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Chapter Twenty-Five
Erik
I’ve failed Astrid.
Watching the look of horror on her face is a thousand spears to my soul. Lilli is just an innocent little girl. This shouldn’t be happening.
The phone is still to my ear, Luciana’s panicked, tear-streaked voice coming over the line. “Darkness and Light attacked us together… we couldn’t hold them off. God, I’m so sorry…”
“Where did they take her, Luciana?” I ask.
“I—I don’t know—” she gasps through her tears.
I hang up the phone. I feel bad for doing that to Luciana, but if they don’t know where Lilli’s been taken, I can’t waste any more time talking to her.
My eyes find Astrid’s again. She’s gone so still, it’s clear that she’s in shock. Her face is as emotionless as marble, pale and hard.
“I thought it was me they wanted,” she whispers finally, and a tremor moves over her body.
“We’re going to find her, Astrid,” I say. My voice comes out like steel and lightning. “And when we do, we’re going to make them pay.”
She nods, and a bit of life comes back to her eyes. She bends over and starts to pick up her clothes off the courtyard floor, along with the dagger, which she stuffs back into her jeans. I yank on my own, and when I grab her jacket and hand it to her, she flinches away and won’t look me in the eye.
Ice runs through my veins. This is exactly what I feared would happen if I let my feelings get in the way. Scratch that—it’s a million times worse, because I never imagined they were after her little girl. I’ve ruined everything. Astrid is never going to forgive me.
If I have to burn down the entire world to make things right again, I will.
I let my centuries of training and experience take command. I’ve dealt with abductions many times before. “We can’t do a locator spell on Lilli since we blocked the two of you,” I say. “But we can track Darkness and Light. Figure out where they are so we can come up with a plan to get there.”
Astrid blinks. “We don’t have a map for a tracking spell. But I can do better than that. I can do a scrying spell, so I can see their surroundings and everything. But I would need a picture of them at a minimum, and it won’t be as strong since I’ve never met them in person.”
“But I have,” I say. “And I can show you through our link.”
I stretch out my hands to her, and after a moment’s hesitation she takes them. Her eyes close and I feel the joining spell flare between us. I picture the place I’d seen Darkness and Light, in a place called the Valley of Souls in the Scottish Highlands, where I’d first met Luciana, her sister Tamsin, and a host of other supernaturals. We’d battled Darkness and her brother, and in the end we’d defeated them. Temporarily, at least.
My mind flashes through images of Darkness—tall, thin, dressed all in black, eyes of molten copper. And Light, who looks angelic other than the lack of wings. White hair, white robe, a glowing aura. I open my mind to Astrid so she can picture them just as clearly as I did that day. Magic zips between us, and Astrid twitches as her scrying spell begins to work.
I know the moment the spell succeeds, because images begin to fill my mind. The leaders of the Night Guild, standing somewhere bright, with stark white walls and a metal table. A hospital or a lab, maybe? Lilli stands between them, her bear hanging from one hand, tears trickling down her cheeks. Several people in lab coats move toward her, and she shrinks back. Darkness turns and walks out of the room, her expression impassive. Light follows her.
Two of the people in lab coats lift Lilli and set her on the metal table. What the hell?
I try to look for additional details that will tell us where they are so we can transport there, by dragon flight most likely. A sign or a badge on the lab coats, something. Anything. Otherwise, we’ll need to go back to town and find a map so we can pinpoint the exact location, and that’s going to take extra time. Time we don’t have.
On the table, the people in coats start strapping Lilli down, and a third person behind them draws up a vivid green liquid in several syringes. The needles glint in the bright fluorescent lighting. Lilli starts to cry even more.
A surge of magic shoots from Astrid’s hands to mine, jerking me back into my own surroundings. My eyes fly open, back to the courtyard on the mountaintop. Everything begins to fade around us, going blurry. Astrid’s eyes burn golden in the dim light.
She’s going to try a transport spell, which is incredibly risky if it’s somewhere you haven’t been before. Not to mention we have no plan, and we’ll just be dropping into the lap of Darkness and Light…
I squeeze Astrid’s hands even more tightly so I won’t get left behind. There’s a flash as her magic pulses off her, and we vanish from the fortress.
