a man no more than three inches tall glaring at him. He had iridescent green wings on his back, and his eyes glowed bright yellow. The man, which Diomedes recognized as a nymph, stood on a thin branch, leaning against the trunk. If he hadn’t spoken, Diomedes wouldn’t have seen him.
“I—”
“Come on,” Armannii said, ushering Diomedes away from the nymph. “We’re not here to make friends, Didi.” He spoke the last part in a hushed voice. “Where’s Blanndynne?”
Diomedes craned his neck to look around the trees and buildings, but the genie had disappeared. “I don’t see her.” It didn’t help that even with the light runes spread sporadically around, he still struggled to see with the glasses on.
Armannii grunted, his jaw clenching. “Stay with me. I don’t need to go looking for you too.” The elf’s voice was strained, and his eyebrows furrowed. It was normally an uncommon expression for him but one he’d frequently worn since they’d left Zephrium’s place.
Though there were not as many people as in the streets of Cyanthia, there were enough that Diomedes sometimes struggled to keep up with Armannii as they weaved between trees, people, and treelike people—the dryads.
But the dryads, with their bark-like skin and green hair woven into dreadlocks, were not the only magical people they passed. A woman with long white fangs flashed Diomedes a smile, wiggling her finger toward him. A harpy with white wings flew with exact precision overhead. A gnome with a green cap and a troll with a wart the size of a small strawberry on his chin stood at the entrance to a tavern, speaking in a language Diomedes didn’t understand.
The farther Diomedes followed Armannii into Bayan Village, the more he felt his interest in magic rise, bubbling to the surface in the form of an awe-filled smile. A young boy with wolflike ears chased a girl with a cat’s tail and slitted eyes, both shrieking with laughter. A woman with cyan scales called to a man with silver eyes like Armannii’s, reminding him to pick up her medicine from the healer. Another nymph flew overhead, its wings fluttering near enough to Diomedes that he could hear, and he turned to watch the woman fly away on her purple wings.
Someone gripped Diomedes’s arm, making him jump. “Come on, Didi. Keep up,” Armannii said, tugging him.
Diomedes was thankful he had grabbed the arm that wasn’t cut, though it felt quite a bit better since the elf had rewrapped it for him earlier. Diomedes nodded to Armannii, sticking closer to him than he had before.
“She’s got to be here somewhere,” Armannii muttered. “How far could she have gotten?”
Diomedes shook his head. “I don’t know. Depends how badly she wanted to get away from you.” He had meant it as a joke, but Armannii didn’t laugh. “I’m sure she’s fine,” Diomedes said, clearing his throat.
Armannii didn’t seem to hear him. He was too busy turning his head from side to side. After a few seconds, he let out an annoyed sigh. “Ugh, I hate places this crowded. I can’t focus my hearing, and it’s all so loud.” Armannii rubbed his temples, massaging them in circles.
“Look,” Diomedes said, placing a hand on Armannii’s shoulder. “I’ll stay here by this tree while you go look for her. Then we can meet up here.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Armannii said, cringing when someone started hollering across the street.
“You’ll find her faster if you don’t have to worry about keeping up with me. Besides, I need a breather.” Diomedes rubbed his hand over his side. It was true. His side had been aching again since entering the village, mainly because there was no way to avoid bumping into people, and even though he tried to be careful, a few people had hit him with their elbows or the packages they’d carried in their arms.
“If you’re sure—”
“Go,” Diomedes said, offering an encouraging nod. “I’m fine people watching from here.”
Armannii frowned as he looked at Diomedes, who leaned back against a tree in the middle of the street, and then glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll be back. Don’t move.”
Diomedes watched the back of his friend’s head disappear into the crowd. With the ability to stand out of the way and watch, Diomedes lost all sense of time as the stream of people walking up and down the streets never ended, splitting to go around him and the tree he leaned against. A strong scent of something sweet washed in toward his right, and Diomedes covered his mouth and nose with his hand when the sweet scent only grew stronger. It was sickly. And then it was gone, replaced by a different odor, one that reminded him of the smoked pig his father liked to have when hosting ceremonies and balls. It was a much more tolerable smell, and his stomach growled as he returned to people watching.
It was only when he saw a woman with pale iridescent skin and a raven braid that could’ve been used as a weapon that he straightened up. Not ten feet to his left, Blanndynne slipped from vendor to vendor. She followed the crowd of traffic, which moved her away from Diomedes and toward the edge of the street. She got farther away, swept by the people down a side street where more merchants had set up their wares.
After glancing in the direction Armannii had disappeared, Diomedes made up his mind and pushed through the moving crowds until he also landed in the less crowded street Blanndynne had entered. He scanned the line of stalls, searching for the top of her head between faces with colorful eyes, horns, and impatient expressions that he was standing in the middle of a narrower street without moving.
He finally spotted her stepping beneath the canopy of a nearby stall, and he followed the foot traffic until he got up to where she stood.
The stall she’d stopped at seemed to sell jewelry primarily, and when Diomedes stepped up behind her, she was admiring a bracelet made from a very familiar light green stone. It had been worn completely smooth and was a perfect circle.
Diomedes paused, listening to the conversation Blanndynne was having with the merchant. Despite only standing a few feet behind her, he waited to announce his presence until after Blanndynne finished her conversation with the merchant.
“It’s very beautiful,” Blanndynne said, nodding at the woman, who wore a scarf around her blue hair that wrapped around and covered the lower half of her face as well.
