Page 54 of Bound

Ruby stepped toward the shattered remains of the cottage. The net was still lying across it, stopping at the broken stone archway.

“What is that?” Ruby asked, pointing at the flowery net.

Slate ghosted his hand over his burned arm. “Malblossom. It is toxic to Skullstalkers.”

“Toxic?” Ruby swallowed. Malblossom rang a bell. Demon hunters kept some in a pouch, just in case. She once overheard one saying he hoped he never had to use it.

She took his arm carefully, wary of the burns from the net and the drying blood from his hunt. “What do we need to do?”

“Nothing.” He tugged his arm out of her grip. “It is just my arm. It will heal on its own.”

He looked around the broken cottage, his tail lashing. At first, Ruby thought he was glaring at the net. Then she noticed his eyes were strangely soft behind his mask. His shadows were flickering slowly, agitated but not angry. The slow sway looked almost… sad.

Ruby bent down and touched the stacked stones that were once the archway. “What is this place?”

Slate huffed a loud breath through his nose. “This… This was Paimon’s. When he was a human.”

A cold chill ran down Ruby’s spine. She had never heard of this place. It was off the main paths, and no one ever dared venture away from them lest they get stolen by the Bygone.

The dog spirit nudged her hand, pulling her out of her shock. She stroked its head distractedly, struck by the idea that time wasn’t as long as she thought, and it was unfolding right in front of her.

“I should have visited him more,” Slate said gruffly. “I should have asked him how he was faring. I should have kept an eye on that damn dog.”

The dog spirit barked and jumped up at him.

Slate growled, holding his injured arm away from the dog’s reach. “Hush! Why do you not call to any of my senses? Why do you havenowhereto be?”

The dog spirit licked his burned elbow.

Ruby pulled it away by the scruff, her fingers almost meeting through its ghostly skin. The dog was even less corporeal in this realm. She could hardly see it anymore.

She held the dog firmly and looked up at Slate’s burned arm. “We need to clean you up.”

“I’ll be fine,” Slate said. He gave his arm a shake, flicking his own ashy skin to the forest floor.

Ruby grimaced. “I can do it fast. Even if your arm heals, you’re covered in blood from your?—”

Slate roared. “I said I’ll be fine!”

Ruby stepped back, shocked. He had never roared at her like that before. Even in those first days when most things she did annoyed him, he only ever snapped. He never yelled.

The dog spirit whined, its head cocking.

Slate panted, shoulders heaving. For a fearful moment, Ruby thought he might lash out and put his fist through a tree, maybe snap a trunk with his tail.

Then he sagged. His black eyes drifted shut, showing his thin, pale eyelids.

“They were right,” he said dully. “I did betray them. Those souls needed me, and I left them to wither into shades because… what? I was busysleeping?”

“You didn’t sense them,” Ruby tried, stroking the dog spirit so he’d stay calm. “You would have gone to them if you sensed them.”

“And yet I didn’t.” Slate’s tail lashed, stirring up leaves. “I am so disconnected from my own void that I didn’t sense that somebody had entered it. What kind of guide am I if I let my wanderers rot alone in the forest?”

Ruby couldn’t come up with an answer. She had never seen such a mournful sight as Slate, huge and powerful and afraid of nothing, slumping in defeat in the ruins of his old friend’s home.

She gathered the dog spirit in her arms, blinking at the strangeness of its near weightlessness. Then she stepped up cautiously beside Slate.

“Come on,” she said gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

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