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I knew I was testing his patience when he said my full name.
“What do you mean when you say this is a dream?”
The best I could offer weas a tight smile. Meanwhile, I lowered Tal to the floor and set him on his feet. He staggered a bit before catching himself on a cane-shaped root that I raised for him. He also lifted a questioning look in my direction.
Eyes narrowed, Tal asked, “Why can’t I use my arcana here? Something is wrong.”
I raised both hands. “Everything is fine. Nothing happened to your arcana. This is a dream. My dream, to be specific.”
“Cerri,” Rhoan growled low. His voice held a note of warning that wobbled with concern.
He and I locked eyes. I’d been bleeding out on the floor from wounds that wouldn’t heal. While we lingered in the dream, there was a chance that my body had already perished. I’d done everything in my power to heal myself.
I turned to the hill of flowers and moss on the floor where I’d been in the waking world. Beside it, one of Rhoan’s Sluagh beasts kept guard. The mound was supposed to act as a cocoon. I’d filled it with arcana in the hopes that something would happen—thatsomethingbeing healing, but I really had no idea what I was doing at the time.
“We need to get back.” Rhoan stepped forward urgently.
He caught my arms and held me in place as he looked down at me with pleading eyes. Behind me, Tal grunted in agreement.
I reached up and touched Rhoan’s cheek. “What if we get back and you’re a spider? What then?”
Tal chuckled behind me. I spun on him and raised the dagger that his ex-boyfriend had used to stab my lover. My heart slapped the inside of my sternum as rage filled my stomach.
This was insanity. We were thrust from one emergency into the next. There was no time to laugh when we had mess after mess to clean up without time in between to even catch our breaths.
A scream reached my throat, but I swallowed the lump back down.
“Then we find a way to turn him back,” Tal said. He lifted his solemn gaze from the blade and met my eyes. “You have done wilder things than that. If anyone can unravel divine magic, it is you…and your friends. Do not forget about them and the assistance they could offer.”
I scowled. Fear still sat on my chest. My heart fought against its heavy weight, but there seemed to be no escaping it. I didn’t want to leave this dream just yet. So many things could have gone wrong back in the waking world, and I was too afraid to find out.
Tal had a point, though. I wasn’t alone.
“Can we stay a little closer to one another from now on?” Tal asked.
Rhoan chuckled. “I plan to stay very close to my queen from here on out. I want to have all eight legs on her at all times.”
I spun and gaped at him. “Now is not the time to be joking about something like that!”
But he did make me laugh. Was it exhaustion? Exasperation? I had no idea how to discern the difference right about now.
“You disgust me,” Tal droned.
Rhoan sidled up to me and took me by the hips. A wide smile crossed his face and lit up his eyes in a way that had me transfixed. I knew he was forcing it to lighten the mood, but I appreciated it, nonetheless. He made everything bearable. I could no longer feel the building scream in the pit of my stomach. The weight on my chest lightened.
I sucked in a deep breath. Half-turning, I gestured up to the man still caught in the tree. “What are we going to do with him when we get back?”
Tal scowled up at his ex-boyfriend. “Let me deal with him.”
I asked him to consult us on whatever he decided. From now on, we function as a group. That way, nothing could break us apart like this again. So long as we moved in unison, Beryl wouldn’t be able to break us again.
Tal put a hand on Rhoan’s shoulder. “It’s nice to see you out of Faust’s domain again. I would say it’s nice that you’re not stuck on all fours anymore, but there’s a chance it could be all…eights now.”
Rhoan’s smile tightened. He laughed, but it was a warning. Tal ignored the caution sign and barged ahead.
“We can let you have a whole wing of the castle to yourself that you can cover with spiderwebs to your heart’s content. Open it during Halloween as a haunted house. Though, we will have to teach you to write with your little spider fingers so we can still consult you for battle tactics.”
Rhoan hooked his arm around Tal’s neck and bent the man so he could rub his knuckles into Tal’s crown. Tal kicked and struggled to break free, but Rhoan was clearly the stronger man in the situation. Tal was a gifted arcana user, but not the biggest boy in the room.
