The inn was already roaring through its nightly routine when I slipped in through the back. Irinda was in the master’s suite, looking over some papers, and the other girls were busy delivering new bowls of the meaty stew they’d prepared that day to the inn’s hungry patrons.

  I followed them, weaving my way through the packed front room of The Slumbering Drake. I made my way up the stairs and to the second floor, where I ran into Sil as he carried down a tray with a bowl and a cup.

  “Oh, hey,” he said as he met my eyes. “Ophelia’s eating again.” A smile spread across his face as he showed me the mostly empty bowl and cup.

  The weight on my shoulder lightened a little. “That’s very good. Is she talking yet?”

  He shook his head. “Still mostly mumbles. But you can try to talk to her. She was looking out the window when I left her.”

  I nodded. “I’ll find you later,” I told him before we parted ways. It would be good to update him on everything, too, especially since I’d decided to break into Aurelion’s without alerting anyone else in the group.

  Hopefully that decision wouldn’t backfire on us too badly.

  I finished the climb to the third floor and pushed open the door to Ophelia’s room. The hinges creaked softly as it opened, but she didn’t turn away from the window where she was standing.

  “Hey,” I said, coming to stand next to her. I followed her gaze to the wall outside. Like usual, she was simply staring forward, her eyes mostly glazed over, as if she were looking beyond what I could see.

  I suppressed the shiver that threatened to claw its way up my spine.

  “I met someone today,” I told her. “One of your old friends, I think. A girl named Yen.”

  Her eyes flashed to me for a second before returning to the wall once more and losing their focus.

  “She spoke pretty highly of you. She’s coming here tomorrow. Maybe you’ll want to see her?”

  No reaction.

  I let out a sigh and turned, putting my back against the wall next to the window as I watched her.

  The trouble we’d had getting her to eat in recent weeks was finally starting to show in her face. Her skin now sat gaunt against her cheek bones, whereas before she’d had full cheeks. Her eyes were more sunken now, dark rings visible beneath them.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I took in her appearance for the thousandth time since she’d woken up. “I wish I could have seen her coming…”

  Shaking my head, I turned and looked around the room.

  “I met someone else today, too,” I said, my voice dipping lower. “Someone who said something that reminded me of you…of the things you keep saying.”

  I glanced back at her, looking for any kind of reaction, but she still stared forward.

  “He said that the Void had been watching.”

  Ophelia’s eyes widened.

  “Do you know what that means?”

  Slowly she turned toward me, the haze in her eyes vanishing as she met my gaze.

  “Wailing…” she whispered. “The Wailing Void is coming…They’ve been watching us…”

  Excitement thrilled through me. She was talking. Actually speaking. “What is the Wailing Void? Why do you know about it?”

  Her head moved slowly from side to side. “We shouldn’t talk about it. It can hear when we do. We have to be careful.” She glanced around the room.

  “Why can’t we talk about it? What does it mean, Ophelia? Talk to me.”

  “Watching. Waiting. Coming.” The words left her lips barely above a breath. She repeated them again and again, her gaze turning back to focus on me.

  I grabbed her by the shoulders as frustration tore its way through me. I almost revolted at how fragile she felt, the bones of her shoulders digging into my palms. “What the hells does it mean, Ophelia?” I asked again, raising my voice. “Give me something useful, please.”

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  She simply continued repeating the words.

  I let her shoulders go and crossed the distance to the door, rubbing my eyes as I did. I wasn’t sure why I’d had hope that asking about the Void would change anything. But it had, even if only for a sliver of a moment. But I still wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Ophelia.

  Everything said she should be fine. Back to normal, and yet she was still mostly just a shell of herself.

  I closed the door and made my way back downstairs, slipping through the crowded main room once more as I made my way back to the kitchen, where I found Irinda in the master suite, going over some papers at the desk.

  I decided to keep Ophelia’s outburst to myself for now, at least until I could decode some more of what it might mean. I also didn’t want to worry Irinda unnecessarily. Yes, I assured myself, it’s best to talk to Henrietta about everything first.

  “I met a couple of people today,” I told her as I joined her by the desk.

  She looked up for her papers and smiled. “Oh? And how did that go?”

  I shrugged. “One of them tried to kill me, but I managed to turn them to my side, I think.”

  Irinda raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay, hear me out…” I explained how I’d come across Yen on the rooftop and offered her a deal, which she’d taken. Then, I told her about our infiltration through the buildings surrounding the warehouse and the ultimate end of our trek with the death of the boy Eian.

