Page 104 of Circle of Shadows
Daemon shot a quick nod to Broomstick below. He began to scale the wall too. Daemon abandoned peeling away the rice paper and just burst through the window. He swung himself into the room.
Sora didn’t register his arrival. He rushed to her side and tried to shake her awake.
“Hmm?” she said. Her eyes remained stubbornly shut.
“It’s me, Daemon,” he said. “You have to wake up.”
“All right... after one more ride on this shooting star.” She giggled.
Broomstick slipped in through the window.
“Sora.” Daemon shook her again.
“We need to counteract the genka,” Broomstick said as he began opening and shutting drawers. “Look for an antidote.”
Daemon searched through the closet and lifted the reed mats to check beneath them. “There’s nothing here,” he said.
Broomstick sighed. “Now what?”
“I have an idea.” Daemon crouched next to Sora.
“Sora, do you remember when you spoke to me through the connection and we saw the serpent constellation? And we flew through the stars?”
She opened her eyes and smiled drowsily. “When everything was ryuu emeralds?”
“Um, yeah. That.” Daemon had no idea what she was talking about, but he pressed on. “You and I were seeing the same thing. We didn’t just share feelings; other sensesare potentially involved. So I was wondering... can you transfer the genka to me through the bond? I mean, not the actual genka, but its effects—the fogginess, the hallucinations, the intoxication?”
“I don’t... I don’t understand.”
“It’s all right. Just, uh, close your eyes again and try to reach out to me through our bond.” He hoped allowing her to shut her eyes wouldn’t send her careening back into the dream world and away from the real world.
The room around Daemon began to distort and swirl. He could almost feel the genka dribbling into his veins, if not in actuality, then in essence. Before he slipped away into the hallucination completely, he grabbed onto Broomstick’s arm. Daemon needed something to tether himself to reality so he could communicate coherently with Sora before the drug submerged him.
Daemon?
Hi, Sora.
It worked. He exhaled, both relieved and a bit disbelieving. They could literally communicate through their gemina bond.
You really did come for me, Sora said.
I said I would, and I did. Listen, I’m going to try to draw the delirium from you, all right? And then you need to help Broomstick. You need to promise you’ll leave me and go stop the ryuu.
What will happen to you?
Don’t worry about me. But the Society—and Kichona—needs you. Do you promise?
I promise.
All right.
Broomstick put his hand on Daemon’s. It grounded him.The room around Daemon had already vanished, replaced instead by Sora’s feverish green hallucination, which involved throwing stars flinging themselves every which way at moving targets. They always hit the bull’s-eye.
Daemon smiled.
Then he concentrated on the muddy edges of his vision and on the feeling of being adrift. He collected the random clouds that floated among the throwing stars. He pulled away the giggles that floated in the air.
Give them to me, Sora.
