Page 4 of Bonds of Magic
“Did he say anything to you?” Isaac asked.
“When he tried to kill me?” Cory said. “Yeah, he said, ‘Why are you making this harder than it needs to be?’”
“That’s all? Did he say anything else to you, in that entire time?”
“He didn’t say—” Cory began, but then he stopped abruptly. I heard him inhale. “He acted like he knew me. Not at first. But then he looked at me and said, ‘You,’ like he knew me. He said he thought he’d have to search for me for weeks.”
Cory looked at Isaac, then up at me, his eyes wide. The movement pulled him out of contact with my hand, and I took the excuse to walk back to my post by Isaac’s chair.
“What did he mean?” Cory asked, looking between the two of us. “He said something right before he died. He said, ‘I don’t care how badly he wants you. I’m not dying for you.’ Right before Professor Romero hit him with his second spell.”
Isaac didn’t answer Cory. Instead, he turned to me. “The man whose body you saw. Are you sure it was—”
“Positive,” I said. “He hounded me for months. And there was always a hint of—” I caught myself right before saying Argus’s name. Cory was safer the less he knew about that. “I’m sure,” I said with finality.
“I think it’s safe to assume he was instructed to locate Cory and bring him into the dream world physically, once he was found,” Isaac said to me.
“That makes sense.” I nodded. “The door must have opened up to the dream world. But…how? I took awayhisability to leave when we fought. That effect should have extended to his children too. Jude should have been trapped.”
I hoped Isaac understood who I meant with my pronoun. During that last fight, Argus had taken away my ability to enter the dreamworld, but I’d turned the power of his blow back on him at the last instant, causing the reverse effect to ripple out through his body to the rest of his half-human, half-incubus children. Icould no longer enter the dreamworld, and they could no longer leave.
“I don’t know,” Isaac said, and he sounded troubled. “But I intend to find out.”
“Erika Martinez was a freshman,” I said. “She couldn’t have known how to open that door on her own. Or had the power for it, unless I’m totally off about how strong she was.”
Isaac pursed his lips. “She was a very intelligent student, with a high level of innate power. But no, opening a portal between worlds is beyond even the most accomplished freshman witch’s abilities.
He sounded grim, and I knew why. Cory had described Erika as being under some kind of a trance. I didn’t know a ton about magic, but I knew how much energy it cost Isaac to put me in a trance for twenty minutes, and all I did was sit there.
Ensorcelling a student and getting her to leave the safety of the manor, tramp through the woods at night, get to the very edge of campus, and open a door to another world without setting off the wards, would have required a great deal of power.
“Did the holiday help?” I asked, wondering suddenly if that was why the attempt had been made tonight.”
“The holiday? Oh.” Isaac pressed his lips together in thought. “I suspect it did, amplifying the strength Erika carried to do the spell. But still…”
He trailed off, and I couldn’t blame him. Someone at Vesperwood had put Erika in a trance for the specific purpose of opening that door. Which meant someone at Vesperwood truly was working with Argus.
I looked at Isaac, a thought occurring. “If Jude is dead, and he didn’t know who Cory was until he saw him, that meanshedoesn’t know who Cory is either. Right?”
I felt ridiculous dancing around saying Argus’s name. But I knew all too well that too much knowledge would make Cory even more vulnerable than he already was.
Isaac nodded, but he looked troubled. “For now. But how much longer can we count on that to last? We’ve been complacent—I’vebeen complacent—and a student has died due to my hubris.
He looked at Cory, who was staring at both of us, looking lost.
“What are you—” he began, but Isaac cut him off.
“Cory, I need to apologize to you. You should not have gone through tonight’s disaster. I should have done more to prevent it. But you have my word that I will do my utmost to make sure that you are safe moving forward. You, and everyone else at Vesperwood.”
I shot Isaac a sharp look and said, “I told you we needed to question Sheridan.”
Cory looked at me in confusion, and I realized too late I probably shouldn’t have said Sheridan’s name either. But dammit, now wasn’t the time to nitpick. Cory was almost abducted. Forced to bend to Argus’s will. I’d warned Isaac, and all he’d done was tell me to wait.
My rage, which had quieted in the past few minutes, was boiling again.
“We need to find him, right now,” I said. “Before he can regroup. We need to question him before he can scuttle off or form a new plan.”
Isaac gave me a hard look. “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss this.”
