Holding the book open and close to my chest, I hurried to my room, locking the doors. I holed up there the rest of the afternoon and night, reading the chapter on Praetervado—the most dangerous form of dream-walking.
It took the most power of the four types. The dream-walker wasn’t just invading someone’s dream to relive the past. They weren’t invading a dream or a memory at all. Michael had been wrong. No shocker there.
Praetervado was traveling to the past.
The text said that we showed up to the outside world as figures haloed in a dark purple hue, easily hidden in the shadows. But if someone saw us, we would be revealed, and the consequences could be detrimental to the future.
I didn’t understand the point of Praetervado if the Thrones never used it to change the past. Their creed seemed a touch overreactive.
Finally, on the last page, it detailed how to enter Praetervado. The dream-walker had to be fully in tune with either the memory or the question they were asking, and they had to provide an offering.
I frowned. I didn’t make any offering the other two times I entered Praetervado. Did I?
I thought back to the dream-walk with Michael, recalling the events leading up to it. Oliver and I had been running from Powers. Then one hit me with a lightning bolt. But I didn’t offer anything. I barely remembered what I had been thinking before getting electrocuted. The second time, I dream-walked to my mom as she talked to Lilith about my potential birth. It happened after the Hellhound attack.
I thought about both scenarios, comparing the events. Maybe Ididn’t need an offering? I wasn’t exactly a Throne. Or… I reached back, touching my starburst scar, then trailing my fingers along my ribs.
Could it be that simple?
Excited, I opened my end-table drawer and pulled out a dagger. Tapping into my Hellfire, I threw up a barrier between me and Ronen, wrapping it with extra flames so he wouldn’t feel my pain. Then I sliced my palm, cringing, but too excited to really care about the cut or blood. Emptying my head of everything but the scene of Michael’s torture, I forced myself to sleep.
I woke behind a wooden,rotting pillar. Chains creaked overhead, and rusted knives decorated the wall. I smiled. Even the vertigo that hit me put me in a good mood. I did it. My offering worked. I made it back to the past. But my smile swiftly fell when I heard, “I’ll tell you. If you make a runed deal with me.”
I didn’t have time—or a plan. My only desire was to stop Michael’s rune before he could carve it. But how?
Dread sank into my stomach at the thought of revealing myself. I may not be one for Cato’s creed, but I didn’t have a good feeling about showing myself to Michael and my past self.
But what were my other options?
“A three-way bind.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Panicking, I formed an icicle in one hand and a ball of Hellfire in the other. Thought. Strategy. Everything I learned and read from my time in Hell flew out the window.
“I’ll tell you if you make a binding promise?—”
My desperation took over, and I leaped from behind the pillar. My past self stopped talking, shocked by the sight of me. I hurled my Hellfire, but Michael dodged it. I stabbed his shoulder with the icicle. He shouted, or said something, but it was lost to the ringing in my ears as my Hellfire hit Aspen in the chest. He had been standing in the doorway, moments away from the rescue I remembered.
Now he was falling to his knees, and someone was screaming.
The guardian bond surged through me, sending me two different commands: help and punish.
I rushed toward Aspen, and Michael grabbed my braid, yanking me against his chest.
“You evil little swine,” he hissed, his lips pressed to my face and spit hitting my cheek.
As I watched Aspen choke and my black flames eat away at his flesh, the bond drove my actions. I snatched a dagger from Michael’s belt and swung it toward his neck. He released me in favor of not getting impaled. Forming a Hellfire ball, I prepared to chuck it at him, but then I stopped. The urge to fight and help switched to the full force of needing to punish. My hand shook as I resisted the sudden compulsion to use it on myself.
Why would I do that?
Then I remembered Ronen’s words. Gabriel had impaled himself as punishment for failing to protect Ronen.
But my Hellfire couldn’t hurt me. The thought extinguished the flame. I had a moment of relief before the invasive energy hijacked my hand holding the dagger and forced me to shove it through my chest. Then the guardian bond snapped. The urges, his emotions, all gone.
I gasped, having no breath to scream or cry. Shock and adrenaline wracked my body as I collapsed, blood pooling down my shirt. All I could do was stare in horror at what remained of Aspen.
“What the hell is going on?” my past self shouted.
