“Wow,” I breathed and Darius’s hand slipped over my thigh beneath the table as he gave me a light squeeze.
“I forget how damn mortal you are sometimes,” he teased but as I looked up at him, I found nothing but fondness in his dark gaze as he watched my fascination like it was more interesting than the map itself.
“That thing is cool,” I protested just as the door opened and Darcy walked in with an, “Ooooh.”
Orion chuckled as she hurried over to get a closer look and he moved away to get her food together for her as Caleb and Seth strolled in too.
“Gather round, gather round!” Geraldine called loudly. “Fill your bellies and let us prepare to peer through the eye of our enemies.”
“Is Xavier coming?” Darius asked, looking around for any sign of his brother but Caleb shook his head.
“There was so much fucking whinnying and moaning going on in his room, man. He’s way too busy to be joining us any time soon.”
“Then he shall have to go without,” Geraldine announced with a wave of her hand. “If his jolly dipper is taking precedence over this task then so be it.”
“Can we not with the jolly dipper talk while I’m eating?” Darius muttered and Geraldine sighed like she thought he was being dramatic.
Everyone grabbed plates of food and I focused on eating as she whipped the spyglass from a drawer in her nightstand next, not wanting to look at the gross eye which was suspended in the end of it as I ate.
“Who would like to peruse the downfall of the false king?” Geraldine offered, holding out the spyglass as she dropped to one knee and I wrinkled my nose in distaste.
“Fuck no,” Caleb said through a mouthful of toast. “You told me that thing will crawl into my face and devour my eye if it gets the chance. My eyes are too pretty to be devoured.”
“Yes, if you give it the chance,” Geraldine sighed like she was addressing a simpleton. “But I have utter faith in the spyglass which contains it. I am at least forty percent certain that it cannot escape and crawl into anyone’s faces. Never fear.”
“Forty percent is not good odds,” Seth balked. “I don’t want it near my face either.”
“Give it here,” Darius said with a huff, holding his hand out for it but Geraldine’s gaze slid from him to me and Darcy as a little whimper escaped her.
“It should really be an honour for the true queens,” she said and I glanced at Darcy who physically recoiled.
“Fine,” I said, trying to ignore the way the thing was looking at me as she pointed it at me. I reached out to grab the metal tube which contained it so that I didn’t have to suffer through her sobbing about the shame of someone else doing it before us.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tor,” Darcy said, shaking her head in refusal.
“Neither do I,” Darius agreed, snapping his hand out to try and snatch it from me but I yanked it aside, my stubborn streak flaring at his demanding tone.
“Well tough shit, asshole,” I said, leaning away from him so that he couldn’t steal it from me.
I raised the spyglass cautiously, not quite touching it to my face as I peered through the glass at the other end of it to the shadow eye and I sucked in a sharp breath as I found myself looking through the creepy thing.
The world seemed darker through it, hazier somehow. And as I turned it to face the map, I saw things I hadn’t before. A dark coil of power hovered over The Palace of Souls which I could only assume was due to Lavinia herself. But as I turned my focus from that, I noticed more slithers of shadows dotted around the map, the rifts revealing themselves one by one until I counted out seven of them.
“There,” I pointed and Geraldine squealed as she grabbed a standard paper map and marked the location on it with an X. “And there,” I pointed out another which looked like it was hidden within the depths of a canyon that had been formed in reddish rock to the east of the kingdom.
I continued pointing them out until she had them all marked down and handed the spyglass to Darius as he held his hand out for it to take a look himself, muttering about me being being a brat while I shrugged innocently.
I wiped my palm on my pants once I released it, glad to be rid of the thing and shuddering at the memories brought on by the sight of that damn red and black eye.
Max stood and moved towards me, placing a hand on my shoulder as the memories pressed in on me and the sounds of my own screams rang in my ears. He didn’t steal the emotions from me like he once had done for me though, he just helped me as I used the memories to fuel my rage towards Vard, Lionel, Lavinia and their whole regime, vowing to see them fall no matter what it took from me to do so.