"You're not supposed to be here, you know."
The voice hit like a knife to the spine.
Not loud. Not gentle. Just there. Right behind him, where no one should be.
Merlin didn't breathe.
'Too close.'
His fingers tightened on Keryx's hilt. Lightning laced faintly across the blade's edge, but he didn't turn. Not yet.
'Something got that close without tripping my perception field.'
'Something old.'
The silence behind him stretched—not dead silence, but watching silence. Waiting.
Then a breath.
A whisper of air, too cold, too sharp.
He spun.
Keryx rose in a clean arc, the blade a shimmer of light in the dark.
And stopped.
Because there was someone standing there.
Barely.
A girl—if you could call it that. Small frame. Long hair that hung like it had been dragged through oil. Skin pale but veined with something too dark, as if her blood had forgotten how to flow properly. And her eyes—her eyes—
Merlin's grip tightened.
'Not eyes.'
