Destroyer Rising Read Free Page B

knew had been marked before.
“Timewalkers?” I skimmed through it faster. “There's a chapter on
the Burning Lands. This isn’t even the same book anymore.” I turned
the pages more and more frantically. “I need to find Koda.” I
slumped into the chair and stared. Devils. The Abyss. The Wandering
War. Page after page with new words and twisted things. I let the
book bleed all over my leg as I reached for the pile of aged
manuscripts on the shelf. I had to compare the notes. This is where
the answers had to be.
    “Come,” Alan said. “He will be busy for a great deal
of time.”
    Some part of me acknowledged their departure, but
this … this was everything.
     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    A voice registered somewhere in the back of my mind,
but I could only stare at one of the unlocked pages of the Book
that Bleeds. A detailed accounting for a Key of the Dead, a dagger
like the one hidden in the chest at my feet.
    “Damian?”
    I glanced up. Aideen hovered above the table for a
moment and then landed with a tiny whumpf. “Edgar is here. He would
like to speak with you.”
    I nodded slowly. “Okay. I wouldn’t mind speaking to
him about a few things either.”
    Aideen glided back down the stairs.
    “What do you think he wants?” Foster asked from his
perch on the shelf behind me.
    “I didn’t know you were there.”
    “Yeah, well, someone has to stab you if you go crazy
from whatever’s in that book.”
    I smiled and turned my gaze back to the Key of the
Dead incantations before closing the book and covering it in a
sloppy pile of manuscripts. “Foster, it says a Key of the Dead can
open a Hellgate or let you step into a bloodstone.”
    “Why would you ever want to step into a bloodstone?”
Foster muttered. “Cozy up to a trapped demon? Sounds
brilliant.”
    “You’re speaking to each other again?”
    Neither of us gave Edgar a response. Foster hopped
down onto the table and we both watched the man walking toward us.
His normally immaculate suit looked worn, but he still carried
himself with authority. Edgar’s face was drawn beneath the bowler
that perched at a low angle on his head. I guessed he’d lost a good
fifteen pounds, and the man hadn’t had it to lose.
    “How is Falias?” I asked.
    Edgar let himself collapse into one of the deep
leather chairs before pulling off his bowler with a sigh. Without
the shadow of the hat, his sandy face was disturbingly close to
skeletal.
    “It is … it is chaos.”
    “Hern?” I asked.
    Edgar shook his head. “He’s been underground since
Gettysburg. I don’t know when we’ll see him again. I’m more
concerned with Gwynn Ap Nudd.”
    “Why?”
    Edgar eyed Foster. “Where are your loyalties, on your
honor?”
    “I suppose I deserved that,” Foster muttered before
sitting down and folding his legs beneath him. “To my family first,
my friends second, and my people third. Thank you for not
questioning me in front of another Fae.”
    I stared at the fairy. “That’s it? We just had to ask
him a question on his honor?”
    Edgar nodded. “Though an honor-bound fairy could
still lie if he had no honor.” Foster scowled and Edgar continued.
“It does make me wonder why you didn’t tell Damian about Gwynn Ap
Nudd and your mother. Did she explicitly tell you to keep
silent?”
    “No,” Foster said, “but I do not wish to continue
these questions.”
    “Tell me why,” I said as I leaned forward. “I have to
know, Foster.”
    He glanced up at me and then looked away. “I thought
you and Sam would be safer not knowing.”
    I flopped back into my chair. Did he say that,
knowing it was the only answer I wanted to hear? Or was I getting
too paranoid for my own good? Maybe the voices in my head were
wreaking more havoc than I realized. The mere thought of them
brought a cacophony to my ears like that of a screaming stadium
filled with people.
    I watched Foster while he flexed his black and white
Atlas moth wings. “Thank you.”
    He froze, and then gave