Page 121 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

The man’s flat tone sounds a lot like Rheave’s did when I first met him at the college. “I don’t answer to you.”

Rheave scowls at him. “You don’t have to answer to the ones who made that body. Your spirit is still your own. You can claim the body and shake them off. I did.”

His captive blinks at him. “No. You must—” A more urgent tone breaks through the refusal. “They told me to scout ahead and report back. I—” His voice flattens all over again. “Let me go. You have no reason to detain me.”

Alek lets out a faint snort. “Oh, I’d say we have plenty of reason.”

I kneel by the new daimon’s head. “How close is the march? Which direction from here?”

Whatever bit of freedom the daimon managed to regain, he’s lost it again. His mouth stays clamped shut.

Rheave glances around and lifts his chin in one direction. “He was coming from that way. They can’t be very far if he was able to scout over here on foot, can they?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Stavros says darkly. He peers down at the man. “If you’ll let us help you, we’ll do our best. But we can’t do anything as long as you’re working with them.”

The man jerks against Rheave’s hold. “I don’t need your help.”

Casimir rests his hand against my hair. “What are we going to do with him? We can’t let him go running back to the march.”

But we’re not in any position to keep prisoners. My stomach knots as I grope for an answer?—

Rheave bows his head. “I will release you from the bonds they’ve forced on you.”

As the last word leaves his lips, a surge of energy crackles out of him. It blackens the man beneath him for just an instant before that body stiffens into the clay it was made from.

A brief glimmer that could have been just a quiver of sunlight flits away from my view. I guess that is the other way the daimon can get free.

Rheave sits back on his heels. Just for a second, he looks weary.

I know he thinks his brethren are better off back in their natural state than under the scourge sorcerers’ control. Still, destroying their chances of enjoying their new bodies the way he has mustn’t feel good.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He glances up at me, and the flicker of a smile that crosses his face brings back his adoring words and the eager press of his body against mine. “It had to be done. I’m glad I could deal with him on my own.”

He stands abruptly and tucks his arms around me in a tight embrace. “I came back like I promised.”

My heart skips a beat with his warmth and woodsy scent wrapped around me. There’s a soft chuckle behind me that I think is Casimir.

I’m still too jumbled up inside to know where I’d want to take the affection the daimon-man insists on offering me, if anywhere at all. But I am relieved that he kept his promise.

Even if nothing more intimate ever passes between us, I don’t want to lose him, especially not out of some misguided sense of martyrdom.

So I tip my head against his shoulder just for a second, my hands resting on his sides and then easing him back from me. I make myself meet his unearthly blue-green gaze. “Thank you. I don’t want you ever doing that again. It’ll only make things worse, not better. None of us wants you gone.”

“That’s right,” Stavros says in his commanding military tone. “We’re our own kind of squadron now, and you’ve contributed just as much as the rest of us. We’re stronger together.”

Casimir steps forward to grasp Rheave’s shoulder. “One thing you should know about humans is we all make mistakes. No one goes through life without causing any damage at all, accidentally or otherwise. We won’t judge you for it.”

Rheave’s eyes widen. His gaze slides to Alek, who nods with a small but warm smile. “I can’t imagine us going forward without you.”

The daimon-man’s mouth forms a hesitant smile of his own in return. “I’ve been so glad to live alongside you all. I’d very much like to keep doing so.”

I resist the urge to hug him all over again. “Then let’s all go see what the scourge sorcerers are up to.”

We veer back toward our fledgling campsite so Rheave can grab his bow and arrows. Inhaling deeply, I focus my mind on the now-familiar pattern of whisking our images away from sight while presenting them some other place where no one’s likely to notice.

Feeling the magic seeping out of me to do my work makes me tense up, but I push away those worries.

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