Chapter Thirty-Four

“Well, then,” Eoin said, pushing himself to his feet and holding out a hand. “Are we agreed?”

Luna rubbed her eyes and smothered a yawn. Hours of painstaking negotiating had crawled by. She was hungry, exhausted, and utterly spent. “We are agreed.”

The idea of shaking on their deal with the God of Shadow still filled her with dread, but it was now or never. She gripped his hand as tight as she could, his broad palm enveloping her comparatively skeletal fingers. With a wolfish grin, he squeezed her hand tighter still and pumped once, twice, three times.

As soon as they parted, the peacock quill sailed through the air and into her hand. She stared at the bottom of her contract, where the empty line for her signature waited. Some invisible force pulled the tip of the quill closer to the parchment. She had shaken on the terms, and now there was no turning back.

Still, she made sure to take her sweet time. She stretched her limbs, allowed herself a few deep breaths. There was no inkwell to dip the quill in, but when she tested it on the side of the parchment, raven-black strokes unfurled from its tip.

“This quill would be great for calligraphy, don’t you think?” Luna mused aloud.

Eoin shot her an unimpressed look. “Your stalling doesn’t bother me, my lady. I’ve lived through your entire mortal existence an infinite number of times. For me, a decade is worth no more than a second.”

Luna almost bought it, but then she caught sight of his hand, curled on the table. The most minuscule of twitches passed through his left pinky. Doesn’t bother you, hmm? “You won’t mind me savoring a few extra minutes of freedom, then,” she told him with a snooty little smile, and began doodling cats in the margins.

Eoin slammed his palms against the table. “For hell’s sake,” he exclaimed. “Just sign the damned thing.”

Luna grinned to herself and finally conceded, penning her full name—Luna Evovich—in a flourish of black.

Before she had even lifted her quill, Eoin practically snatched the contract away from her. He took a moment to compose himself and beamed at her, though his nostrils were slightly flared. “Lovely. Now, my lady, is when the fun truly begins.”

The Ruler of Darkness made a surprisingly excellent tour guide.

“In the Shadow Kingdom, there are four main rivers—three of fire and one of pure magic,” Eoin told her as they strolled along a path winding through the glade tucked behind the Shadow Palace. Soft blue moss and grassy stalks tipped with ghost blossoms bordered both sides of the path. Every now and then they passed elegant benches of varying sizes—some fit for a doll and some for giants. A hillside sloped down to their right, at first no more than a mild incline but rapidly descending into a thousand-foot vertical drop toothed with menacing black rocks.

Luna took care to always walk on Eoin’s left side.

Unnoticing, he went on. “About a third of the beings living here are fire spirits who sustain themselves on magma, so the fire rivers are quite convenient for them. The Jade River, on the other hand, sustains no one. Yet it is the lifeblood of these lands.”

“So . . . you can’t drink from it?” asked Luna.

Eoin shook his head. “Or bathe. And with your fragile mortality, stepping into it would kill you. At least, until you’ve metamorphed.”

Until you’ve metamorphed.

Luna still didn’t know how to feel about metamorphing—the transformation that would bestow upon her both her new powers and her unique anygné form. Anticipation or trepidation? She couldn’t tease the two apart, so she stopped trying. “So it can only kill mortals, you mean.”

Eoin gave her a look of surprise. “On the contrary. Natural immortality differs from that of an Immortal or an anygné. There is, after all, a marked difference between living forever and never dying.” Her expression must have been one of incredulity, for he elaborated. “The average immortal being may be born into a natural lifespan that stretches into eternity, but they are just as killable as mortals.” The god made a face. “Some much less so than others, unfortunately.”

“What sort of immortal beings are there?” Luna asked. Fire spirits, anygnés . . . how many wonders would she discover here?

Eoin waved a hand. “Oh, the list goes on and on. Every second a new horror emerges from the womb of its procreator.” He paused. “I do mean womb metaphorically. I’ve seen births that tear skulls open, or—”

“That’s quite enough, thank you,” Luna exclaimed. She thrust her finger into the distance randomly. “What are those?”

“The mountains?” said Eoin. “I named them Verkove’h Aur. The Peaks of Gold.”

“Named them,” she echoed dazedly. “Yourself. Right. Almost forgot.”

“You’ve heard the tales?” asked Eoin, cocking his head to the side.

