Chapter 6: The Mage's Welcome
The climb was brutal.
Fox's fingers bled against the black rock, the sharp edges of the cliff face biting into his palms with every handhold. The wind howled off the sea, whipping salt spray into his eyes, stinging the cuts on his knuckles. Below him, the ocean churned against the base of the cliff, hungry and indifferent.
Above, the cottage waited.
He could see it now—a squat stone structure clinging to the precipice like a barnacle, its walls etched with faintly glowing runes that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The thatched roof sagged under the weight of years, patched with driftwood and what looked like dried kelp. Herbs hung from the eaves in tangled bundles, their leaves blackened and shriveled.
The smell hit him before he reached the top. Sulfur. Burnt sage. Something sweet and rotting underneath, like fruit left too long in the sun.
Arielle climbed beside him, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. She hadn't spoken since the cavern. Not a single word in the hours they'd spent navigating the treacherous shoreline, picking their way through tide pools and around jagged outcroppings. Her silence was a living thing, coiled between them like a snake waiting to strike.
He didn't know what to say to her. Didn't know if there was anything to say.
What happened in the siren's lair—the way she'd claimed him, the fury in her eyes, the desperate, possessive need—it sat in his chest like a stone. Every time he looked at her, he saw the bruises on her hips where his fingers had dug in. Saw the scratches on her back from the cavern wall.
Saw the way she'd looked at him after. Like she owned him. Like she'd earned him.
He wasn't sure she was wrong.
The cliff leveled off. They stood on a narrow plateau, the cottage looming before them, its door shut tight against the wind. The runes on the walls grew brighter as they approached, responding to their presence, to their heartbeats, to the blood still dripping from Fox's hands.
He raised his fist to knock.
The door swung open before he touched it.
Everly stood in the threshold, silhouetted against the warm glow of firelight. Her long black hair hung loose around her shoulders, unbound, falling past her waist. She wore a simple linen shift, belted at the waist, the fabric thin enough to reveal the curves beneath. Her feet were bare. Her arms were crossed.
Her dark eyes found his, and something inside them shifted. Something hungry. Something amused.
"The siren told me you were coming," she said.
Fox's blood ran cold. "What?"
"She sings to me sometimes." Everly shrugged one shoulder, the movement casual, almost lazy. "We have an arrangement. She gets the bones of the drowned. I get information about who's stupid enough to swim through her territory."
She stepped forward. Her hand closed around his wrist—cold fingers, strong grip—and she pulled him across the threshold before he could resist.
The cottage was small. Cluttered. A workbench dominated one wall, covered in vials and mortar-and-pestle sets and half-carved runes that glowed faintly in the dim light. Shelves lined the other walls, sagging under the weight of books and jars and things pickled in murky liquid that Fox tried not to look at too closely.
A fire burned in a stone hearth, its flames an unnatural shade of blue. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of crushed nightbloom, sickly-sweet and cloying.
Everly pushed him back against the workbench. Vials rattled. Something rolled off the edge and shattered on the floor, releasing a puff of purple smoke that smelled like copper and rot.
She didn't seem to notice. Her hands were already at his belt, fingers working the buckle with practiced efficiency.
"I've waited many months for you, Foxy," she breathed against his throat. Her lips brushed his pulse point, feather-light, teasing. "Do you have any idea what that does to a woman? Waiting? Wanting?”
"Everly—"
"Shut up." She pulled his belt free, tossed it aside. Her fingers found the buttons of his trousers, popping them open one by one. "I don't want to hear your voice. I want to feel you inside me again. I want to taste you. I want to fuck you until neither of us can remember our own names."
Her hand slipped inside his trousers. Found him. Stroked.
He was hard. He hated himself for it, but he was hard—had been since the cavern, since Arielle, since the siren's song had wrapped around his spine and refused to let go. His body was a traitor. It always had been.
Everly smiled against his skin. "There he is. There's my Foxy."
"Stop."
The word came out hoarse. Broken. He grabbed her wrists and pushed her back, his arms trembling with the effort. She stumbled, caught herself on the edge of the workbench, and stared at him with eyes that had gone from hungry to furious in the space of a heartbeat.
"No," he said. "I'm not here for that."
Her smile flickered. Died.
"Then why are you here?" Her voice was flat. Dangerous.
"I need your help." He met her gaze, refused to look away. "Leliana is possessed. The Codex—something from the ruins, some kind of entity—it's inside her. It's using her. I need to destroy it, and I need you to help me do it."
The silence stretched.
Everly's expression didn't change. But the runes on the walls pulsed once, bright and angry, and the fire in the hearth roared higher, its blue flames licking at the chimney.
"Leliana," she repeated. Tasting the name like poison. "The farm girl. The one you left me for."
"I didn't leave you for—"
"You did." She cut him off with a slash of her hand. "You could have followed me to this island; but you chose to go on more adventures with her. How many times have we fucked? How many times did I take you in my mouth? Did it ever mean anything to you?”
