Aravin wasn’t someone particularly attuned to other people’s emotions. Alyss, however, was an exception—a result of years of guilt. It also helped that Alyss usually kept her emotions tightly under control. But now, she clearly wasn’t managing.

“Let’s get some air,” he suggested.

“It doesn’t have to be now. This party is for you, and…”

Aravin snorted. He pulled away from the embrace and took her arm with exaggerated gallantry. “I couldn’t care less about this party.” He said it softly, preferring to keep that part to himself. Let them see him as the wealthy young man who always got what he wanted. For years, there had been only one thing his heart truly wanted—and no amount of credit could buy it. But no one needed to know how restless he felt, how that gaping hole inside him kept growing wider, its smoldering edges eating away at him until there’d be nothing left.

As they made their way outside, he caught flashes of grinning faces—some even whistled. Aravin smiled back, never really meeting anyone’s eyes. Alyss’ reputation was flawless. Plenty of his friends had, after a few too many drinks, made crude remarks about her—remarks Aravin had always shut down—but none had ever won her heart. Or even her attention. Her heart already belonged to someone else. To the one who took my soul.

Because of that soul bond, Aravin’s love life was as barren as the City of the Dead. And the one time I did let my feelings take over, I ended up robbed and humiliated in the gutter. Aravin grimaced. Leopold’s story had dredged up those memories. It couldn’t have been the same person, but muggings like that weren’t common enough for it to feel like mere coincidence.

They reached the exit and headed down the steps. The theater walls were so thick the music and voices faded into a muffled hum. The quiet greeted him like an old friend.

They crossed the square, passing the steam fountain. The mechanical dragon sculptures exhaled mist from their nostrils, veiling them from curious eyes. This was clearly personal. What could’ve happened while he’d been away? If Alyss’ family had suffered financial ruin, he would’ve heard.

They sat down on a metal bench and stared in silence at the spectacle before them, where colored lights turned the fine mist into a glowing dance. The hum of the generators that powered both the fountain and the lights filled the silence between them.

“The Golden Heart is dying.”

Aravin’s head snapped up. He’d expected Alyss to be battling something personal—not something that concerned the entire world. He turned to look at her, but she avoided his eyes, staring at the steam fountain instead. “What do you mean?”

“Thommen had been running measurements for years. The prognosis wasn’t good. Someone wanted him silenced. That’s why… why he was killed.”

Aravin bit back a sigh. “Alyss…” It had been three years since her brother died. Of course it must’ve hurt, but he hadn’t expected it to rattle her so much that she’d start chasing conspiracy theories.

She turned, her sharp gaze locking on his. “Save the sympathetic tone for someone else, Aravin. I saw my brother die. He reached out to me through one of your tinctures—sent me visions. His final message. The souls are dying, and if no one does anything, we’ll all be frozen corpses within ten years. If we even make it that long.”

This time, he did sigh. “What do your colleagues think?”

Her expression soured, as if she’d bitten into a lemon. “Seymon dismisses it. Thinks I shouldn’t concern myself.”

“Maybe…”

“Someone murdered my brother to cover this up, Vin!”

“The reason for that murder—if some lunatic even needed one—doesn’t have to be tied to Thommen’s research. Why would anyone want to hide the fact that the Golden Heart is dying?”

“To prevent mass hysteria. Especially since everyone believes we can’t replace the souls.”

Well, she had a point. Most of the Scions were content with their lives, and the last thing they wanted was the working class rising up because they suddenly realized they had nothing left to lose.

Aravin leaned forward, elbows on his knees, rubbing his face. He’d known Alyss all his life: she wasn’t prone to hysteria or paranoia. “Why are you telling me this? I mean, if we really can’t do anything… You want me to make you forget? Is that it? So you can spend your last years—”

“I don’t want to forget,” she snapped. “My brother died for his discoveries. I want us to save the Heart.”

“Us? Alyss, I get that you’re desperate. That it’s awful no one believes you. But what do you expect me to do?”

“Help me break Mart out.”

