“What are you doing?” I shout, my blood on fire, lungs burning, voice nearly swallowed by the rushing water.
Lala’s eyes roll into the back of her head, showing me only the whites. Her lips don’t move, but her voice reverberates in my mind—the voice of a haunted, ancient goddess whose power threatens to bring me to my knees.
“You asked for guidance in this realm,” she says. “Illumination. Painful as it may be, that is what I offer.”
“By mutilating me and stealing my blood? Like the Dark fucking Hierophant?” Fear sours my gut, but I willnotback down. I don’t care who she’s working for or how many dark minions the Magician has. This ismydream—mynightmare—and she willnotovertake me here. “Whoareyou?”
“The messenger matters not,” she repeats, and in the wall of water before my eyes, another Tarot card swirls into view, larger than life.
It’s the High Priestess card, featuring an elder witch standing between two stone pillars before a sacred ocean. She’s dressed in a skirt full of stars and a golden tunic, arms raised toward the moon, an old grimoire placed on a stone altar…
“It’s you,” I breathe, the pieces clicking into place. “You’re the High Priestess.”
Lala says nothing, her eyes still milky white, the water swirling faster and faster. The Tarot card vanishes, and suddenly the frothy turquoise water turns pitch back, shot through with tiny white bolts of lightning.
All around us, the alchemical symbols I saw in her grimoire appear, each one glowing like a fiery ember in a bed of black coals. Swirling through the whirlpool, they rearrange themselves into new symbols and pictures, a sacred language only Lala seems to understand.
The magick of her spell burns a fresh path through my veins, the pain making me dizzy.
“Do not resist this,” her voice echoes.
Before I can utter another word, the column of water collapses, stealing the last of my breath and sucking us under, way down to the darkest depths of the sea where no light can ever shine.
Four
BAZ
I wake up—if you can even call it waking up on this fucked-up acid trip through the dream realm—on my hands and knees. Can’t even get a damn breath out before I’m puking up saltwater, gasping for air.
Not good.
My lungs convulse as the sea burns its way out. I dig my fingers into the muddy earth, squeeze my eyes shut, and wait for the water and the excruciating pain to pass. But Death’s got me in a tight grip, and that bitch doesnotwant to let go.
This is worse than any of my own nightmares by far. I can only hope that Stevie and Kirin are faring better.
How long have I even been here? A minute? An hour? No idea. Feels like forever before I finally get a good clean breath, before the burn starts to cool. I manage to get to my feet… just in time for the next wave of total suckage.
Pain and pressure duke it out behind my eyes, the agony enough to knock me on my ass. Red-hot runes swim in my vision, lighting up the darkness and slicing through my skull like tiny branding irons.
I unleash a scream of agony that echoes across the landscape of Breath and Blade, and I’m pretty sure that scream’s about to be my last word before I bite it.
Then, as swiftly as it took me down, the pain vanishes. The runes evaporate.
I’m on my feet again, holding my breath for the next attack.
Nothing comes.
I take a beat to get my bearings. Definitely somewhere in the middle of Breath and Blade, but there’s so much mist I can’t see more than ten feet in front of me. Despite the fact that I arrived here like a half-drowned rat, I’m completely dry. And dressed, inexplicably, in a too-small pair of fuzzy black pajama pants covered with glow-in-the-dark zombies.
No shirt, no shoes, no service.
If this is Stevie’s dream, I can only imagine what her subconscious is trying to tell her about me.
“Stevie?” I call out. “Kirin?”
Nothing.
They’re not here—that much is obvious. More than the deathly silence, I can feel their absence. My hand is cold now, Stevie’s touch no more than a memory.
