Page 28 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams
“The codex was a trap,” I explain.
“I know,” he says. “Caledon planted the information about it to lure us there.”
“To luremethere, specifically,” I say. “It did have a prophecy in it that told Caledon what to look for. It was a prophecy aboutme.”
His eyes widen. “What do you mean?”
I repeat the prophecy and everything else I learned. Leon tenses when I touch on my conversation with Caledon. Even though I leave out the details, I know it’s obvious how I got the wounds on my stomach. I put a hand on his knee to soothe him, skipping ahead to the part of the story where I was bundled away to some random building in the heart of Qimorna and left there until Leon came breaking down the door.
“How did you find me?” I ask. I have my theories, but I’m still curious.
Leon takes my hand, tracing his fingers across my knuckles.
“We’d already worked out they were holding you in the holy city. From there, we used an old fae spell that linked us so I could sense your location in Qimorna.”
“Filusians have something like that?” I ask, amazed.
Leon continues to study my hand.
“It’s not common—partly because it involves blood magic. Your brother still had some of yours from the kin test. It also comes with…side effects. You might notice in the coming weeks that you’re more aware of my presence than usual. Maybe you feel it already.”
I frown as I realize Ihavebeen sensing Leon. Didn’t I think as much the moment I woke up? And in my cell too. I’d been so certain that Leon was coming for me.
“Itwasyou in the dream,” I say.
“Yes, that was part of the spell.” He lifts my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. “I’m sorry I had to leave you. The dimane the Temple surrounded you with made it hard to reach you.”
“Of course,” I reply absently, most of my concentration focused on trying to figure out what, exactly, I’m sensing. I find that if I listen carefully, thereissomething there. A steady thumping in my blood, like a second heartbeat. I gently take my hand from Leon and lay it over his chest.
“I feel it,” I say, a little awed.
“It will fade over time,” he says, and I detect a slight tension in his voice.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, wanting to reassure him since he seems to expect me to be upset by the side effects. “It helped you find me. More than that, it saved me long before you turned up in my prison. That dream gave me hope when I was close to giving up. I knew Caledon would drain me in time, and kill Lafia too, and all I could think about was…”
I stop short of giving a name to the memory, but it plays out vividly in my mind’s eye. Kit’s agonized face. His blood running through my fingers.
“Ana, are you alright?”
“I have to speak to Tira,” I say, a weight settling at my core.
Leon nods. “I’ll take you to her. She has her own room now. Heda decided to give us more space when she realized we were going to be staying a while. It didn’t hurt that I offered to pay her extra for the lodgings. I couldn’t stand listening to any more of Alastor and Stratton’s bickering about snoring and untidiness.”
He frowns when his joke doesn’t lighten my expression.
“There’s this too,” he says, pulling a ring from his pocket. I stiffen, my heartrate speeding up at the sight of it.
“It’s a glamour token,” he says, and my pulse slows, but when he meets my gaze, there’s a hint of awkwardness between us. Leon presses the ring into my hand and quickly fills the silence. “You’re getting too recognizable, even in a backwater like Tread, so I had Gallis send it over from Filusia. Don’t worry, it’s a light charm. It’ll just add small tweaks to your features, nothing as drastic as the ones that make us look human.”
“Thank you,” I say, pocketing it.
“Put it on whenever you leave the inn,” Leon says as he rises to take me to Tira.
When I step inside her room, I see that she’s started to make the place her own. Pieces of whittled wood and feathers are piled on a table in the corner—to be turned into arrows, I suspect. Dots is asleep, curled at the foot of her bed, but lifts his head when I come in. When he sees me, he jumps down, his four tails waving back and forth happily, and gambols over to me. He nuzzles my palm with his snout as I bend to pet him.
“Hi, Dots,” I say gently. “Long time no see.”
“Actually, he was part of your rescue mission,” Tira says with a smile. I straighten up, looking again around the room, and notice with a pang that some of the furniture is draped in colorful scarves, just like Una used to wear.