  “That’s horrible,” Irinda said, quickly masking the grief that filled her eyes for a moment.

  “It is,” I agreed. “But she didn’t have much choice in the matter. I’d be dead if she hadn’t of.”

  That caused her frown to deepen.

  “Of course, all of this is to really say that…they’ll be here in the morning most likely. They couldn’t stay with Aurelion, not after what Yen did, so her brother is supposed to make sure she gets here.”

  Irinda let out a little gasp. “You left those children out there alone?”

  I shrugged. “They can handle themselves.”

  “They are children, Aria. We are supposed to look after children.”

  Shaking my head I took a few steps away from the desk, almost pacing, before I brought myself to a stop. We had argued several times about Ophelia’s state and the things I’d put her through since Irinda took over the inn. It seemed removing Brin from the picture had done more than just elevate her to the inn’s keeper. She’d also found a bit of herself in that new beginning.

  “I don’t have time to babysit everyone. If they can’t even make it to the inn on their own, then they aren’t going to do much good in the fights that are coming.”

  She scoffed and shook her head. “Fights? Listen to you. Do you really think the future you’re offering them is any better than the one he is?”

  “I’m not enslaving them, so yeah, I’d say it is.”

  Irinda held up her hands in mock surrender. “I…Whatever you say. It’s your crusade…”

  I let out a sigh and crumbled into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “I don’t know why I’m even explaining all of this. All you do is wave it off. I wouldn’t need to rely on all of these other people if you’d just take up the System and work with me.”

  “I already told you my thoughts on that.”

  “So? Minds can change.”

  She laughed. It was probably the most bitter laugh I’d ever heard come from her lips. “Sure they can. But mine won’t. I don’t want the System and whatever blessings it has to offer. I’m perfectly content with what I’ve earned.”

  I winced.

  She must have noticed the way my face wrinkled in pain because she shook her head and lowered her voice a moment later. “I didn’t mean it like that, Aria, and you know it.”

  I met her eyes.

  “We both know you’ve more than earned what you’re fighting for, and I don’t blame you for relying on the System. It’s an advantage, at times. But it isn’t something I need or want. I’m an inn keeper, not someone that goes sneaking through the night on secret quests. I don’t even know what I’d do with that kind of power.”

  A small chuckle escaped her lips and some of the sadness in her eyes receded for a moment.

  “I know,” I said a moment later.

  Truth be told, I didn’t understand why she was so adverse to the System. It could be annoying, even frustrating, especially since I was currently restricted for some unknown reason. But it was a clear advantage over normal people.

  Even being able to use [Insight] and see people’s current status—whether they were terrified, confused, or even cocky—had been a boon in more than one situation.

  Her features softened as she smiled at me.

  I returned the gesture with as little coldness as I could muster and forced myself to my feet. “I need to clear my head,” I said as I turned away.

  “Of course. I’ll be here if you need anything else.” Irinda turned back to her papers as I left the room.

  Between my brief conversation with Ophelia—if you could call it that—and tonight’s expedition into Aurelion’s warehouse, I only had more questions. And it seemed like every time I tried to answer one, I just found even more questions to bash my head against.

  I’d been doing a lot of that these past few weeks, and it was starting to take its toll on me.

  I reached into my satchel and pulled out some of the papers as I walked to the back of the kitchen, taking a seat at the table there. I spread out the papers across the table and began to look through them once more, this time paying closer attention to what they said.

  There really wasn’t much there. The correspondence I did find mostly confirmed what I’d already put together.

  Aurelion had made a deal with the city guard—the same captain that worked with Brin. There was nothing damning that connected him to anything else, and the only reason I knew that Woldroff was a snake was because I’d seem him there myself, smug face and all.

  Sighing heavily, I pressed my fingers into my hair and balled up my fists, pulling on it slightly, as if that might somehow relieve the pressure building inside my head. Tomorrow I’d have to pay a visit to this Captain Seytrough. See what I could learn from him.

  Then I could question Woldroff about his betrayal.

  I released my hair and shook it out, letting the movement wash away some of the lingering thoughts I’d been building up all evening. I caught sight of Sil coming into the kitchen, a frantic look on his face as he spotted me. He rushed over.

  “She’s gone,” he said, panic lacing his voice. “Ophelia’s gone.”