“Lucille?” Anya touched my shoulder.
“Is he dead?”
Anya hesitated, something heavy passing across her face. “If he’s not already, then he will be soon. There is no way to stop an anima feeding.”
I stared at the ground. The grass was so green, the sun so bright. I didn’t know what to do, say, or feel.
I was losing another parent. Oliver was losing his adopted sister again.
“Lucille.” Anya gripped my shoulders. “I understand this is a lot to take in. But Melanie is four steps ahead, and if we have any hope of beating her, we all need to work together—and not out there, in here. She can’t see us coming in a dream-walk.”
“Just give me some time.”
I had to clear Sam before Ronen and Alexei tortured him. I had to tell them what was really going on with my father. We still needed to talk about the Spinewalkers. I had to tell Oliver…
How did I manage all of this?
“I’ll be here tomorrow night. Oh, and I don’t know what it means, but I keep seeing symbols about a guide related to you. Maybe someone in your life who’s been helping you? They have an answer you need to help us stop Melanie.”
Her smug, self-assured words rang in my ear.Let’s call me your guide.
The only answer she had was about Praetervado. Was that how we stopped everything? Changing the past?
“Okay,” I said with fake vibrato. “Tomorrow night then.”
I pulled out of the dream-walk and gave myself a moment to rest inside my own head. I couldn’t face Oliver yet. I needed time to process everything. But how could I? Before the ground beneath me had even begun to stabilize, someone else ripped it away. There was no chance to catch my breath, no space to heal before the next stab.
My father was dying—if not already dead. Another parent. Another loss.
I grieved the possibility of what he might’ve been, the version of him I’d only glimpsed a handful of times, when he’d shown something like care. A sickening twist rolled through my stomach as I thought about what Melanie had done to his soul. We might’ve had a rocky relationship, but he didn’t deserve that. I didn’t want that for him. Nor did I want to prepare to tell my best friend a truth that might very well ruin him.
Oliver wasn’t losing Sam. He was losing Melanie all over again.
Chapter
Forty-Four
Lucille
Tingles skimmed across my cheeks as I opened my eyes. Alexei lounged beside me on the bed, but Ronen was there, kneeling in front of me on the wooden floor.
“Well, are we interrogating Sam, beautiful?” Alexei asked, impatience lacing his words, oblivious to the hole in my chest.
“Lucille?” Ronen breathed. He waited for me to confirm the source of his growing dread. He thought he understood my tears.
But he’d never guess the truth, why my legs rested numb against the bedframe, ignoring every signal to stand.
His fingers squeezed my thigh in question. I placed my hand over his, drawing strength from his touch, his unmovable presence, his filling essence. I swore I could feel more of him within me, reinforcing the weak spots and rebuilding my will.
I stood. I only wanted to tell this story once. “We need to see Oliver.”
The crack in my voice kept either male from questioning me. We made our way down the hall—me still in my patient gown with glassyeyes, and the general and his second beside me, battle-ready. A few healers turned their heads as we entered Oliver’s room.
Oliver lay asleep and vulnerable on top of the covers, snoring softly. Bandages wrapped his wounded foot, turning it into a cushioned club. His leg sat propped up and stabilized, and beside his bed… was a lemon bar. Sam.
Hadrian and Rune sat next to Oliver’s bed, alert and ready to bite off any hand that so much as touched him wrong. I wanted to hug them, or maybe Aspen and Ronen, for giving them the order, even if it wasn’t needed. MJ was propped up in the windowsill, twirling an arrow in her hand, looking rather bored, while Aspen sat in a chair beside her.
They both stood when we walked in.
