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She tamped down a rising wave of terror at the thought of being trapped here. This wasn’t her worst nightmare coming true because she refused to let it happen.

Fuck it. You’re stronger than any spell.

Lunara called on the moonlight again and stuck her hands into the small opening, gritting her teeth as the razor sharp edges sliced into her fingertips. Prismatic light gathered and she poured it into the pane, the entire room vibrating. Illamiata flared and⁠—

Araxis’s power preceded him, dark and looming, as well as that of about half a dozen others who entered the room through the door behind her.

Slack-jawed, arsehole sniffing…arseholes!

Lunara spun, her fangs bared. “Let me go to him. Now.”

The Elders with Araxis recoiled, their eyes wide before they diverted them to the floor. They were dressed in the customary ceremonial robes of their station, except…

Ah, shite.

Every last one of them was adorned with ornate gold and silver chains. Moonstone and labradorite beads refracted with rainbow iridescence as they dangled. Cut onyx and crystal sparkled in tracery settings. They wore circlets of the same on their heads, their hoods doing nothing to hide the shine of their hair, the immaculate styling.

She’d never seen this dress in person before. Only renderings in the public areas of the Upper Block, when images of each Council member were displayed alongside the Imperial portraits, the swirling, golden particles warping over and over to remind everyone of the power they held and loved so well.

It took her an entire day to drag herself across the room, just to find herself stuck all over again.

The Occurrence was now.

It’s fine. You’re fine. He’s here, you’re you, and everything will be fine.

“Araxis, you bring her to me right now! LUNA!” Brand’s gravelly bellows echoed through the hole in the window, her blood dripping down its surface in mockery.

As if she never spoke, as if he hadn’t just heard Brand shouting for him, Araxis offered her a bow. “Blessed Keeper, we come to escort you to your ceremonial ablutions, that you might be cleansed before honoring Nachthelliae with your power.”

Is he actually fucking serious?

Lunara never had a problem with seeing the Evesong’s Occurrence through. She knew it was happening, and had spent time trying to mentally prepare. She just also planned on it being more like claiming the Tear Stone—in and out, quick as she could, before anyone got their hands on her.

Now, as far as she was concerned, she would do the damned thing after she saw Brand.

“Have you lost the use of your ears? Take me to him.”

Araxis’s gaze darted so quickly to the empty goblet that she almost missed it. “Forgive me, Blessed Keeper, but I cannot. The moons draw closer together even as we speak, and there is yet much to do in preparation.”

Does he even hear himself? What a twit.

Still, that look was a clear enough message—his hands were tied, and he was just as shite out of luck as she was because of the spells on this place.

So much for the two of them being the most powerful Sorcerit in all of Bordoroth.

The Elders formed two lines of three on either side of Lunara and escorted her though the vast corridors of the Halls. Every step was perfectly synchronized, the pat, pat, pat of their bare feet amplified by the soaring ceilings until it sounded like there were ten times that many, as if to remind her how small she really was.

Araxis led their march, his pounding boots adding an appropriate dissonance.

She’d forgotten how cave-like the atriums of Elder Halls really were. It reminded her of the caverns in Thodelebor, the way the stone dripped and tapered. Here, though, the reverse spires jutted down with a celestial majesty, deliberate, like the point of a star’s light had been captured in iridescent stone and set to the ceiling.

Or, in her current mood, as if someone ninety stories tall had shoved their collection of needlepoint daggers through the rafters, in the hopes one of them might pierce the enemy they were after.

Lovely.

Araxis ushered their group on to a glowing platform, the slab soaring upwards past arch and cove—her father’s invention, care of his talent, and a deeper knife to the heart than anything else. Lunara swallowed, her lids sliding closed at the rush of air, the fingers of it running through her curls as if Stellan the Gemwright himself was right there beside her and saying hello.

They slowed to a stop. Off the platform and around another corner, and she was led to a door the Demons would be proud of.