“The temperature is just fine. It’s your body that isn’t working. Can you make it to the kitchen? You need to move and eat something hot.”
I grumble in protest but allow her to help me to my feet. “It feels like I have the flu.”
With her help, I hobble down the hall and into the kitchen, where she sits me down at the table and digs in my cupboard. “Chicken noodle or Italian wedding?”
“Italian wedding.”
She pulls down the jar and dumps it into a saucepan. “Now start talking.”
I hug myself, fighting the urge to lay my head on the table. “It worked. I saw him. We were together.”
“Did you see where she’s keeping him?”
“No. We were in his dream—a garden behind his castle in Stygarde.” I can’t hold my head up. I fold my arms on the table and rest my head on top.
“How did he look?”
“You mean does he look beat up or like they’re torturing him?”
She nods.
“Not in the dream. He looked the same as always. But…”
“But?”
I rub my face. “I think she’s starving him. He took my blood, and it was like the night we met. Like he would have kept drinking if the anchor hadn’t pulled me out of the dream. And now that I think about it, his voice sounded gritty, like his throat was dry.”
Maeve stops stirring and stares at me. “You let him take your blood on the astral plane? No wonder you looked so pale.”
“He was hungry. He said it would help strengthen him to face Valeska.”
“I get that, but listen, on the astral plane you don’t have actual blood. You exist there as energy. Magical energy. When he drinks from you, it might taste like blood to him, and it might nourish him, but he’s draining your energy and your magic. He could kill you if he takes too much.”
“Same as blood then.”
She rubs her eye behind her glasses. “No… No… When Damien drinks your blood in real life he can hear your heart slow and feel you struggle. Clues he’s learned to listen to over hundreds of years living among humans tell him when to stop. But in his dream, his reality is created by his mind. He might not recognize your cues of distress if you even have any on that plane.”
“Oh. That explains some things.” I close my eyes just for a second.
I wake to Maeve shaking me by the shoulder and sliding the hot soup in front of me. I wipe drool from the corner of my mouth. She watches me as I try to lift the spoon and my hand shakes so hard all the soup falls off it. With an exasperated sigh, she takes it from me. Carefully, she feeds me like a child. Our eyes meet through her glasses, and hers are unusually glossy.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” I say softly between bites. “You’ve been such a good friend to me through all this. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I don’t know what I’d do without you, really.”
She glances down at the soup. “You had no pulse.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nods. Smiles a little. “I forgive you. Magic can be a bitch. You’re new. You’ll learn.”
“I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Next time?” Her spine straightens and her chin tucks.
“Next time. If his plan doesn’t work, I have to go back in.”
Maeve feeds me another spoonful. “What exactly did he tell you? You were in his dream for over an hour.”
“He confirmed the vampire queen has him. He confirmed I can’t use the keyspell to come for him because he’s watched all the time and is being held in a cage of sunlight by witches. Oh, Maeve, he said it was the Kim family who captured him. They’re sun wielders. Have you heard of them?”
