Lisa’s eyes flicked to his hand, then back to his face.“So how do we get through?”
Rezer’s magic stirred, predatory and precise.“We don’t let it know you’re actually with me.”
He stepped toward the mirror, then paused and looked back at her.“I want you with me, but you stay close.You do not wander.You do not touch anything you don’t recognize.And if I tell you to run?—”
“I won’t argue,” she said, then added with a grim little smile, “much.”
His mouth twitched.“That’s the best offer I’m going to get.”
Lisa moved to his side, no hesitation.Brave as hell.Stubborn as sin.And his.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against him.Then checked the blocks in his mind that he’d erected once he’d started coming through the mirror to Enigma.They were firmly in place.Last, so that the mirror wouldn’t be able to sense a second presence, Rezer cloaked Lisa in his dark magic.Covering the beautiful light that he knew it would sense.Then, he lifted his hand to the mirror again, but this time he didn’t push like a male trying to force a door.He pushed like a warrior taking back ground.
Darkness slid up his arm, not violent, not uncontrolled, just present.A tool.A blade.His magic wrapped tighter around Lisa without binding her, a shield that sat against her skin like warmed air.
The mirror shuddered instantly.Rezer felt its resistance constricting like a fist.He leaned in, voice barely above a murmur.“You already tried to keep me out,” he told it.“You failed.”
The golden surface wavered, then dimmed at the edges, a thin gray seam splitting the reflection like bruised light.
Lisa’s hand covered the one resting on her waist, her fingers threading through his with quiet support.“Well,” she said, voice light but eyes deadly serious, “let it never be said that you aren’t consistent when it comes to how you tease the objects of your attention.”
Rezer squeezed once, hard.“I tease you because I relish your fire.Stay close to me.”
“I will,” she promised.
He turned back to the mirror and shoved.
The resistance flared, hot, furious, then buckled under the combined pressure of his magic and his will.The surface gave, folding inward, swallowing light.Cold rushed out.Rezer stepped forward first, dragging the threshold open with sheer stubborn refusal.
And Lisa stepped with him—into the elfin realm, into the forest’s waiting silence, and ready to head toward the anchor that he hoped would finally give him all the information he needed in order to protect not only Lisa and her loved ones, but his home as well.
CHAPTER13
“This feels new.And by new, I mean I hate it.”~Elora
“I’m never fighting with Cush again and I totally don’t care if he wants me barefoot and pregnant, never sparing another elf,” Elora groaned.“And I’m never going on another adventure again.”
The forest had not been merciful, or perhaps the Chamber manipulating the forest was what was making it so angry.Because that’s what it felt like to Cassie, that it was practically vibrating with rage.
“We both know all you speak right now is lies,” Cassie huffed as she shoved away some hair that was in her face.“Better to save your breath, and don’t say anything I could hold over your head later.”
Branches whipped at their clothes and scraped their skin, and the shadows lengthened too quickly to be natural.They’d been walking since dawn, but it felt like days.The Chamber had twisted the paths, smoothed the ground beneath their boots, cut away the ache in their legs, and in doing so, made them cover leagues when they should have covered miles.It wanted them here faster.But the forest seemed to be putting up a fight and she and Elora were the ones being punished for it.Perhaps it was sick of being used.
Cassie could feel that intent moving with them, an invisible hand planted between her shoulder blades, nudging, guiding, commanding.Faster.
Every time her thoughts flicked to Triktapic, the flare of his magic, the weight of his roar through their bond, the world around her pulsed in answer.His power was alive in the realm now, wild and unrestrained, announcing himself to the Chamber the way only an ancient could:I know what you’re doing, and you will not take her.
The air vibrated with it.He was the forest’s heartbeat, shaking the leaves from their branches, promising blood for daring to come between them.
Cassie’s chest ached at the echo of it.The connection hummed under her skin, equal parts reassurance and dread.Trik’s reaction had changed everything.The Chamber could no longer pretend ignorance, could no longer manipulate them without consequence.Now it was a race, and they had no choice but to run in the wrong direction.
Elora broke a branch that blocked their path and muttered something foul.“You know what I hate most about being magically dragged through increasingly suspicious terrain?”
Cassie didn’t answer.There wasn’t air to spare for humor.
It didn’t seem to bother Elora as she answered her own question.“Knowing something worse is coming than a tree trunk to the face.”
The forest no longer looked like a forest.The colors had dulled, light pressing sideways instead of down, moss losing its green and bleeding into gray.Even the birdsong had disappeared.The silence left behind was too thick to be empty—it waslistening.
