Page 120 of Blood Feast

The ivy reawakened somethingin Cassia that her fear and horror had beaten out of her in recent nights. A yearning for her power.

Lio smiled at her. “I think this is a clear sign we’ll find portals here.”

She smoothed her hair. “I wonder if it’s common to mate the portals out of hiding or if that’s our special talent.”

His smile turned to a sly grin. “I believe more testing will be required.”

She laughed. “Alas, further experimenting will have to wait. Mak and Lyros will be back anytime now, and they’ll be ready to see what’s through the portal.”

They collected their clothes, and Lio cast more cleaning spells. Just in case, they buckled on their weapons again as well. Knight padded back into the room at last.

“Ohh,” Cassia cooed, rubbing Knight’s ears. “That was rather too much magic for your keen liegehound senses, wasn’t it?”

Knight gave Lio a decidedly reproving look.

Cassia stifled a laugh. “It wasn’t entirely his fault, you know. We were mutually responsible.”

Lio crossed his arms and gazed back at her dog. “You’d best get accustomed to it, Sir Knight. I won’t have your lady holding back her power to soothe anyone’s feelings.”

Knight huffed at him, but looked away first.

Cassia covered her smile with a hand. “You just won a staring contest with a liegehound.”

“That might be my greatest accomplishment yet, after persuading him to make room on the bed for me.”

Cassia gave Knight an abundance of consolation pats. But his anxious need for her attention prodded her worries again. He had seemed to accept her after her return from seclusion. But tonight, unleashing her magic had sent him retreating.

“His kind are sensitive to magic, that’s all,” Lio reassured her.

He was right. But liegehounds were more sensitive to their opposing magic than anything else—the blood magic that now fueled her every heartbeat.

It had taken Knight time to adjust to being around other Hesperines’ magic. Would he ever be fully comfortable with that magic being a part of her?

Lio put a soothing hand on Cassia’s back. “Come, let’s see about the portals.”

Cassia turned her attention to the ivy growing out of the stones. Her magic now saturated the walls, and another’s power had come to life in response. She could feel someone else’s spellsspidering through the tower as if the ivy’s roots grew all through the stone, guiding her along currents of magic.

“Hawks hunt these woods,” she said, “and ivy thrives in the walls. Those are Ebah’s symbols.”

“I think this tower belonged to the Changing Queen, as surely as the Mage King lit the fire at the lighthouse.”

“This isn’t the portal, but it is a…” She searched for words from their magic lessons. “It’s a manifestation of the tower’s magic.”

“Astonishing.”

She put her hand over his and rested his palm amid the ivy leaves. “Can you sense that, too?”

His power flared in their Union, seeking. “I’m aware of the sheer amount of Lustra magic here, but the details aren’t clear to my senses.”

She thought back on what he had taught her about the paradigms of magic: mageia like Solia’s affinity for fire, manteia like his thelemancy, and hulaia—her Lustra magic. “This ivy is an arcane link to the various spells here. They aren’t anchored like mageic or manteic enchantments are. I would describe them as rooted, with hulaic magic running through them.”

He let out a soft breath behind her. “What an incredible discovery. These spells have endured for untold centuries without a living mage to replenish them. This tells us that Silvicultrixes have the power to create enchantments that are sustained by the Lustra itself.”

“The strongest concentration of magic is somewhere above us.”

His aura was bright with excitement. “Let’s follow it.”

Cassia took the lead up the spiral stair. When they entered the chamber at the top of the tower, Lio had to duck under the sharp slope of the roof. Knight, rather than sniffing their new surroundings, froze on the threshold, ears perked and tail out.

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