Luna blinked. “Legends of the Immortals? Of course. Who hasn’t?” Although she hadn’t actually read the book herself until a few weeks ago when she had come across a copy of it on the shelves in the room Adrianna usually used to train her. It was a collection of stories, regaling the odysseys of every god and goddess. Their powers, their struggles, their triumphs. The origins of the Council of Immortals and the creation of the Shadow Kingdom were also included. The remembrance that Eoin had forged these lands himself from nothing but darkness and his own terrifying will . . .

“Anyway, there are over a thousand cities in the Shadow Kingdom,” Eoin told her, “but this is Hjerte, the capital. In your tongue, it translates to heart.”

Luna smirked. “How very original.”

Eoin smirked back. “Well, it was . . . back when I created the word for this very purpose. It’s not my fault that you mortals decided to pilfer my language.”

She blinked at him, too stupid for speech.

He laughed at her expression. “Not that I mind, of course. But language had to come from somewhere, no?” he asked. “Everyone takes it for granted. Especially the Council, considering I spoon-fed every word to them.” Eoin gazed beyond his city, expression growing solemn. “For nothing, I gave them everything. They gave me less than little in return. Perhaps I should have held back in the beginning. So as to let them realize the meaning of struggle in the absence of my aid. Perhaps then, they—”

“They might have realized your true value,” Luna finished, speaking the words that resounded deep within her like a wolf call. How strange, she thought to herself, to share the same hurt as the most powerful being in both realms.

Heartache spared no one it seemed, not even the gods.

Luna swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “I know what it is, Your Majesty, to offer oneself wholly . . . only for it to not be enough.” Her fists clenched and she found his gaze. “I’m sorry they wronged you.”

He regarded her for a moment and then offered an elbow to her. “There is still much to see, my lady. We should carry on.”

“We must,” Luna agreed quietly, and slipped her hand through the crook of his arm.

They continued on in silence until they reached the abrupt, grass-tufted end of the path. Luna could imagine that there might have once been a bridge leading into the veil of fog rising before them, but it was as if a giant had trudged by and torn it free. The impenetrable fog concealed the full extent of the drop, and she was overcome with the vague sensation that perhaps there was no bottom at all.

Panic jolted through Luna as Eoin’s hand clamped down on her shoulder and forced her closer to the edge of the cliff. He smiled when her foot scuffed the fringe of the path. She stared down into the dizzying white haze, her stomach seizing with a sickening lurch.

“Don’t,” she gasped suddenly. “Don’t you dare!”

Confusion crossed Eoin’s face, but his grip didn’t loosen. “Pardon me?”

What kind of cruel, absurd game was this? Did she have to survive the fall in order to metamorph? Or else was Eoin executing her after all? She fixed him with her most scathing glare as her body trembled uncontrollably. “Do not push me off this cliff.”

He stared at her, his mouth falling open in a mixture of astonishment and horror. Then he threw his head back and erupted into laughter, swaying dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. “Push you? Off a cliff ?” he cried out between snorts of laughter. “After all those hours of torment you inflicted upon me during negotiations? I think not!”

Luna crossed her arms over her chest. “Hours? Didn’t you say that an entire decade was worth no more than a second to you?”

Eoin’s eyes glinted. “Ah, yes, but just like any old mortal, I must still endure the entirety of its passing.” He slid two fingers into his mouth and let out a high, keening whistle. A moment later, the fog began to boil. A geyser of darkness erupted forth from below, scattering every last wisp of fog as a swarm of black butterflies a thousand strong rose at Eoin’s summons.

Luna gasped as each butterfly seemed to meld into the next, their wings merging into the smooth contours of a sleigh with sleek runners, low rails, and a glossy midnight finish. Once fully formed, it hovered before them. Waiting.

“It’s a sleijh,” Eoin explained. “The main form of transportation in the Immortal Realm . . . other than wings, of course.” He stepped onto the sleijh first and offered a hand to her. His eyes gleamed obsidian. “My lady.”

With the slightest hesitation, she gathered her skirts in her left hand and placed her right in his before hopping onto the sleijh. It didn’t so much as bob beneath the added weight.

“Tuck your toes into that little gap down there,” Eoin instructed as they seated themselves on a satin bench softer than the most luxurious bed. She hurried to anchor her toes into the little nook below the dash, letting out a yelp when it parted like smoke and latched onto her slippers, reshaping and solidifying to fit snugly around her feet. Once she had settled in, Eoin slapped the side of the sleijh and called out, “Dusk District, please.”

They shot into the sky. The force of the takeoff shoved her backward, and if not for the footholds, she might have tumbled right off the sleijh and into the void.

