Page 210 of Blood Feast

“I pushed the temple too hard. I felt the break through the entire spell the Changing Queen and the Mage King left behind across their kingdom. I saw the lighthouse and stone circle in ruins. The tower burning. And I finally understood. Six Lustra sites are bound to the three doors.”

Cold spread through Lio. “Three times three. Nine nodes.”

“Ebah and Lucian’s monuments are keeping the doors sealed. The Lustra has been guiding us to them all along, trying to help me save the doors, but…”

“Miranda must have been the one following us,” Lio realized. “She was tracking your shared magic and letting us lead her to the right Lustra sites. This must have been Kallikrates’s contingency plan all this time.”

“And we’ve been playing along. Since he couldn’t open the doors with my magics, he’s breaking them down by destroying the nodes.”

“Leveling the monuments wouldn’t be enough to break spells that powerful,” Lio protested.

Cassia shook her head. “He has to destroy the magic.”

Understanding hit Lio like a blow to the gut. “That’s why he wants your artifacts. He must need a completed triune focus to tap into the spells and destabilize them.”

Lio had no doubt the Collector could wield them through his Overseers, because he still possessed the key to all of this.

Cassia’s first magic.

Her shoulders hunched. “He’ll hardly need to use the foci at this point. I just destroyed four of the nodes for him in one night. I saw the second door open.”

“No.” Lio took hold of her arms. “You cannot blame yourself for this. You were thrown headfirst into powerful magic none of us understand. And every step of the way, you’ve fought so hard to learn. To do the right thing.”

She shook her head. “I should have known better. I reached for too much power in the temple. If only I’d been more careful…if only I’d accepted my limits and what I don’t know…”

“Ignorance never kept anyone safe. If we’d known more—”

She held up her hands. “I don’t want to know any more secrets. They’re better left buried, where Kallikrates can’t use them.”

“Those secrets are yours by right. That power should be yours.”

“That’s what every arrogant mage and conquering warlord in the history of the shadowlands has said to justify their games! I won’t become one of them, greedy for what I think I should have, leaving destruction in my wake to get it.”

The injustice of it made Lio’s magic pound inside him. “It broke my heart when he took your magic. But this, I can bear least of all—that you would stop trying to get it back because of him. If you give up, you’ll lose a piece of yourself even more important than your magic. Don’t let him take that from you.”

“It isn’t your choice to make.” She backed away.

“Cassia, what are you planning?”

“Rudhira was right. Arrest in Orthros is the safest place for me. As long as I’m there, Kallikrates can’t use me to destroy anything else.”

“You can’t really believe this world is better off without you fighting for it.”

Lio reached for her through their bond, drawing her deep into his mind and heart. She fought his pull, her regrets washing through him.

“Get somewhere safe before dawn,” she said. “Go as far as you can. I won’t let the Charge take you easily.”

For the second time, his Grace stepped away and left him behind.

Cassia slipped through thefabric of the world. In that instant, suspended between flesh and spirit in a current of her blood magic, she was out of the Lustra’s reach. There was only Hespera.

Goddess, I’m sorry.

She had failed in her duty to protect the innocent with her immortal power. But what hurt most of all was that she had failed her eternal vows to her Grace.

The letting site at Paradum pulled her and Knight back to earth. True to her aim, she had landed them in the middle of her garden. She ran her hands over him to make sure he was all right, and he licked her chin in reassurance. She had managed to step him without making him ill or losing him somewhere along the way.

The strength of the restored letting site welled out of the soil and filled her, its undeserving Silvicultrix. Her one triumph here had not been enough to save them. She had failed the Lustra itself.

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