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Abby stared at the hand extended her way, studying it the way she would the latest Wizard Kellog book, her eyes skimming over every wrinkle of fabric, committing to memory the pattern of the weave, the sheen of each thread, and every time a star shot across his skin.

She was curious about the way his skin seemed alive. Lights constantly moved, swirling into microcosms of different colors, some the simmering rusted oranges and reds of a late autumn, others flashing the deep purple and blue hues of a wintery night scape. All of it was captivating. Mesmerizing. Half of her wanted to study him further, while the other half screamed at her to make a quick escape.

This person, whoever, whatever he was, was an unknown variable. And he could very well have been Sebbi's poisoner, or had a hand in conjuring Hestor from the dead.

The figure made no move to suggest his real motives. Instead, he hopped lightly from foot to foot and wriggled the fingers of his extended hand, defying Abby's expectations by being rather normal.

Neither she nor any of her companions took up his offer to shake hands.

Releasing a sigh the length of a paragraph in one of Abby's old schoolbooks, he placed his arm at his side. "Right," he said, taking a step forward, toward Margo.

The mouse-woman stood still and composed though she never stopped watching him from behind cinnamon-colored eyelashes.

"A Cloudian spy," he said, flashing a grin wide enough to show off both sets of teeth, "who reeks of light." An eyebrow of pure white light cocked above a glassy black eye. "You must work for Her Brilliance. How odd."

Abby was next, and as he made his way toward her, his gait pretty causal all things considered, Abby gulped, the sensation of feeling like a moth trapped in a jar for later use in a cursing potion crashing over her in waves.

"A human," he said, leaning down to catch her gaze. They almost touched noses. What looked like a bluish purple bruise went supernova along his cheek. "You've been here before, haven't you?"

Abby crossed her arms over herself, unwilling to give into the fear coiling around her insides. "Have you?"

He smiled.

"Love!"

Lucy plodded down the corridor, his footfalls echoing like thunderclaps. He dragged Crum behind him, Sebbi hobbling on his other side, helped along by Kit.

Upon their approach, the figure bowed, arms wide, head lowered, eyes forward. "Your Highnesses," he said once Lucy and Sebbi were within earshot, "you do me a great honor gracing me with your presence."

Lucy set Crum against a wall where he immediately collapsed in on himself, squeezing his knees into his chest, his arms so snug around himself, his knuckles flashed white. A hard feat to achieve, considering Crum was the palest person Abby knew.

Abby managed to take a step before Lucy had an arm hooked around her and was pulling her into his chest. She found herself eye-level with a sweat-soaked tunic, the fabric sticking to her cheek.

"Who's that?" Lucy asked, dragging a finger through Abby's hair.

Unable to see or smell anything besides body odor, Abby peeled herself off Lucy. She shook her head. "We don't know."

"He won't tell us who he is," Margo spat, her radiance a flashing blanket of bronzed annoyance.

The figure clicked his tongue. "I told you, I'll give you my name, when you give me yours." He shuffled back and forth along the hallway, the shadows around him following his example, swaying in the same direction.

Abby rushed forward, offering her hand. "I'm Abby."

The figure leaped on her hand like it had life-saving properties and took it. "Finally," he said, running his fingers along hers. "Someone with some sense around here. Now, because you've obliged me," he released her hand, and stood to address the others, "I shall keep you in the dark no longer. I, dear people, am Lord Axion." His eyes wandered over to Margo, who showed no signs of name recognition. "I believe some of you know a great deal about my father."

It took only a second for everything to register for Margo. While Sebbi and Lucy, Abby and Kit exchanged confused glances and crinkled brows, she leapt into action, her face hard, her radiance a thick haze of maroon.

For the second time that day, Abby's skin prickled. The surrounding air grew heavy. Heat wrapped around them, dry and boiling. Sweat ran off Abby's face in droves.

Margo glowed.

"Margo?"

The mouse-woman raised an arm. "Stand back, all of you. I'll take care of him." She narrowed her gaze and parted her mouth, threads of drool working their way down her chin.

Outside, the wind picked up, the trees in the gardens whipped into frenzies. Twigs snapped, branches tore from trunks. Leaves took to the air in rapid circles until they all blurred together. A whirlwind of black and brown and verdant green, all haloed by the moonlight.

