Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
THE BRIAR COURT.
I shiver. It’s bizarrely beautiful but also predatory.
Another gate squats in shadow. Its frame is carved from stone and bone, literally—skulls grinning, spines bent into arches, ribs fused into doorposts. Pale blue witchfire flickers faintly in the darkness beyond. Cold air with the faint scent of rot gusts from it, brushing against my damp skin and raising goosebumps all over me.
THE HOLLOW NECROPOLIS is spelled out in bones. That’s the place Whistler warned me about.
I yank my gaze away fast, my stomach turning. No thank you!
Closer by, a gate gleams obsidian black, polished so smooth I see a distorted reflection of myself—blue skin, pointed ears, silver hair. I look like someone else’s fever dream. Ugh. My stomach twists like a slick fist inside me.
Above the shiny black gate, curling golden script wreathed in flames reads:
THE CARNAL BAZAAR.
Even from here I can hear laughter, moans, and the faint beat of drums. The scent that wafts out is heady, thick—incense, spice, musk. Something that makes my cheeks flush and my nipples tingle though I don’t know why.
A figure sweeps past us and I know instantly what he is—a demon.
His skin glows bronze, his eyes burn ember-red. Two sleek horns curl back from his forehead, polished like marble. He smirks at me as though he knows what I look like naked. Can he see through the weird glamour spell Whistler put on me? If he can, he doesn’t stop to stare—just keeps walking, his expensive alligator skin coat billowing. I catch a whiff of smoke and something darker as he disappears through the Bazaar’s gate.
I swallow hard. My voice is barely a whisper. “Are we… are we going in there?”
Whistler shakes his head.
“No, not the place for you, my queen.”
He yanks me forward before I can argue.
The crowd swirls around us—strange, uncanny people. Tall elves with silver hair like my disguise, their faces sharp and perfect, their laughter ringing like glass chimes. They glance at me with curiosity, like they sense I don’t belong.
A cloaked figure brushes past and I flinch. His robe is stitched with black runes that writhe faintly, and a huge animal skull hides his face—antlers stretching wide on either side of him. His smell is grave dirt and rot, and I don’t breathe again until he’s gone.
Further on, I see a man hunched by the wall, muttering to himself, clutching a cage of insects that glow faintly blue. His mouth is too wide, his teeth too sharp, his long, forked tongue flicking as if he’s tasting the air.
Another creature slithers past, cloaked in scales, his eyes flat and yellow. Coins jingle in his hand as he barters with a vendor at a stand piled with glowing fruits and flayed animal skins.
This place is packed with so much weirdness I don’t know which way to look next.
It’s all too much. My head spins. I feel like Alice traveling through Wonderland only there’s no tea party waiting—just horror and danger at every turn.
“Where are we—?” I start to ask.
“Quiet now!” Whistler hisses suddenly, pulling me closer. His bony fingers bite into my wrist. “The Magistrate is looking at us. Keep walking straight so he doesn’t suspect.”
The Magistrate.
I don’t want to look, but my eyes slide sideways anyway.
And I almost trip over my own feet.
A giant towers in the crowd, easily twice as tall as anyone else. His skin is velvet-black, smooth and flawless. His silver eyes glow like molten metal, stark and cold in his face. He wears a robe that shifts like liquid night, swallowing the light around him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink—he just watches.
The weight of his stare pins me in place. The air hums with menace and I feel my heart freeze in my chest. Oh God, suddenly I understand why Whistler was being so careful. I absolutely, positively do not want this creature to notice me.
A shiver bolts through me, locking my jaw tight and my lips clamp closed as a terrible certainty overtakes me. If I make a sound, if I even breathe wrong, he’ll know I don’t belong here and he’ll know it.
Whistler drags me faster, weaving through the throng. My pulse is in my ears, pounding with every slap of my bare feet on stone.
And then I see it—the gate he’s pulling me toward. I know it even before I read the letters curling across the arch in iron script.
THE BLEEDING COURT
The frame is black wrought iron, twisted into cruel spikes and spirals. Blood-red roses climb the bars, their petals lush and heavy, their scent coppery and sweet. The thorns are long as knives, gleaming as if dipped in fresh blood. And in fact, I do see blood dripping from some of them. Or at least, it’s a liquid that’s thick and sticky and red—it might be sap but it certainly looks like blood.