Her fingers curled into fists. The runes flared brighter.
"Now you come back. You climb my cliff. You track salt and siren-blood across my floor. And you tell me you need my help to save her?"
She laughed. Low. Bitter. The sound of something breaking.
"You won't even fuck me as payment?"
Arielle stepped between them.
Her hand was on her dagger, her knuckles white, her jaw set. She was still filthy from the cavern, her hair tangled, her clothes stained with salt and ichor. But there was nothing fragile about her now. Nothing sweet.
"He said no," she said.
Everly's eyes flicked to her. Took her in. The torn tunic. The scratches on her arms. The way she stood—protectively, possessively—between Fox and the mage.
"Who's the girl?" Everly asked. "Your new pet?"
"She's—"
"I wasn't talking to you." Everly's voice cracked like a whip. Her gaze remained fixed on Arielle, sharp and assessing. "I asked who you are. And why you smell like his seed."
Arielle's cheeks flushed. But she didn't look away. Didn't back down.
"I'm the one who's going to put this dagger through your throat if you don't help us," she said. "I don't care who you fucked. I don't care what history you have. Leliana is dying, and you're the only one who can save her. So either you help us, or you get out of our way."
The runes pulsed. Once. Twice.
Then Everly laughed again. But this time, there was something different in it. Something almost like respect.
"Fine," she said. "I'll help you."
She pushed off the workbench, straightened her shift, and walked to the hearth. The blue fire bent toward her as she passed, licking at her fingers like a faithful hound.
"But you're going to owe me, Fox Murder." She glanced back over her shoulder, her dark eyes gleaming. "And I always collect."
Fox exhaled. His hands were shaking. His cock was still hard, still aching, still pressed against the inside of his trousers like a reminder of everything he'd almost done.
"Thank you," he managed.
Everly snorted. "Don't thank me yet."
She reached into the fire.
The flames didn't burn her. They parted around her hand like water, revealing something buried in the coals—a small iron box, its surface etched with the same runes that covered the walls. She pulled it free, shook off the ash, and set it on the workbench.
"First things first," she said. "Tell me everything you know about the Codex."
Fox opened his mouth to speak.
Then the cottage shook.
The runes on the walls flared red. The fire in the hearth screamed. And from somewhere outside, somewhere below the cliffs, a sound rose up—a song. Not the siren's song. Something older. Something worse.
Everly's face went pale.
"What the fuck was that?" Arielle whispered.
Everly didn't answer. She just stared at the door, her hands clenched at her sides.
"The Codex knows you're here," she said. "And it's not happy."
The tremor rolled through the cottage like a dying breath. Vials toppled from shelves. A jar of preserved eyes shattered against the floor, splashing formaldehyde across the stones. The blue fire in the hearth guttered, spat, and turned the color of dried blood.
Fox grabbed the workbench. Arielle grabbed his arm.
Everly stood motionless, her bare feet rooted to the floor. Her knuckles had gone white around the iron box she'd pulled from the flames. Her gaze was fixed on the door, on the gaps between the warped boards where red light bled through.
"It knows," she said.
Fox's voice cut through the chaos. "How long do we have?"
She didn't answer. She set the box down, crossed to a shelf, and pulled down a leather satchel stamped with runes. Her movements were quick, efficient, stripped of all the languid provocation from moments ago. She stuffed the satchel with pouches of dried herbs, a bone-handled knife, three vials of something that glowed faintly green.
"Everly." He stepped toward her. "How long?"
"Hours. Maybe less." She cinched the satchel shut and slung it across her body. "The Codex doesn't travel. It sends. Proxies. Mindless things it's hollowed out and filled with its own echo."
Arielle's grip tightened on his arm. "Hollowed out. You mean people."
"People. Animals. Sometimes rocks, if they're old enough." Everly finally looked at them, her expression flat and almost bored. "The island is littered with them. They sleep in the tide pools. They nest in the kelp. When the Codex calls, they wake up hungry."
Fox reached for his bow. His fingers found the familiar curve of yew, the worn grip, the string he'd waxed a hundred times. He nocked an arrow without thinking.
"I need more," he said. "What are we killing?"
"Depends on what it sends." Everly grabbed a cloak from a peg by the door. "Could be drowned sailors. Could be something that used to be a bear before it crawled into a cave and never crawled out again."
Arielle released his arm and moved to the workbench. Her eyes swept over the clutter—the vials, the dried herbs, the half-finished runes—with the focused intensity of someone cataloging supplies.
"You're a trapper," Everly said. Not a question.
"I'm a lot of things." Arielle picked up a coil of wire, tested it between her fingers, and set it down. Then she found a pouch of iron filings and a stoppered bottle of oil-black liquid. She held it up to the firelight.
"Nightbloom extract," Everly said. "Deadly in large doses. Paralytic in small ones."
