“He’s notmymage,” I grumble. “Why even tell me that Mac talked to Xanthis if she didn’t have anything helpful to say?” There’s a rational part of my mind that knows I’m beingunreasonably petulant, but I don’t care right now. Maybe I should pay Xanthis a visit myself. Goddess knows she’s only ever as helpful as she wants to be. She might know more than she wants to admit.
“If you’d settle down and listen to me, I could tell you that shedidhave some useful advice.” He arches one of his perfectly shaped eyebrows at me, and I growl again.
“Well, fuck, why didn’t you say that? What did she say?”
“You need to sleep.”
“Fuck sleep. I’ll sleep once we know who has Rune.”
Cassius puts a hand on my shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. “At, that was Xanthis’s advice. You need to sleep. You felt a connection with him while you were asleep before. That’s how you knew he was in trouble, and that’s the best way to open that channel of communication again if there is one.”
“I’ve tried focusing on the connection,” I say. “It hasn’t worked.”
His lips thin and he narrows his eyes.
“But you haven’t slept,” he insists. “Come on, I’m taking you to your room and you’re going to sleep. I’ll put a thrall on you if I have to.”
I snort but let him guide me up out of my chair. “Your vampy tricks don’t work on me.”
“They might when you’re dead on your feet already. Your defenses are shot. You haven’t even noticed that your body is trying to force a shift while you’re sitting here. Youneedrest, and something tells me your gargoyle wouldn’t do shit to deflect my ‘vampy tricks’when it knows as well as I do that you need to sleep.”
Maybe he’s right. And, fuck, am I glad he’s got one arm looped through mine, guiding me to my room, because I don’t know that I’d be able to navigate the mazelike hallways of Auri’s compound in this state.
When we reach my room, he opens the door and gives me a little nudge inside.
“And don’t come out until you’ve slept at least ten hours,” he says.
I nod and yawn, my body on autopilot as I trudge towards the bed and collapse into it. I settle Rune’s journal against my chest, and sleep pulls me under before I even hear the door click shut.
RUNE
“Just tellme what the point is, you monosyllabic bitch.” I curse and rattle the bars of my cage as Elvira, also known as my prison guard, drops my food off right on schedule without a word. She hasn’t said much since the first day when she mentioned a war, no matter how nicely I’ve tried to talk to her every time she shows up to feed me or bring me a fresh toilet bucket. “I’m going to turn you into a toad when I get out of here,” I mutter under my breath as she disappears.
Seriously, I’ve been here five days, assuming I’m counting the meals right, and other than my not-so-chatty guard, I haven’t seen another soul. Why would someone capture me and then not even bother to come by to Villain Monologue about how smart and powerful they are? I rattle the bars again out of sheer frustration, then glare at the soggy grilled cheese sandwich.
I have such a long list of people I’m going to curse to absolute hell when I get out of here, and whoever is making me these shitty sandwiches is definitely high on the list.
I drag my fingers through my ratty, dirty hair and slump onto the ground, reluctantly reaching for the sandwich with my free hand. I need to keep my strength up. While I force myself to eat the bland food, I make another fruitless attempt to pull at any magic I can. It’s hopeless though. Any reserves I might have hadwhen they threw me in here are long since depleted, and they made damn sure that there isn’t a single source of energy down here for me to draw from. They might still be doing something to bind my powers; I would have no way of knowing. Either way, the result is the same. I’m completely fucking impotent.
I shove the rest of the sandwich into my mouth and swallow it down. Then, I reach for the plate. It’s plastic, so it’s not much use as a weapon, and there is absolutely zero energy to draw from it either. Whipping it hard at the wall like a Frisbee is mildly satisfying though.
While I’m banging my head against the bars out of sheer boredom and frustration, I suddenly feel a little spark. I gasp and go still, focusing on the feeling.
Please don’t be imagining things, please don’t be imagining things, please don’t be…
Another little flicker right in the center of my chest makes my breath catch. Holy shit, there really is something there. It’s barely there, nowhere near enough power to pull anything from, but I close my eyes and focus on it. It feels like the tiniest invisible thread running from my sternum to… I’m not exactly sure where. I pluck at it with my mind, and something vibrates back. Something warm andprotective. I almost laugh out loud. I haven’t needed anyone to protect me in a long time, and I can’t fathom anyone who would want to. Maybe I’m starting to lose it.
I focus again, gathering what little frissons of magic are lingering inside me, too weak to actually do anything with, and I send them down the invisible string. I have no way to know where the magic ends up, if it ends up anywhere at all, but the more I stroke the connection with my mind, the less alone I feel. I might be imagining things, but it feels like it gets a little thicker the longer I focus on it, until eventually I start to drift off to sleep.
FOUR
ATLAS
Fog swirls around me, clogging my thoughts. I push my way through the haze, driven by some unseen guide. My chest warms, the sensation expanding from an ember to a spark, and the sensation draws me from the deep sleep I was in.
I sit up and open groggy eyes. “Rune?”
My fingertips tingle as my eyes roam my bedroom looking for a sign of the mage, but he’s not here. I could’ve sworn he was.
