“Save it, Medicine Max. It’ll take more than empty threats to kill me,” Fallon said, rolling her eyes.

Maxfield smoothed his already tattered robes and adjusted his slouch hat over a head of wild hair. All eyes turned to him.

“Maxfield. Welcome,” Lucius said.

“It’s not a welcome when you’re dragged out of your home against your will,” he grumbled.

Lu tsked and crowded into his space. “We had a deal. Now tell these fine people what you told me about the malediction.”

Maxfield’s eyes widened as he scanned the room, realizing everyone was eagerly focused on him. “I… I’ve said it before. It’s not an illness,” he began, straightening his hunched posture. “If it were, it would only affect the physical body. Our trusted remedies would ease the symptoms, and some would be some strong enough to survive. This is a curse.” He punctuated the word with a sharp jab of his gnarled finger.

The room erupted, voices clashing all at once—directing their ire at the healer.

“It’s true!” Maxfield shouted over the noise. “Sickness affects the physical. Malediction affects the spiritual!”

“Now, now!” Nico boomed, silencing the crowd. “Let him speak. We’re all looking for a way to end this plague.”

“It’s a malediction because it destroys the bond to our beasts. That bond is a spiritual connection. Nothing in nature could sever that. The only hope of ending this is to break the curse behind it.”

“And how do we do that?” I asked, leaning forward. I knew what it was like to live with something inside you, slowly stripping away pieces of who you were. If there was even a whisper of a way to stop it, I was ready to help any way I could.

“I’m a healer. Don’t you think if I knew the answer, I’d have ended this already?” Maxfield snapped. “It’d be nice not to havepeople at my doorstep every damn day, desperate for a cure I don’t have. I need some peace.”

“Have there ever been curses like this before?” I asked.

“Curses, yes. But like this one… never,” he said.

“There might be some accounts in ancient texts,” Sawyer offered. “Clues on how to break it. But we might be hard pressed to gain access to the archives.”

“I think I know a way,” Lu suggested. “Someone in Vaelryth might be inclined to help, with the right leverage.”

“Good, then it’s settled,” Nico said. “Maxfield, share everything you know. Lucius, you’ll?—”

A scream echoed down the hall, followed by the crash of dishes. The room itself seemed to darken. Shadows stretched along the walls as the study door burst open.

A male stumbled in, dried blood matted in his jet-black hair. But when those pale blue eyes met mine, my heart stuttered to a stop.

“Jase,” his name fell from my lips in a soft exhale. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Brother?” Nico broke the silence that had fallen upon the room.

Jase nodded, his head bowed in respect. “Nico.”

Sawyer shifted his gaze around the room, as though mapping out an exit plan. “I take it you know this male?”

“Sawyer, this is our brother—Jase. He was taken captive the night of the Crownspire,” Nico said.

“It’s really you,” Fallon whispered, afraid to startle the specter impersonating her brother. She jumped up, rushing him and embraced him in a vice-like hug.

Lu watched in disbelief, his brow furrowed and his jaw slack. “How… how are you here?”

“It’s nice to see you too,” Jase snarked back at Lu’s question. The tension in the room grew thicker by the second.

“No, really, how are you here? The cells in Mathenholm are inescapable.” Luca’s eyes narrowed.

“Did Johan release you? Where are Hunter and Finn?” Nico questioned.

“What a lovely welcome from my family.” Jase reached up, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I assume Hunter and Finn are still at Mathenholm? Does it really matter how I escaped?”