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“When everything is ready,” Ilianna said, making me jump a little. “I’ll say, How do you enter the circle, Risa Jones? Your response should be, In complete trust of the powers that reside and protect within.”
When I nodded, she returned to her bag of tricks and withdrew her athame, four candles, and a box of matches. She placed these on the ground, then marked a large circle in the dirt around them. Next she picked up the candles and placed them at four points—the green one to the north, yellow to the east, red in the south, and blue in the west. I knew from past experiences that these points represented the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water.
With that done, she raised her arms and made a sweeping motion. “Let this space be cleared of all negativity and inappropriate energies, and may any lost souls inhabiting it be returned where they need to be.”
Air stirred and became imbued with warmth. I clenched my fingers but otherwise remained still.
Ilianna bent to light the first candle. “Guardians of the east, I call upon you to watch over this circle and guard the two allowed to enter. Powers of knowledge and wisdom, guided by air, keep watch over us and let no others enter by body or deed.”
Then she moved to the red candle and lit it. “Guardians of the south, I call upon you to watch over this circle and guard the two allowed to enter. Powers of energy and will, guided by fire, keep watch over us and let no force or ill intent enter.”
She moved on. The blue candle was next, then finally, the green. “Guardians of the north, I call upon you to watch over this circle and guard the actions of the two allowed to enter. Powers of endurance and strength, guided by earth, we ask that you protect us against deeds of strength and might.”
When the last of the ritual words had been spoken, she picked up her athame and said, “The circle has been cast. How do you enter the circle, Risa Jones?”
I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “In complete trust in the powers that reside and protect within.”
She slashed her athame across a small section of the circle, first to the right, then to the left. “Enter.”
I did. She caught my fingers in hers as I stopped beside her and squeezed lightly. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Then she stepped out of the circle and made that slashing motion with her athame again, effectively closing the circle.
I blew out a breath, then sat down, legs crossed. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. As I slowly released it, I released awareness of everything and everyone else around me, concentrating on nothing more than the slowing beat of my heart. The world around me began to fade as the gray fields gathered close. Warmth throbbed at my neck—Ilianna’s magic at work, protecting me as my psyche, my soul, or whatever else people liked to call it, pulled away from the constraints of my flesh and stepped gently into the gray fields that were neither life nor death.
But on the gray fields, the invisible became visible. The real world might fade to be little more than shadows, but those things not sighted on the living plane gained substance when viewed from here.
The Dušan was one of those things. She exploded from my arm, her energy flowing through me, around me, as her lilac form gained flesh and shape, until she looked so solid and real that I wanted to reach out and touch her. She swirled around me, the wind of her body buffeting mine as her sharp ebony gaze scanned the fields around us, looking for trouble. I wondered if she was actually sensing it, or if she merely reacted to the knot of fear growing in the pit of my stomach.
I saw Azriel before I felt him—he was a blaze of sunlight in this ghostly otherworld, a force whose very presence seemed to throb through my body. As if he, like the Dušan and Amaya, were a part of me. And I guess in many respects he was, given he was attuned to my Chi.
He stopped in front of me, his energy so fierce and bright that I winced. He gave me the book and, like everything else in this place, it appeared ghostly. Yet it felt heavier here than it had on earth.
The second I touched it an odd twist of power seemed to shudder across the fields, then sparks exploded from the book. But these were no ordinary sparks flying high then dying. These sparks converged into several separate masses, each one dancing around the other, growing bigger with each movement, gaining flesh in much the same manner as the Dušan had.
Only these things weren’t dragons—winged or otherwise—but rather snakes. Fat, ugly snakes with bodies as thick as my torso and fangs longer than my arm.
The Raziq had spelled the book all right—just not in the way we’d expected.
“Go,” Azriel commanded, drawing his sword. Valdis burned with blue fire, her scream echoing across the silence of the fields. It was a scream that found an echo as his Dušan exploded from his back—a winged black dragon who spat blue fire. “Read the book and find the keys’ location.”
“But I can’t leave you—?
?
“Go!” he shouted, then raised his sword as the first of the serpents coiled in.
I swore softly but clasped the book tightly to my chest and closed my eyes. Valdis’s scream echoed through my body as my soul stepped briefly back into my flesh. I placed the book on the ground and opened it. I was vaguely aware of heat and noise and shouting, and wasn’t sure if it was coming from this place or the gray fields. Then I thrust it all aside as the pages began to flip on their own accord. The movement stopped several pages past the one that had held my Dušan, but there was no writing on it. No pictures.
Because the words can only be read while I’m on the grey fields. Fuck.
I closed my eyes and pulled free of my body once more. The moment I stepped onto the gray fields, my Dušan appeared again, but this time she screamed, her fire burning all around me as something fat and sleek lunged in my direction. The fire hit it head-on, exploding in a rush of air that rocked me sideways but seemed to do little more than push the serpent aside.
I shivered, knowing I was in trouble, my fingers itching to reach for Amaya. Her song was a hiss of anger that burned through me. She wanted out. She wanted to taste serpentine flesh and blood.
I licked my lips, ignoring her, ignoring the shadowy, sinewy shapes that twisted and turned just beyond reach. I had a book to read. The sooner I did that, the better.