Abby's vision blurred. Behind her, Lucy cradled his head, his knees knocking together. Sebbi grimaced, blood dripping from his mouth as Kit struggled to keep them both upright.

"Margo!" she shouted. "This is dangerous!"

The mouse-woman stared at her with empty eyes. Abby didn't even know if Margo was registering her presence; she seemed entranced as more magick gathered, threatening to choke them.

"Margo!" She coughed as a splinter wormed its way down her throat. "Please!"

"Yes," Lord Axion called. "While your use of magick is impressive, I'm afraid I do not warrant such a reaction."

"What would you have me do, then?" Margo bellowed. "Let the spawn of the Shadow King live? Let you spread your darkness even further?"

He shook his head as he brushed off a bit of twig from his leg. "Why don't we all have a chat?"

Margo glanced at the corridor. Vases were knocked over, portraits slashed to ribbons. Three trees had been uprooted and laid on their sides, trunks gashed and wounded. Grass and dirt littered the floor.

Abby and Lucy were on all fours, the pressure of Margo's magick having caused their legs to buckle.

Blood poured from Sebbi's mouth. Kit held a nearby column for dear life, his fur ruffled, his tail pin-straight.

Crum had pulled off a miracle, channeling whatever stone he'd been imitating since arriving in Aelurus. He was the only one besides Axion who remained unchanged - knees pressed into his chest, arms cradled around them, eyes shut.

Margo let out a sigh. Her radiance dimmed, and almost instantaneously, the magick disappeared. Abby no longer felt like a boulder was crushing her chest.

She got to her feet before helping Lucy to his.

"Talk," Margo snapped. She crossed her arms over herself and glowered. "What are you doing here? Doesn't Gravious need you doing his dirty work elsewhere?"

He shrugged. "Who needs someone else's dirty work, when you've got your own to attend to." He snorted, eyes scanning the room, considering each of its occupants' dour expressions. "That's a joke," he added.

No one laughed.

Again he sighed, plucking a splinter from his lapel and casting it onto the ground. "I'm the outcast of my family. My father does not trust me with his plans."

Margo snapped her jaw. "Then you're of no help to us." She whirled, her curls bouncing around her face as she stalked away.

"What? No." Axion shook his head, silver hairs falling from the ponytail he'd gathered at the nape of his neck."You're aware my father has shown a great deal of interest in Aelurus, yes?"

Margo stopped walking and turned around. "Yeah, so what? We know he organized the rebellion against the rightful Aelurian rulers and placed one of his shadespores on the throne. All of that was resolved over three years ago."

"Haven't you ever wondered-" Axion continued, his voice low. The shadows on the back wall slid down its stones, one by one congregating at Axion's feet. "-why my father would go to the lengths he has for this realm? Why he would invest so much time and effort only to rule by proxy?"

"Evil doesn't need a reason."

"True," a meteor shower skirted over Axion's exposed collarbone, "but rest assured, my father has one."

"Which is?"

"The Drygons."

Drygons. The one word resulted in Margo's eyelashes fluttering so fast they blurred together.

Abby stood there, slightly outside of the sphere of understanding Margo and Axion seemed to share. Sebbi was too focused on standing to invest his attention elsewhere while Lucy faced the situation with his go-to response when anyone tried to talk to him of anything besides women or wine- he remained indifferent.

"What's a drygon?" Abby asked, hating the way she felt excluded. It was a childish notion she knew but she couldn't help feeling like she was back in school again, everyone off in their own little groups or obsessing over themselves, too busy to pay her any mind.

Margo turned her head so she could meet Abby's gaze. Sweat glazed Margo's face, and dripped from her curls. "Abby, I'm not--"

"If you don't tell me," she thrust an arm out at Axion, spearing him on one of her fingers, "he will."

Axion nodded. Margo's shoulders slumped as she sighed. "Fine, fine." She motioned for Abby to lower her arm. She did. "You call them dragons."

"What?" Abby leaped a good foot off the ground. "Dragons are real?"

While the moment, at times tense what with Margo's use of excessive magick, and at other times explosive, Margo's emotions came to mind, and their range from irritated to irate, had made it less than ideal for Abby's excitement, she couldn't help it.

Dragons existed. Winged, scaly beasts. The kind that scorched knights who searched for lost princesses. The kind who breathed fire so hot it turned beaches to glass. They were real.

