Page 174 of Blood Feast

He brushed her lips with a finger. “What’s wrong?”

She looked away. “I need all three of my foci. But I was a fool and lost one. And I don’t even know how to make the third.”

“You’ll learn.”

She lifted her gaze to his again. “But can I learn in time?”

“I have faith in you.”

She wouldn’t fail him. She couldn’t. Not after everything he had sacrificed to stand here with her, pushing the limits of forces they didn’t understand.

“Hopefully Miranda’s secrets will yield some answers,” she said.

“Did the Lustra show you which way to go?”

“Yes. But none of us will like the answer. We need to travel west. To the warfront.”

40

Nights After

WINTER SOLSTICE

FOLLOWING SMOKE

Lio smelled soil anddecay. Was he in a tomb?

He opened his eyes. Magefire glared on his vision. He took a wary step back from the brazier that revealed where he was.

The flames shone on the stone door. The runes carved into the portal seemed like bottomless shadows.

He was somewhere worse than a tomb. He must be in Miranda’s mind.

A soft, familiar hand took his. “No, my Grace. Your first duel with her is over, and your next is yet to come. This is my mind.”

His breath of relief disturbed the dead air. He turned to Cassia. She stood beside him holding her dagger, her tattered ambassador cords at her neck where her pendant should have hung.

“This is a shared dream,” he realized. “Our Grace Union has blended our day terrors.”

“I’m so glad we’re together here.”

“So am I.”

She squeezed his hand. “Does this vision feel different to you? It’s as if we’re more in control of our thoughts and actions.”

Lio nodded. “A lucid dream.”

Cassia turned to look behind them, and he saw her shiver. The first door lay in ruins. Blood had dried on the floor at its threshold. He could smell that it was her blood. He put an arm around her and pulled her closer.

A cracking sound made them spin to face the second door again.

“No!” Cassia cried.

Fractures appeared in the surface of the stone. The thin cracks spread before their eyes.

Lio felt no hint of the Collector’s presence here. “How is he breaking it?”

She moved in front of him. “We have to stop it.”

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