“What is…?” He shoved apart the cushions he’d disturbed and lifted a ring of some sort. “Her ring. She wore it every day. I thought it must have been lost when…” Raw and ruined, his voice scraped. “I bought this for her.” He polished it with the sheet then held it up to me. “She spotted it in a rinky-dink shop in Atlanta when I took her to the aquarium.”

The tiny gold band looked impossibly small balanced on the tip of his finger. A stylized wolf’s head adorned the center, and diamond chips glinted in its eyes.

“It’s beautiful.” I kept my fingers tunneled in his hair. “I’m glad you have it.”

“I don’t have anywhere to put it.” He reached for my hand. “My fingers are too thick to wear it.”

Honored at the task he’d given me, I spread my fingers. “It might fit my pinky.”

The ring slid on, chill and damp, as though the heat from Graeson’s touch failed to permeate the metal.

Twisting the ring to situate the wolf, he shook out the cushions and sheet before rising. No other treasures were discovered, and we resumed our search for Harlow. Not until I found myself spinning the slight ring around my finger did it hit me that Graeson had put it on the same side as I wore Harlow’s bracelet. I rolled my shoulder, the extra weight on that arm imagined, but I still felt tipped to that side.

I retreated to the doorway and turned my back on Graeson, keeping an eye on the hall. He deserved a moment alone in the room with the specter of his sister, so I guarded us from ambush while he grieved.

I whirled toward him when his palm landed on my shoulder and searched his carefully blank face for signs he was ready to go.

“This will be the last time we get the chance to explore this place,” he said, voice grinding like crushed boulders. “We should clear the cavern as we go.”

Nodding silent agreement, I followed him into the hall. The musty odors told my heightened senses the rooms we passed were empty and had been for a long time, but we stopped in every one to be certain we left no evidence behind. Erasure spells were Charybdis’s trademark, after all.

I swept the last room on my side before Graeson finished his and waited in the passageway. A forked tunnel loomed ahead. I inhaled in each direction, frowning at the heavy scents overlaying the hallways. Knowing Harlow was so close made my heart pound. If we rescued her physical body from Charybdis, she could detox somewhere like Edelweiss, where the staff could apply what they’d learned treating Ayer to her.