Chapter 56

Maevyth regains consciousness inside the “ice casket” in Felix’s morgue, freezing, confined, and panicking. A deformed Felix opens the box and assaults her. In desperation she drives him back with Aeryz, is yanked down by her scorpion necklace, and fends him off with an embalming needle before fleeing.

Cornered in the corridor, Maevyth answers an inner prompting and successfully manifests the spine glyph as a bone whip, snapping Felix’s body into a heap of shattered bones and skin. While escaping, she hears pounding in the storage wall and, fearing Aleysia is trapped, opens compartments in the main morgue.

Undead Agatha crawls out clutching a severed cat’s head. Maevyth lashes the bone whip, decapitating Agatha, but hordes of black spiders pour from the corpse and pursue her up the stairs and into the snow. Overwhelmed and unable to form glyphs, she is smothered by the swarm—until the spiders suddenly lift into the air.

Maevyth collides with Zevander, who is suspending the swarm. He incinerates the spiders with sablefyre and burns down the cottage, then checks Maevyth for injuries and steadies her shaken nerves. They nearly share a kiss, but Maevyth spots light from the Crone Witch’s cottage.

Despite Zevander’s plea to return to Eidolon, Maevyth refuses to leave Mortasia without Aleysia. Zevander vows to stay and help her search, and together they head toward the Crone Witch’s cottage to take shelter and regroup.