"I know what it is." Arielle uncorked the bottle, sniffed once, and nodded. "I've used it before. Purified it, mixed it with crushed spider fang. Makes a paste that shuts down the nervous system in under three seconds if it hits a mucous membrane."
She set the bottle down and turned to face them.
"I'm a trapper. It's what I was trained to do before I was trained to do anything else." Her voice was steady, but her eyes flicked to Fox when she said it, as if checking that he was listening. "I can read terrain. I can build snares that hold a direwolf. I can poison a well so thoroughly that anything that drinks from it forgets how to breathe."
Everly crossed her arms. The runes on the walls pulsed softly now—a slow, rhythmic glow, like a heartbeat at rest.
"Go on."
Arielle gestured at the cottage, at the runes, at the blue fire burning low in the hearth. "The Codex is old. It's powerful. But it's not physical. It needs proxies. Hollowed-out things. Bodies to move through." She tapped the workbench. "So we don't fight the Codex. We trap the things it sends. We poison the vessels. If we can sever its connection to the physical world, even for a few minutes, we can strike at the source."
Everly's expression shifted. Something behind her eyes—something sharp and calculating—flickered to life.
"The source is Leliana," Fox said. "The Codex is inside her."
"Then we need to force it out." Arielle turned to Everly. "You control water. Ice. You can shape it, right?"
"I can do more than shape it." Everly uncrossed her arms and stepped closer. "I can freeze a man's blood in his veins. I can pull moisture from the air and turn it into a thousand needles. I can encase an entire clearing in ice thick enough to stop a charging bull."
Arielle nodded slowly. "Good. Because my traps are only as good as the terrain they're built on. I need something that can hold the proxies in place. Something that won't break."
Everly was quiet for a moment. Then she moved to the workbench, shoved aside a pile of scrolls, and pulled out a map. It was old, the paper yellowed and brittle, the ink faded to a brown so pale it was barely visible.
"Island," she said, tapping the map. "The cottage is here, on the eastern cliff. If the codex possesses any other creatures, those will come from over there. There's a choke point between us. A narrow ravine, no wider than twenty paces."
She looked up at Arielle. "Can you build a trap there?"
"I can build a dozen." Arielle leaned over the map, her finger tracing the ravine. "If I have enough wire. Enough poison. Enough time."
"You don't have time." Everly's voice was flat. "The proxies will be here in minutes. We need something we can deploy now."
Silence.
Then Arielle straightened. She looked at Everly with an expression Fox had never seen on her face before—something hard, something almost ruthless.
"Then we don't trap the proxies," she said. "We trap the ravine itself. You said you can freeze water. Can you freeze the air?"
Everly blinked. "What?"
"Fog. Mist. Vapor." Arielle's words came faster now, tumbling out. "Freeze it into a sheet. A wall. Something thin enough to see through but strong enough to hold. I coat it with nightbloom extract. When the proxies hit it, they get the poison on their skin, in their eyes, in their mouths when they scream."
Everly stared at her. Then something cracked behind her eyes—a fissure in the mask of jaded indifference.
"That could work," she said slowly. "I can freeze the moisture in the air. It won't hold forever, but it'll hold long enough."
Fox stepped forward. "And if they break through?"
Arielle met his eyes. "Then I light the second trap."
She reached into her belt pouch and pulled out a small clay sphere, no bigger than a walnut. It was sealed with wax, etched with a single rune.
"Fire," she said. "As much of it as I can pack into a single vessel. I'll bury it at the base of the wall. If the proxies breach, the rune triggers. Everything within thirty paces burns."
Everly took the sphere. Weighed it in her palm. A slow smile spread across her face—not cruel, not mocking. Something like respect.
"You're not just a trapper," she said. "You're a killer."
Arielle didn't flinch. "I'm alive. That's all that matters."
The cottage shook again. Harder this time. A crack split the ceiling, dust and bits of thatch raining down. The runes on the walls flared red, then blue, then red again.
Everly shoved the map into her satchel. She grabbed the iron box from the workbench and pressed it into Fox's hands.
"Hold this," she said. "Don't open it. Whatever you hear, don't open it."
"What is it?"
"The only thing that can kill the Codex." She headed for the door. "Or the only thing that will set it free. Depends on how stupid you are."
She yanked the door open.
The world outside had changed.
The sky was wrong—a churning mass of green and black clouds that spun slowly around a point in the distance, like water circling a drain. The sea below the cliffs was glass, unnaturally still, reflecting the twisted sky. The red light from earlier had vanished. In its place was something worse: a deep, resonant hum that vibrated in Fox's teeth and made his bones ache.
And rising from the ravine, from the path they'd climbed hours ago, were shapes. Dozens of them. Humanoid. Shambling. Their movements were jerky, puppet-like, as if something was pulling them on invisible strings. There already near the choke point.
Everly looked at Arielle.
"Now," she said. "We build your trap. Right now."
Arielle was already running.