Page 143 of Blood Feast

I want to believe that’s possible,but I don’t think it ever will be unless she makes a choice. Don’t fight him for her freedom if it puts you in greater danger. He’s waiting for his chance to take revenge on you for freeing me.

I’ll be careful,her Grace promised.

So why did she feel he had left his caution behind in Orthros? If her words of compassion toward Miranda came back on Lio, she would never forgive herself for that.

TRAITORS' GRAVE

Sometimes Lio wished mindmagic lent itself to elaborate rituals or complex spell ingredients. There was a certain comfort in making physical preparations for a casting. Those gestures made a mage feel in control. Of magic. Of outcomes.

But all Lio could use to control his affinity was pure Will. The only way to ready himself for his rematch with Miranda was to sit quietly in his saddle and prepare his mind. Moonflower and Freckles followed Mak and Lyros’s horses, leaving Lio plenty of time, or perhaps too much, with his own thoughts.

He kept thinking of that moment when he’d held Miranda’s mind under his power. She was different from a nameless war mage throwing fireballs at him. Perhaps she shouldn’t be—every life he had the power to destroy was still a human life.

But Miranda was someone Cassia used to love. She could have turned out like Cassia, if Hesperines had found her before Kallikrates did.

She had also taken Cassia’s magic, subjecting his Grace to the torture she had relived in her day terror. It had been Kallikrates’s doing, but he had used Miranda’s hands to perform the spell. She had offered those hands to him willingly and painted an Eye of Hypnos on her breastplate in Cassia’s blood.

Lio remembered how Miranda’s head had felt between his palms and the pleading look she had given him. The pitiful way she had begged him not to bring her Master’s wrath down upon her for her failure… Until Kallikrates himself had spoken through her.

You will have to duel me.

He had been ready to fight Lio, not for Miranda’s sake but to keep Lio from discovering the secrets in her mind.

Could Lio have won? Perhaps. He’d had the power of a rabid letting site flowing through him, a boon from the Lustra to Cassia’s mate in her hour of need. Tonight, he must rely only on his own power.

Cassia’s touch in their Union pulled him out of his thoughts.You’ve stopped meditating and started overthinking. Try not to make this harder for yourself, my love.

He gave in to her invitation to focus on her instead. Amid the dread of what they were about to face, the reality of it struck him anew. They had Grace Union now. She was immortal with him.

Immortality didn’t feel as certain on a night like this. But Grace Union did.

She reached over and took his hand.

Ahead of them, Mak murmured something to Lyros, then dropped back to ride on Lio’s other side.

“Did Lyros send you to make sure I’m not planning anything rash?” Lio asked.

“Yes.” Mak made a face at him. “Somehow it’s becomemyduty to tellyounot to be impulsive. The world has gone mad.”

“That’s precisely why he’ll listen to you,” Cassia said. “Lyros and I can’t reason with him any longer. You can speak to him as one hothead to another.”

“I haven’t become a hothead,” Lio protested.

She eyed his staff. “Whatever you say.”

“There’s something you should know.” Mak’s smile was humorless. “Nike would have my fangs for breathing a word of it, but no telling how long it will be before we see her and she has an opportunity to make me regret it.”

“A secret of your sister’s?” Lio asked. “Something that could help us in the battle tonight?”

Cassia leaned forward in her saddle to look around Lio at Mak. “Does this have to do with her quest to find out if Methu is alive?”

Mak hesitated. “Yes and no.”

Lio raised his brows. “We always suspected she confided more in you than you were letting on.”

Mak gnawed on his lip. “I do try not to cross the veil. But I’m not even sure where the veil is these nights.”

“If it could keep us safe,” Cassia pointed out, “I don’t think she’d begrudge you telling us.”

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