Page 86 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

“Vail says his parents told him to take care of Samara. He grabbed her and ran. A wraith followed them and attacked. Vail managed to kill it, but not before it severely injured him. That’s… that’s how he got his scars.” I let out a breath. “They made it to a small cave where they stayed hidden until rangers found them three days later when a search party was sent out to look for the missing caravan.”

“Okay,” Roth drawled. “They both share a fucked-up childhood trauma. Doesn’t explain why Vail always stares at Samara like he’s thinking about slitting her throat and chucking her body off a cliff.”

I thought over their words, recalling all the times Vail looked at Samara. “That really is the look he gives her, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Roth nodded. “I cycled through quite a few options before settling on that one.”

“No one knows why Vail hates Samara the way he does, besides the two of them.” I suspected Samara had told Rynn and Cali, but they’d take that secret to their graves.

“Hmm,” Roth hummed out loud. “I get why you’re worried about the two of them being out in the wilds with no one else around them. I’ll still kill the shit out of you if you tap that fucking pencil again, though.”

“Noted,” I said dryly. “How is the translation coming?”

Roth flipped through several pages of notes before answering me. “Almost done. Still trying to make sense of it. Whoever wrote this used obnoxiously flowery language and a lot of vague allegories, but… I have a theory, and it’s not good.”

“Really? Because I really expected good news to explain how the wraiths have been getting past our blood wards,” I responded flippantly.

If Samara or Kieran were here, they would have called me on my bullshit, and I found myself missing the banter we would have exchanged when Roth just dismissed me entirely and went back to reading.

“Sorry.” I leaned back and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I haven’t found anything useful, and it’s frustrating, so I’m acting like an ass.” Serious, hazel eyes just stared at me, and mylips twitched as I put my hand back down onto the table. “More of an ass than usual,” I amended.

Roth nodded in what I assumed was acceptance. It was hard to tell because their face seemed to be perpetually locked in this bored expression with just a hint of haughtiness.

Okay. Maybe more than a hint.

“The symbol that was carved into that boy’s neck means ‘draw unto.’” I took the book that Roth passed over to me and looked at the symbol on the opened page.

“The boy was drawing magic into himself?” I asked with a frown. “Have we been wrong in thinking that he was a victim? Was he trying to work some type of spell and it backfired?”

“It confused me at first too,” Roth admitted. “But the more I read, the more it became clear that this symbol is often used in spells of transference.” They paused for a moment before asking. “What doyouthink wraiths are?”

I shrugged, caught off-guard by the question. “The Unseelie always fucked around with shadow magic. The theory that they created the wraiths and then lost control seems plausible enough. The Seelie were pushing back against them, and they didn’t want to lose, so the Unseelie tried to make their own shadow monsters stronger and fucked it up for everyone.”

Whatever had happened to the Fae happened fast because we’d never found any written records of what went down.

There were some writings in the years before about a growing divide between the Unseelie and Seelie, but that was it. There were no mentions of wraiths in any of the writings we’d located, which implied the wraiths were something new that came about when whatever shit went down with the Fae occurred.

“I don’t think that’s what happened,” Roth said slowly. “Not exactly. I do think that the Unseelie are responsible, though.”

“What are you saying, Roth?” I asked, really not liking where this was going.

“Isn’t it strange that all the Fae disappeared when the wraiths appeared?”

“I know where you’re going with this.” I shook my head. “The wraiths are different than the Fae. I’ve read the texts about the Unseelie and how they used their shadows to spy. Their shadows were an extension of them, but they weren’t separate beings, and the Fae themselves didn’t turn into shadows.”

“We were humans and became monsters,” Roth pushed. “I think the Unseelie tried to make it so they could turn themselves into shadows and became trapped in that form. The first humans that turned themselves into the Moon Blessed lost their humanity. What if the Unseelie lost themselves too? And they’re just now starting to come back to themselves?”

The crease between my brows only deepened. “And you think that’s why their attack strategies have changed from going after whoever they could find to being more concentrated on the outposts?”

Chills ran down my spine. Wraiths were always the worst of the monsters to roam these lands, but they’d still been beasts. The idea that they could be intelligent and capable of using magic… no, that didn’t make sense.

I shook my head. “Wraiths are nothing but shadows,” I replied, unable to accept this. “They can only become corporeal for a few seconds at a time.” Enough to slash open a throat or disembowel a body.

“That’s where the symbol comes in,” Roth said. “I think it’s being used to draw the twisted magic within the wraiths into whoever bears the mark.”

“Draw unto,” I murmured.

But why? What would be the reason for doing such a thing?I stopped breathing for a few seconds when I connected the dots.

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