Page 103 of Circle of Shadows
Daemon needed to alert the other taigas. And he needed to get to Sora before the rest of the ryuu arrived. He tried to shake himself out of the dream. But the stars reached out with tendrils of light that held him fast, like vines wrapped around his arms.
Sora, let go of the connection. You have to let me out of your delirium.
Huh?Her dizziness spun through him.But I don’t want to be separated from you again.
Daemon’s breath caught in his throat. Sora had always been self-sufficient, an island in a sea of taigas. But now she needed him.
You won’t lose me, Sora. You found me. And I’m coming for you right now. But you need to stop projecting. You need to let me out of the hallucination.
Silence.
Sora...
All right.
He felt her hold on for another moment, and then the starlight released him and he fell through the darkness,
down
down
down
until he hit the earth with a jolt. His eyes sprang open to reality, and he bolted up from where he lay on the boathouse ground. Early morning traces of light greeted him.
It was real, Daemon told himself, even though a part of him still wasn’t sure whether it had just been a realistic dream.
No. It was real. I know Sora; itfeltlike her.Despite the fact that his gemina was drugged, being reconnected in that hallucination was the most whole Daemon had felt since they’d been separated on Prince Gin’s ship. He actually felt more than whole.
He strapped his bo onto his back and shook Broomstick awake.
Broomstick was up in less than a second, knives in hand. “Ryuu?” he asked.
“Sort of,” Daemon said. “Sora.”
“Here?” He looked around the boathouse.
“It’s hard to explain. She came back to help us, but Bullfrog didn’t believe her and drugged her with genka. Somehow, though, in her delirious state, she connected with me through a dream.”
Broomstick tensed. “Wait. Where’s Fairy?”
Stars. Daemon hadn’t thought to ask about her.I’m a terrible friend.
But he’d been asleep, under the dream influence of Sora’s hallucination. It wasn’t an excuse, but it was an explanation.
“I don’t know,” Daemon said. “We have to find Sora and wake her up. She’ll tell us where Fairy is.”
They ran toward the councilmembers’ residence.
When they arrived, Daemon slowed his pace. Broomstick tilted his chin up toward a window on the back of the building’s second floor.
Daemon nodded and curled his fingers in a series of simple mudras. “I am a spider, I am a spider, I am a spider,” he chanted under his breath. The spell took, and he leaped onto the wall and scurried up to the second floor. He paused outside the window to listen through the rice paper screen... nothing.
And then, a giggle, like a little girl telling herself a joke. Only that girl was Sora. It was the same delirious giggle from his dream.
He peeled the paper off the window frame without a sound. From the corner of the window, he peeked inside.
She was there, toppled over on the reed mats, her handsand feet bound. Relief and anger flooded through Daemon like a river through a broken dam. Anger at himself for letting this happen, and anger at Bullfrog for not trusting her.