Axion grinned. "Yes, they existed."

Existed. Past tense. Abby's excitement drained from her face, leaving her an emptied lake of disappointment.

"They were the first of the animal kingdoms," Margo said, picking up the conversation after Axion began fidgeting with one of his ruffled cuffs. "The strongest in the Eridan. Blessed by the Dawn Queen herself, and given the honor of protecting the Stag but," she bit her lower lip, her eyes quavering as a past hurt pushed against her eyelashes, "they were hunted to extinction." She honed her gaze on Axion and snarled.

"Ah, but they weren't all killed." Axion hefted a finger in front of himself like any self-respecting teacher would when on the precipice of divulging some truly juicy tidbit. Abby perked up at this, eager to hear his next words. "The few that survived the raids took their dead off-world--"

"And how would you--"

He put a hand up, silencing Margo before the rest of her question had a chance to escape. "They sought to carry out their burial rituals and entomb their dead so they could find peace. And they succeeded by doing so," he glanced beyond arched walls, his eyes fixating on a tree who'd come out of Margo's tantrum unscathed, its canopy shining like the gilded crown of some ancient nobility. Its branches creaked as a breeze rustled through its leaves. Taking one finger, he pointed at the ground, "and they succeeded, doing so here."

Margo gasped.

"Somewhere in this flea-addled realm lies the corpses of hundreds of drygons. Now," Axion squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, "knowing my father's fondness for undead armies, can you parse together why he insists on meddling with Aelurian affairs?"

"To bolster his army's numbers with the drygons." Margo's words slipped into the night air, blanketing them all in a heavy sense of dread.

Axion flashed a tight smile. "I imagine your poisoning," he nodded toward Sebbi, "and the appearance of your deceased companion," Margo bristled as tears swam in her eyes, "had something to do with it."

The shadows gathered at Axion's feet began to writhe. He tapped his heel beside them and they fell in line, one beside another, their forms merging into another giant pool of darkness. Nothing reflected on its surface. "I have an inkling Geoff can supply me with more answers. That's why I chased him here. That's why I caught him." He dipped the toe of his shoe in the murky pool. It disappeared beneath the surface. "Now that I've told you what I know," he bowed, "I really ought to get going--"

"Wait!"

Impulsive as usual, Abby lunged toward a now half-gone Axion and reached out. At the same second, Sebbi coughed. The whole of him shook with tremors, his arms spastic as they shot out in front of him, one of his hands clipping Abby's shoulder. It was enough to knock her off balance.

She toppled like a playing card in the breeze, head-first into Axion's shadow. Sinking further and further into the cool, inky fingers of darkness, Sebbi and Margo scrambling topside to help her.

Sebbi shirking off Kit's touch and running toward her on trembling legs. Margo panicked, arms outstretched, pendant beating against her chest.

Abby reached for their hands, praying for either of them to rescue her...

And then Margo bumped into Sebbi. Having been knocked off balance, they both pitched forward, and for a few seconds, they were air bound before both bodies, landed, heads first into the pool.

Their faces barrelled toward Abby, mouths open, screams swallowed by the darkness. Abby braced for the impact as Sebbi and Margo drew nearer but none came.

Instead, a voice floated to her ears, annoyance clinging to the crevices of its airy cadence. "You slipped in," it said. "You never slip in."

Suddenly, warmth wrapped around Abby's wrist and tugged. She was being pulled free of the darkness. In seconds she was back on solid ground, knees giving out beneath her. Soil gathered beneath her fingers as she dug them alongside herself. The hot prick of magick ran up and down her skin, its touch incendiary.

Axion knelt beside her, elbow deep in a shadow. With a grunt, he lifted out Sebbi by his gruff, who had a terrorized Margo perched on his shoulders, legs wrapped around his neck. The mouse-on-cat totem pole from Abby's previous Aelurian excursion had returned.

She would have laughed if she'd had energy to spare. Instead, she glanced around, eyes darting to the forest before them. Dark trees with bare branches loomed as fog her height snaked between trunks. Fear skittered up her spine. "Where are we?"

Axion sat back and wiped a few tendrils of black from his fingers. "The Evernight." He turned and looked at each of them. "Congratulations. You've fallen behind enemy lines."