Page 114 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

This woman.

Martar materialized first, already working his way through a chicken leg. Condorr and Rocharde were a half-step behind. Down the corridor, Gellar and Bellus waited, thankfully giving him distance while in Angela’s company.

It was also a reminder that he needed to have a conversation with Gellar, but not while this Sleep Wizard session was about to begin. There was a lot riding on this, and it wasn’t just about Angela’s sleep patterns.

“Ready?” Zarek nodded at Martar.

“Ready, willing, and able.” Martar grinned around a mouthful of food. Rocharde nodded.

Zarek turned to Gellar and Bellus. “Send for me the instant anything goes wrong. Not after.”

“She’ll be well-guarded.” Gellar met his eyes steadily. They both knew how important this was. “Bellus will observe the dreamscape to record it for the Hidden Hall of Histories. Condorr is on guard. And I’m not going anywhere.” Gellar held his gaze a beat too long and pushed his thought out freely for Zarek to read: We need to talk.

It was rare when his brothers communicated with him like that. Except for Condorr, whose thoughts were always loud, Zarek never read their minds out of respect. But Gellar had been the first to push his thoughts like a voice, usually, it was as the commander in battle.

Zarek knew the next conversation he had with Gellar would cost him.

Bellus pushed up his spectacles, barely containing his scholarly enthusiasm. “Once the proceedings begin, we’ll enter the room to guard Angela Duboise while she’s in the dream state. A fascinating opportunity to observe the intersection of mortal dreaming and—”

“Fine.” Zarek didn’t need the footnotes. “Let’s go.”

His gaze went once more to the closed door.

Angela was in there, believing this was about putting her nightmares to bed. She had no clue that on his side of the door; the men sworn to protect this realm were hoping she was something more, to justify what their captain had done. What he could not undo.

Because if the dreamscape found nothing, and if Angela Duboise came out of that room unchanged, and still perfectly, stubbornly human—

There would be nothing left to argue about.

Zarek knew what the Accords said about a captain who had been with a mortal. And somewhere behind that closed door, Angela held his fate, decided by the answers she found today that he hoped would be enough to save his life.

THIRTY-NINE

Angela stood at the closed door and waited until she felt the last trace of Zarek’s presence leaving the corridor.

Only then did she let out a slow breath.

He’d broken the Accords. Because of her.

Sadly, she didn’t know enough about their laws to understand what that meant.

But she’d seen Gellar’s face. And from her life as a lawyer, she knew how a man looked when he was counting the high costs of something that couldn’t be undone.

“Welcome, Angela Duboise.” A man with long white hair and flowing beard, dressed in white pajamas, bowed to her. “My name is Dremulus.”

“Hi.” She wasn’t sure about any of this anymore. She’d rather be doing a crash course in Paradox law to help Zarek. But she had agreed to do this. “What do you need from me?”

“Please, enter the Dream Circle’s web, where you’ll lie down and make yourself comfortable.” He waved to the middle of the room, while four witches stood by a small table in the far corner full of herbs and crystals, as incense smoke curled towards the ceiling.

She crossed the large room where one side was a wall of glass windows. Yet, they’d somehow dimmed the sunlight over the pale wooden floorboards, where the flicker of candles was brighter. There was no furniture, just a large open space, while something hummed low along the edges that she couldn’t quite place.

She stopped before a perfect circle of large feathers and white chalk spread out to create a web. It looked so familiar.

Then it hit her. It was the pattern of a massive dreamcatcher. Just like the one Aunt Claudine had hung above Angela’s bed to help contain her nightmares, back when they’d first started.

Angela stared at its pristine shaping, the feathers, the impossibly straight lines and how soft it all seemed. It was a massive dreamcatcher that Dremulus had called a Dream Circle.

Aunt Claudine would love this.