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“No. I live.” Her voice is a strangled whisper. “When you bound the magic to yourself, you trapped me here. I shall die when the magic is returned.”
“And I’m g-glad of it,” I stammer, walking quickly toward the wall of water that separates this terrible room from the Caves of Sighs.
Circe’s eerie voice echoes in the cave like the imagined murmurs of demons. “The Order is plotting against you. They plan to take back the realms without you.”
“You’re lying,” I say, shivering.
“You forget, Gemma—I was one of them for a time. They’ll do anything to have the power again. You can’t trust them.”
“You’re the one I can’t trust!”
“I did not kill Nell Hawkins,” she says, naming the girl whose blood is on my hands.
“You gave me no choice!” But it’s too late. She has found my wound and gouged it further.
“There is always a choice, Gemma. While there is time, I can teach you to harness your power, to make it obey you. Do you want it to lead you, or will you be its master?”
I approach the well cautiously. “My mother might have taught me in time. But she never got the chance. You killed her first.”
“She killed herself.”
“To keep her soul safe from you and that horrid Winterlands creature—that tracker! She did not wish to be corrupted! I’d have done the same.”
“I wouldn’t have. For a daughter such as you, I’d have fought with my very last breath. But Mary was never much of a fighter, not like you.”
“You’ve no leave to speak of my mother,” I snap.
I steal a quick glance, and for a second, I see in her face something of who she once was, a glimpse of my former teacher, Miss Moore. But then she speaks, and that chill runs up my spine.
“Gemma, you needn’t worry about me. I would never harm you. But I might still help you. And all I ask in return is to have a taste of magic again—just once more before I die.”
For a moment, her words sow doubt under my skin. But she is not to be trusted. It’s only a ploy to get the power. She hasn’t changed. “I’m leaving.”
“There is a plan in motion. You cannot imagine what dangers you face. You cannot trust the Order. Only I can help you.”
I was wrong to come. “You’ll get nothing from me. You can rot in there for all I care.”
She slips below the shadowy surface of the water, and the last thing I see before she disappears is one pale hand that seems as if it’s reaching toward me.
“You’ll come back to me,” she whispers in a voice as cold as the icy water itself. “When there is no one else to trust, you will have to.”
“Did you find what you sought, Lady Hope?” Asha asks as I return to the Cave of Sighs.
“Yes,” I answer bitterly. “I know all I need to know.”
Asha leads me down a corridor of faded frescoes and into a cave I remember. Carvings of lush-hipped women and sensual men adorn its walls. They draw me even though I blush at their nakedness. I spy something I’ve not noticed before. It is an engraving of two hands clasped in the center of a perfect circle. It is familiar to me though I cannot say why, like something glimpsed in a dream. The stones seem to speak to me: This is a place of dreams for those who are willing to see. Place your hands inside the circle and dream.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
Asha smiles. “This is a special place. It was where the Order and the Rakshana would come as lovers.”
The word brings another fiery blush that will not cool.
“They would place their hands together inside the circle so that they could walk in each other’s dreams. It forged a bond that could not be broken. The circle represents love in eternity. For there is no beginning and no end. You see?”
“Yes,” I say, letting my fingers trace the circle.
“They would come to test their devotion. If they could not walk in each other’s dreams, they were not destined to be lovers.”