His stomach clenched. Mart. The smoldering remnants inside him flared up. “But…” Whatever protest he had died on his lips.

She gave him a hard look. “You sentenced him to death, Aravin. Knowing he was innocent. You told me—and made me keep it quiet. I never said a word to anyone. You owe me. Big time.”

He ran a hand through his hair, grateful when a strand fell over his eyes, shielding him from that blazing stare. She wasn’t wrong. There were no words for what he’d done to Mart—or to her. He’d acted out of panic, always telling himself it was temporary. A temporary solution that had now lasted five years… and he’d pretty much given up on the promise he’d made to himself.

“Fine. I can get him out of the cell. Only two guards know, and I’m already paying them enough credit every month. But then what? Where do you plan to find enough souls to power the Heart?”

“Het Beenderbos, maybe,” she mused. “They say the trees there are alive. If he could rip their souls out…”

“He probably doesn’t even know he is a Soultaker—let alone how to use his power.”

“Then he’ll learn,” she growled. “You don’t get it, do you? If we do nothing, we’re all dead. You. Me. Him. And what kind of life will you have condemned him to then?”

“Without that sentence, he’d be dead already,” Aravin shot back, heat rising in his voice. His heart twisted. Like he’d ever wanted this for his best friend! But what choice did he have? They would’ve killed Mart. He took a slow breath. The fear that had crushed him five years ago had never really left.

She fell silent. She knew that, too.

He turned her words over in his mind. Break Mart out. Make him save Tranendal—the very people who wanted him dead. “He’ll never go along with it.”

“You haven’t spoken to him in five years. You have no idea what he would or wouldn’t do.”

“Neither do you.”

“No,” she admitted. “But do you have a better idea?”

Aravin leaned back, staring at the glowing steam clouds. Then he looked up. The Golden Heart wasn’t visible now, but it towered high above them. The idea of its light going out felt impossible. And yet… nothing lasted forever.

Suppose Mart did agree to help. What then? Even if they drained an entire forest of its souls — would that even come close to the power of dragon souls? He doubted it. And where would they even find a dragon? His thoughts drifted to a shadowy room, the glow of oil lamps, and a sweat-slicked torso that had left his mouth dry. His cheeks burned as he shook the memory away. Why the hell was he thinking of that now? But the image came back—the room, a chain of teeth the length of his arm stretched along the wall like a grotesque garland. A blue-scaled claw gripping a vase. A skull with blood-red horns and a nightmare grin.

A dragon.

No one in Tranendal had ever seen a living dragon… but that didn’t go for all the people in Faux. There was someone who knew the paths to worlds others dismissed as myths. Worlds from which he’d brought back trophies—disturbingly real ones.

“I know someone who hunts dragons. And other monsters.” He locked eyes with Alyss. “For the right price, I’m sure he’d help us.”

Her pale brows shot up. “Who?”

“Fantoom.” The name came out cold and sharp, though the thought of seeing him again stirred up a storm of conflicting emotions inside him.

“Fantoom?” She gave a dry laugh. “That bedtime story about a monstrous man who snatches disobedient children? Wears a golden mask and has eyes as red as the blood he drinks?”

“They were more like rubies,” Aravin muttered. He remembered exactly how those unnatural eyes had bewitched him.

Alyss’ mouth fell open. “You’ve met him?”

I lost my virginity to him. I completely lost control of myself. “He does snatch people from their beds,” he grunted. A warning couldn’t hurt — Aravin was certain the hunter had used pheromones on him. “He snatched them from his own bed. And then he leaves them broke.”

She kept staring at him.

He stood up. “The last time I saw him was in Koperhaven. Leopold got robbed the exact same way a few days ago—so there’s a good chance Fantoom's still there. It can’t be coincidence. I think he was hit by one of his crew. Come see me tomorrow night. We’ll figure out the rest of the plan then.”

With the world on the brink of collapse, the prospect of facing his former best friend again, and the memories of his treacherous lover still vivid in his mind, Aravin had more than enough reasons to drown himself in one last night of reckless indulgence.