“Lewis said the phoenix needs an anchor,” Ben said. Something about his tone was almost hushed, as if he thought we were in a holy place.
Maybe we were.
“Someone who can maintain the connection through the entire rebirth cycle,” he continued. “That’s going to be you.”
Don’t tease me with a good time, passed through my mind, and despite everything, I couldn’t help smiling a little. “I know.”
“And Lewis also said that your grandmother tried this once and spent three days unconscious afterward. She was at full strength when she attempted it.”
Was this Ben’s way of trying to dissuade me from doing what needed to be done? If that was the case, he needed to get ready for disappointment.
“I know that, too,” I replied. I closed my eyes. The phoenix’s weakening heartbeat traveled to me across the miles, thready and uneven. “But I don’t have a choice. If the phoenix dies while we’re still linked, the psychic backlash will shatter my mind. And if it dies before completing the rebirth, the portal destabilizes. My mother and grandmother will be cut off forever.”
Ben shifted next to me, although I could tell he was being careful not to disturb my head where it lay against his shoulder. “There has to be another way.”
“If there is, we haven’t found it.” I opened my eyes and gazed at him, at the worry in his shadowed eyes and the tense set of his mouth. “And we’re running out of time to look.”
The unicorn made a soft sound, almost like a sigh. When I looked at it, I saw understanding in those ancient eyes. It knew what I was facing. It knew the cost.
And it was here to help me survive it.
“The spring,” I said, a sudden thought occurring to me. “Ben, what if the spring’s energy could help anchor me? Maybe provide stability during the rebirth process?”
He was quiet for a moment, considering the question. “Lewis said the anchor needs electromagnetic sensitivity and the ability to hold the pattern of what the phoenix should be. You have both. But the strain of maintaining that connection for hours — ” He shook his head. “The spring’s energy might help. But it won’t be enough. Not when you’re already this drained.”
I knew he was right. I could feel it in my bones, in the way my hands still trembled despite the spring’s restorative effects.
I was going to attempt something that had nearly killed my grandmother when she was at full strength. And I was going to do it while already nearly wiped out, already damaged, already pushed past every safe limit.
The odds weren’t good.
But when I reached out with my senses and felt the phoenix’s dying heartbeat, when I thought about my mother and grandmother trapped on the other side of the portal…when I looked at Ben’s face and saw the fear he was trying to hide —
The odds didn’t matter.
“We should rest while we can,” I told him. “Because once we start this, there’s no stopping until it’s finished.”
He nodded and pulled me closer. The unicorn settled near the spring, its body a warm presence in the darkness. And there, in that ancient grove saturated with clean dimensional energy, with shadow creatures manifesting miles away and DAPI closing in and a phoenix dying slowly through our connection —
I needed to let myself rest.
Just for a few hours.
Just enough to face the impossible one more time.
Chapter Six
Ben had seen Sidney exhausted before. He’d watched her push through electromagnetic overload during the shadow stalker crisis and had caught her when she’d nearly collapsed after merging with corrupted magic. But he’d never seen her this drained, as if something was slowly stealing her life force.
She lay on her side near the spring, wrapped in the emergency blanket he’d pulled from the SUV’s kit, and even in sleep, her hands trembled. Blood had crusted under her nose once again, and also at the corners of her mouth. Her skin had taken on a gray cast that made her look like a photograph left too long in the sun.
The unicorn had settled near her, its body providing some much-needed warmth in the cold night air. Ben had initially worried that the creature might leave once Sidney was safe, but it seemed content to stay, its presence creating a bubble of calm in the ancient grove.
Ben checked his watch. Two-thirty in the morning. They’d been here for three hours, and Sidney had been unconscious for all of them.
He pressed two fingers to her wrist and counted her pulse. Still elevated, still thready. Not good, but stable. That was something, he supposed.
The phoenix appeared at the edge of the clearing, moving slowly through the trees. Agent Morse had wrapped it in that electromagnetic shielding fabric — which it wore like an odd cloak — before evacuating the facility, but the creature had found them anyway. Ben suspected it had followed the connection between itself and Sidney, tracking her consciousness across miles of forest.
