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I hesitated and stared up at the huge blue flag with its famous five eight-point stars that formed a cross in the middle of it. Though it was now a symbol of democracy and protest, it had originally been designed as a flag of war, and it was that symbol that spoke to me now. In very many ways I was in the middle of a war myself and, like the men who had fought under her on this very hill, my war was one I suspected could not be won. Not by me, anyway.
I pushed the rather gloomy thought away and swung around to look at Ballarat. “I don’t know. Maybe we should wander down to the Visitors Center, on the off chance there’s something the search missed.”
“You wish to walk?”
I hesitated, then nodded and headed down the hill. He fell in step beside me, his arm brushing against mine and sending little slithers of desire skittering through me. It was, I thought with amusement, an almost normal moment in a life that had become insane.
With a little help from Google Maps, we found the Visitors Center and headed inside. It was, as was usual with these sorts of places, filled to the brim with information and souvenirs as well as local food and clothing. The thick jackets, I noted with amusement, seemed to be particularly popular today.
I walked across to the wall of information about local events, and almost immediately a brochure caught my eye. I picked it up and showed Azriel. “Well, looky here—an Arms and Militaria Exhibition.”
“That is the one place we are certain to find military daggers. Whether it is the right place is another question.”
“And one we won’t answer until we go see it.” I flicked the brochure around. “It doesn’t open until tomorrow and runs until Sunday. At least that gives us plenty of time to check it out.”
He nodded. “And plenty of time for your father to come up with a way of keeping the sorcerer and the Raziq out.”
“Yeah.” I tucked the brochure into my pocket and glanced at the time. “I guess we can head to Hallowed Ground. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll start her set early.”
“Luck has not been particularly favorable to us as yet,” Azriel commented, as he caught my hand and drew me closer. There was something in the way he looked at me that had my pulse racing. “And I can think of other, more pleasurable ways to fill in our time.”
A smile teased my lips. “Can you, now? And what about the snit you were in not so long ago?”
“Would you rather talk yet again about the reasons for the snit?” he said, voice soft as he slid an arm around my waist. “Or perhaps explore the possibilities of a rather quaint human expression that goes something along the lines of makeup sex being the best kind?”>“Tell her she’s a spoilsport.”
“Oh, I have, trust me.”
Grinning, I walked across to the dining table to transfer the search results from the computer to my phone, then walked into my bedroom to grab a coat and my purse.
Once I’d finished my sandwich, I stood in the middle of my room and said, “So, are you going to make an appearance, or is this snit going to continue?”
“As Ilianna has already noted,” he said, voice even, “I am never very far away.”
I swung around. He stood several feet away from me, his arms crossed and his expression back to its usual noncommittal self. “Then why couldn’t I sense you?”
“Because I didn’t allow it.”
I frowned. “If you’ve always had the ability to stop me from sensing you, why haven’t you?”
“Because I haven’t always been able to.”
I blinked. Definitely not the answer I’d been expecting. “Then why have you suddenly gained the ability?”
“For the same reason you are catching more of my thoughts and emotions than I might otherwise wish. The closer our link becomes, the more it opens some . . . abilities and closes down others.”
“Meaning it’s a two-way street?”
“Possibly.”
Meaning yes. I briefly wondered just what it meant for me other than more insight into his thoughts and feelings, but I knew him well enough by now to know he was never going to tell me that sort of information. “And you can’t stop it from happening?”
“No.” He regarded me steadily for a moment. “We are going in search of the next key?”
“Yes. As scary as Hunter is, she has nothing on the Raziq. If I don’t start actively trying to find the keys, they just might stop threatening and start doing.”
And Tao and Ilianna would be their first targets; of that I had no doubt.
A chill ran through me, although I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was the thought of my friends coming under attack from the Raziq, or a premonition of trouble of another kind headed their way. Fast.