“Thank you,” the woman said, bowing her head. “It would look very lovely.”
“I agree,” Blanndynne said, cocking her head to the side. She held the bracelet with one hand, and Diomedes watched as she lowered her other hand to her side, hiding it beneath the edge of her violet cloak. It began to glow. “You want to gift it to me, don’t you?” Blanndynne asked, and something about her voice was too sweet, like the scent Diomedes had smelled before.
Instead of responding, the merchant’s face went slack, her eyes drooping as she nodded. It was as if she wasn’t in control of her movements, like she was doing them in her sleep.
“So I can have it?” Blanndynne asked, her eyes on the woman, who nodded again. “Wonderful! Thank you.”
Amidst the shock of what he’d just seen, Diomedes glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed the enchantment Blanndynne had placed on the woman. Somehow, the genie had gotten away with her heist.
Blanndynne turned to continue walking down the street, and Diomedes strode faster to catch up with her, surprising Blanndynne as he looped his arm through hers and pulled her to a stop.
“What was that?” he asked, leaning down close to whisper in her ear.
“I was practicing, just like you said.” She held up the bracelet, which she’d slipped onto her wrist.
Diomedes nodded to a man with antlers sprouting through his hair when the stranger inclined his head, but Diomedes’s focus was split between navigating back to the tree Armannii had left him at while trying to form the words to explain what was racing through his head.
“Clearly,” Diomedes said, still speaking in a voice he hoped Blanndynne and few others could hear. “But you didn’t pay the woman.”
“That was kind of my reason for enchanting her. I wanted the bracelet, so I tried to recreate the spell I used on that bandit. And it worked,” she said, still grinning. But her smile faltered when she glanced up at the look on Diomedes’s face. “Why are you upset? This is what you told me to do.”
Diomedes shook his head. “I’m not upset. I’m impressed you were able to do that as quickly as you did, and especially with no one noticing. But you took something from someone who was already a victim of the war. It’s not the”—he glanced around to see if anyone was listening, and then he whispered the next word before returning to his normal volume—“stealing I’m upset about. You took advantage of someone whose life depends on making money off her wares.”
Blanndynne frowned at him, pulling her arm from his when they reached the tree in the middle of the busy main street. “But you said to practice. You even told me I could focus on what I wanted.”
“And I’m not taking that back,” Diomedes said as he put his hands in his pockets. “I’m just suggesting that you try to use your gift as a way to help the cause we’re fighting for instead of almost doing the same thing as my father’s men are doing to the less fortunate.” He refrained from using the word “council,” and he hoped his point still came across.
Though she still frowned, she nodded. “I understand. And I’m sorry.”
Diomedes snorted. “I’m not the one who needs an apology. Armannii is looking for you all over this place. He’s not in a good mood.”
“Hasn’t been since we came into the Dark,” Blanndynne said, glancing around at the people passing by. “I don’t think he likes it here.”
“From what I understand, he didn’t leave it on good accounts.” Diomedes joined her in watching people moving past them. He raised an eyebrow when a woman walked by on four legs like those of a horse. Nothing could’ve prepared him for Bayan Village, he decided.
“Do you know what happened?” Blanndynne asked, returning her focus to Diomedes’s face.
He shook his head. “He hasn’t shared, and I don’t push. Works better that way.” Diomedes glanced down at her bracelet, and the thought he’d had when he’d first seen her holding it crossed his mind. “Jade?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “It doesn’t burn you or something?”
Blanndynne gave him a genuine smile. “It’s not like silver for a werewolf. It tingles a bit, but it makes me feel more alive.”
“Until someone uses it to kill you,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.
“I enjoy irony,” she said, lowering her arm to her side.
“Did you seriously wander off to look at jewelry?” Armannii’s voice was curt as he strode up to them. His cheeks were red, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been all over this place looking for you!”
“I’m sorry.” Blanndynne glanced at Diomedes, who nodded approval at her quick apology. “I got distracted.”
“That’s not something you can do here,” Armannii said, glancing around as if checking for potential threats to their safety.
“I said I was sorry,” Blanndynne said, matching the elf’s stance as she crossed her arms. “I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
Armannii ran his tongue over his teeth, frowning. “Don’t do it again.”
“I thought you liked adrenaline?” Blanndynne said, tilting her head to the side as she challenged Armannii.
“Do we have a deal?” Armannii asked in a low voice, putting his hands on his hips.
“Sure. But just remember,” she said, pulling a throwing-knife from her cloak, “I can take care of myself.” She stuck her pointer finger through the loop at the end of the handle and twirled it in circles.
“Great.” Armannii pushed her hand down, somehow avoiding the blade. “Now put that away before someone notices. The last thing we want is someone calling for the Dark Soldiers.”
Blanndynne wiggled her eyebrows, but she put the throwing-knife away without arguing. “Have you figured out where we’re supposed to go yet?”
“No,” Armannii said, narrowing his eyes at her. “We’ve been too busy looking for you.”
“Well, you clearly weren’t looking hard enough.”
“If you hadn’t wandered away—”
“Enough.” Diomedes raised his hand, capturing their attention. “We found her. She promised not to do it again. Now can we find this gravesite already? You’re wasting time bickering.”
“Of course,” Armannii said, although his jaw was clenched again. He glanced sideways at Blanndynne, who also nodded.
“Lead the way,” she said.