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didn’t listen, of course. Nicholas’s father had used on her the same mind-moulding that Nicholas was using on Sarah, and it didn’t take long for him to own her mind. By then, he knew Ekaterina’s thoughts inside out; he came to believe that the best way to break her would be to make her a mother, and use the baby as a way to lure her into the Shadow World.
    And he was right. Ekaterina’s and the King of Shadows’ son, the heir of Shadows, came into the world not long after. Ekaterina was smitten with her son; she called him Nicholas, after her own father, and for a short moment she was happy.
    But one night, when the baby was only a few days old, she woke up to find him gone. She and her family searched everywhere, day after day and night after night. Ekaterina wandered the woods in despair, calling her son’s name. It was on one of these lonely expeditions that the King of Shadows appeared to her and told her the whole truth: who he was, where he’d taken Nicholas, and how the only way for her to ever be with her son again was to shed her body and follow them both, son and father, into the Shadow World.
    Many long years of life in the darkness as a spirit, with the man – or what was he? – who had betrayed her was a horrifying prospect, but a life without her son, or even one more day, one more hour without him – was worse.
    And so Ekaterina shed her body and was bound to the Shadows.
    Sarah Midnight , Nicholas thought dreamily. I’ll be the one who saves you over and over again, from the Surari, from your family’s interference, from feeling alone, with nobody knowing what your life is really like. I’ll be the only one who knows your secrets, I’ll be your lighthouse in the storm, the one you can rely on in a chaotic world. I’ll make you weak so that I can be strong for you. I’ll make you unable to stand on your own two feet so that I can be the one who props you up. I’ll make your body ill and worn so that you’ll long to be free of it. I’ll make sure you’re alone, and then I’ll be the one who rescues you from the ice in your heart.
    The thought of Sarah broken and dependent on him filled Nicholas with anticipation. He walked on, revelling in his human body and his god-like powers. The night enveloped him and filled him with blessed, welcome darkness. For a moment, the constant whirlpools of his mind had stopped, giving him some relief – and life, and his predicament, and his future, seemed nearly bearable.
    And then, the flames in his mind exploded again. No warning, no hint that it was all about to start. It was a sudden explosion of voices, screaming at him from inside his brain. His head spun for a moment, the night sky and the pavement swapping places, and the familiar smell of burning and of rotting, hidden things hit his nostrils. The smell of death. The smell of home.
    The voices from the Shadow World were screaming, calling, clamouring for attention. And among those voices, the one that had no need to scream, the one that would always be listened to, the one that claimed his life, his will, his very own soul: that of his father, the King of Shadows.
    Nicholas regained his balance and walked on, wincing, trying with all his might to keep his thoughts on the Edinburgh night, on his steps, on the people around him. On reality. He just didn’t want to be cut up inside again, he didn’t want to open his mind to his father. Not that what he wanted mattered at all. Peace, for Nicholas, never lasted long.
    There was only one solution, one way to block out the voices at least for a little bit: human company. Human voices and human bodies to keep him tethered to this world, away from the shadows.
    Nicholas made his way into a club and came out not much later with a small, blue-haired, bird-like girl on his arm. It was as simple as that for him. Like picking a flower from a field. It wasn’t entirely natural, of course. Some of Nicholas’s charisma was very much about mind-moulding –