“Huh.” Skye’s green eyes tracked the departing courier. “Guess I can’t look at you with morning eyes anymore.”
Ethan blinked. “What does that even mean?”
Skye clicked her tongue and shot him a sideways look, voice dripping with mockery. “This morning someone said I shouldn’t judge him by the old standards. Big ambitions now, right? No more ‘living off someone else.’”
She leaned closer, tail flicking. “And yet—before the day’s even over—it’s ‘soft life is delicious’ again.”
Ethan sighed. “So you read the recipient’s name.”
“Oh, I noticed.”
“Did you also notice cats have absurdly good eyesight?” Ethan tried to steer away.
Skye didn’t bite. “Break the contract. I’m not accepting some spoiled, temperamental human climbing on my head!”
“Not happening,” Ethan said flatly, unlocking the door.
Inside, he shut out the street noise and the drifting ash.
“All right,” he said. “Tell me what’s happening in Stormkeep.”
A thin ripple in the air—then Skye shifted. Cat to woman in soft leather, hair spilling loose, irritation still on her face.
“You’re going to hate this,” she said, suddenly bright with excitement. “Panglos Fell didn’t show his face all day.”
Ethan’s expression tightened. “What?”
The city had been crawling with those insects. Workers were burning carcasses, scraping ash, building wards. The Earth Ring and the Violet Eye had mobilized. Even the church had stepped in.
And the Governor—the one person who should’ve been desperate to look in control—had vanished.
“That’s not just careless,” Ethan muttered. “That’s reckless. He knows suspicion is already circling him.”
Skye’s smile sharpened. “Unless he had something bigger to worry about.”
*
They met with Haizan and Delanna after dark.
Haizan—still bound as a servant in spirit if not in pride—looked exhausted even in a borrowed body. Ethan drew the curtains, lit the lamp, and listened.
“My lord,” Haizan said, voice hoarse. “Something happened at sea.”
He described it in clipped, soldierly detail.
“A shipping route farther from Windrest City—normal until afternoon. Then the water began to boil. Steam blanketed an entire stretch of ocean. The temperature spiked so fast it flipped a dozen ships.”
Human supernaturals had rushed in, ships clustering at the edge of the steam. But none could push through the heat.
“So I waited,” Haizan continued. “When the steam thinned and the sea cooled, ash took its place—floating grit, thick enough to hide the water entirely.”
He’d taken no chances. He’d used his Tide Scepter to part the sea and descend.
“What I found…” Haizan swallowed. “A volcano. Rising from the seabed. Massive. It’s already venting lava and ash.”
Skye and Ethan exchanged a look.
“A volcano doesn’t just appear on a busy route,” Skye said. “And it happens the same day those bugs swarm the city? I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“It’s connected,” Ethan said quietly.
Delanna arrived as if summoned by the sentence. Her eyes looked tired, but her voice stayed controlled.
“I can feel the filth from that volcano,” she said. “Cocoon is almost certainly there.”
Ethan’s thoughts aligned into something cold and sharp.
Panglos Fell absent. A volcano erupting from the sea. Filth signatures on the wind.
He couldn’t prove the full chain yet… but he could see the shape of it.
*
Deep beneath Stormkeep, candlelight pulsed against stone.
A blood pool stank of iron and rot. Shadows crawled along its surface as if the liquid itself were alive.
By its edge, Marsas spoke softly to the man he shared a body with.
“Governor,” Marsas murmured, “why do you care about their doubts at a time like this?”
His tone was coaxing. Patient. Like a tutor guiding a slow student.
“We only need a few more days,” Marsas continued. “Buy Cocoon time. Let him wake. Once he’s awake, the Divine Spark is ours.”
Panglos Fell’s silence was heavy, simmering.
Marsas pressed on. “The volcano is perfect. Every faction that’s been waiting to dock and investigate Storm Island? They’ll rush to sea. The moment they sense Cocoon’s aura, they’ll fixate on the mountain.”
“And while their eyes are on the fire…” Marsas smiled. “Cocoon wakes. The merfolk’s seal breaks. The Spark comes free.”
He spread the vision like a feast.
“Black-White Court. Violet Eye. The Earth Ring. The King. Even those ‘friendly’ neighboring isles—none of them matter once we hold a Divine Spark. Their lives will be a thought. Their deaths, a shrug.”
The Governor’s jaw worked. For years he’d wanted to move carefully—keep the moral high ground, topple the King with legitimacy.
But the bloodless corpses. Jory’s impossible death. The growing scrutiny. Even his own knights and ministers had started whispering.
The patience was draining out of him—leaking away under the influence of forbidden magic and borrowed souls.
At last, Panglos Fell spoke, voice low and rough.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s hope the plan stays on track.”