Eoin got to his feet, shielding one hand over his eyes and peering into the horizon. With a slight wobble in her knees, Luna cautiously rose, too.

The breath in her lungs exited in a single, soft whoosh.

The Shadow Kingdom unfurled below them like an impossible map, every lush, vibrant stroke of ink come to life. The wind tousled her hair and kissed her skin as she braced her hands on the railing and leaned out into nothingness to let out a whoop of joy. She waved at the tiny beings crawling along the jeweled streets far below, mere tiny specks of dust on a twinkling backdrop of psychedelic marvels. Buildings adorned with rubied roofs sprouted from beds of smoldering coals. Clusters of trees as white as clouds rolled past. The three red rivers wove around the Jade River in a hypnotizing web of flame, never quite meeting, always twisting away just shy of one another.

Eoin glanced at her. After a slight hesitation, he said, “You seemed to have been expecting me when I arrived upon your window, Luna.”

She smiled. “I was.”

That day outside King Jakob’s chambers, when he had nearly caught her eavesdropping, she had fled out of sight and forgotten her slipper. Once he retreated into his chambers with the slipper and Luna had realized her mistake . . .

She had promptly continued eavesdropping.

Luna had already suspected her ties with the Shadow King for a while now. Ever since Harry had explained total eclipses and how Priscilla had gained her dark magic abilities, she had wondered. And so when Killian mentioned that the next eclipse was drawing close, Luna scrounged the castle for books. Books on the Immortals, books on astronomy. She found multiple charts dating future eclipses. Only one book had predicted the last eclipse correctly, so she memorized the date and read up on the Immortals in the meantime.

Eoin smiled back. “You are full of surprises, Luna Evovich.”

With silent, lethal grace, the sleijh glided through the sky, a black swan cutting across a still winter ocean. They wound around towers with stairs climbing into the heavens, zoomed through puffy sheets of smoke that clung to the sleijh in trails of fuchsia. Another sleijh soared by a few feet below, full of creatures with silky beards and corkscrew horns twice taller than she. When Luna waved at them, their horns glowed and grew an extra inch.

The sleijh slipped into a descent as they approached a patch of green, every landmark sharpening and gradually enlarging to its true size. The runners skimmed the ground. The footholds warped, releasing Luna’s toes.

When Eoin disembarked, the sleijh surged back into the air, as if it had forgotten that it was carrying a second passenger. Right before her eyes, the railings disintegrated beneath her fingertips, bursting back into a frenzy of wings. Then came the dash, the bench, even the runners, until Luna stood bewildered on the floor slats as they dispersed right beneath her. It happened so quickly that she didn’t even have time to cry out when suddenly she was plummeting to the ground.

Ribbons of shadow arced up to meet her, entangling her limbs and easing her down. Eoin caught her in his arms as if she weighed no more than dandelion fluff.

“Apologies. I should have warned you,” he said with a roguish smile. “I so rarely have guests. I forget they haven’t learned the workings of what I consider mundane.”

“Mundane,” Luna echoed with a laugh, her skirts ruffling in the breeze. The high of her exhilaration still pumped through her veins. “You call that mundane?”

“As mundane as a mortal would call the setting of the sun,” Eoin replied, lowering her onto her feet.

Luna thought for a moment before murmuring, “No. I don’t think I’d ever call a sunset mundane.”

“Ah.” Eoin’s smile sombered. “You shouldn’t have said that. Now my heart will only yearn for it more.”

“You can only travel to the Mortal Realm during a total eclipse . . .” Luna realized. “So you’ve never seen the sun at all, even when you do go there.” Her brow knitted. “That’s . . . that’s so sad.”

“Here is your house,” Eoin said loudly, and thrust his hand out toward the mansion beside them. He pulled out a vial from his inner jacket pocket, filled with a viscous liquid that could have passed for molten-gold honey, and practically tossed it at her. “When you are ready to metamorph, drink this. Return to the palace once the transformation is complete. I have some business to attend to. Soraya, your new neighbor, is home.” Luna glanced at the lit front-room windows of the house next door. “If you require any help, please knock on her door and she will be more than happy to assist you.”

And with that, the God of Shadow threw his hand downward, blasted a hole into the ground, and jumped directly into it.

Luna gaped after him, but he had already vanished. Then she sighed and held up the vial.

“Well, then,” she whispered to herself, uncorking it with shaking fingers. “Here goes absolutely everything.”

She downed it in one go.

And when the vial shattered in her grip a moment later, the blood that dripped onto the ground no longer ran red.