“You’ve been asleep for months,” I explained. “Your body needs to recover.”
“Why isn’t Tobias awake, too?” she asked, emerald eyes aflame with suspicion. “What’s going on?”
“We wanted to make sure the cure wasn’t going to kill him,” Bastien answered, tackling the truth head-on. “So, we administered it to you first.”
Lynette barked another pained laugh.
“That makes more sense. After everything that’s happened, I don’t blame you. But it looks like you’ve managed to figure it out, Bastien. Tobi was sure that you would.”
“Don’t thank me just yet,” Bastien countered, his expression suddenly growing dark. “I’m sure Wilhelm will want to exchange a few words with the woman who ripped a hole through her brother’s chest.”
“She’ll have to get in line,” I interjected.
“And yet you seem right as rain,” Lynette replied, her gaze shifting over to me. “I suppose I should apologize, but I think we both know that it would be wasted. I didn’t take joy in it, if that’s any consolation. The creature inside me acted purely on its instinct.”
I softened a bit at that. I couldn’t help but imagine Sancha must have felt the same way, having her will stolen and body violated in such a way. I knew that Lynette Greene was not blameless, but that didn’t mean the entirety of the blame should be placed on her shoulders.
“What about Tobias?” Azrael asked, moving over to the table where he lay. “Does this mean we can proceed with him?”
“Yes,” Bastien answered, returning to the counter of ingredients and quickly sorting through them. “I just need to ready the second batch of Annora’s poison, and I’ll have everything I need.”
Azrael nodded, digging through his pocket for his communication device. “I’ll go check in with Kaine. Let him know we need a little more time before anyone comes poking around.”
“I guess that leaves you and me then, Cirian.” Lynette patted the table beside her with an ichor-stained hand in one of the vilest invitations I’d ever received. “Come fill me in on what’s happening.”
I looked to Bastien, who eyed us both warily, but then he shrugged. “I don’t see the harm in it.”
“Your actions have thrown the Expanse into chaos,” I told her, ignoring her request to join her on the table and instead moving to Tobias’ side. “After what you orchestrated in the cemetery, the Second Awakening came upon us. But it wasn’t another enlightening like the Magi hoped it would be. Instead, mortals began to manifest magic across the Expanse. Dangerous, unknown magics the likes of which we’ve not seen before. The Council has been scrambling to contain this threat to Magi Society, effectively halting all negotiations with the Unseen in the process and throwing any progress made on that front into limbo.”
Lynette grinned, an elation burning in her gaze. “Oh, if only Mother could have been alive to see this day.”
“You’re glad?”
“That mortals have been given the same access to power as Magi? Of course I am. This is far better than anything I would have imagined.”
“But no one knows how this magic will continue to manifest. They are a danger to themselves and others.”
“Spoken straight from the mouth of privilege,” Lynette countered. “Tell me, Cirian, could the same not be said for any of the Magi? Mortals are no less deserving of the gift of magic than any of us. Now they have the ability to choose what to do with it.”
A twinge in my chest, and the Source’s heat swelled.
Was it reacting to Lynette?
“I agree. But that wasn’t the only consequence of the Second Awakening.”
She nodded, copper curls bouncing. “You mean the Umbral.”
“You know of it?”
“I know the monsters that lurk between this world and the next, Cirian. The Umbral is just one of them. I tried to keep it from coming through that night in the cemetery, but I wasn’t strong enough. Even Tobias, with the combined might of each of your Anima, was no match as it blotted out the stars. But last I remembered it was contained to the Ether.”
“Not anymore. It found a way out and seized the entire Cradle in the process. We were trapped there, lost in the daze of its corruption, forced to watch Saint Sancha grow weaker by the hour as she tried to save as many of us as she could. It came for her, in the end. Took her for its own, and then tried to take the Source itself.”
“And?”
“And Sancha was wise enough to have a contingency.”
Lynette’s features twisted with confusion.
