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Uncle Argyros looked haunted. “He veiled his casting, if you can even call such a foul concealment a veil. Acts of magic that catastrophic. Concealed fromus.He could have—” Uncle Argyros rubbed a hand over his face. “And we never would have known.”
“Our young ones, left to fight alone.” Queen Alea’s voice ached with regret. “We are so sorry.”
“Annassa,” Cassia said, “you need never apologize.”
“We, most of all, must apologize when it is due,” Queen Alea replied.
“This mage of dreams,” said Queen Soteira, “who calls himself the Collector, took advantage of our concentration upon our own casting at the ward and used his multiple affinities to conceal his attack at Rose House. We did not sense the disturbance until we felt his evil flee through a tear in the world. When Lio helped Eudias free himself, all the Collector’s spells failed. We sensed everything, but the danger had also passed.”
“We barely arrived in time.” Apollon sounded murderous. “Skleros should be with his god, not on the loose.”
Komnena gripped his hand.
“We had far too little time to assess the nature of that portal,” Uncle Arygros lamented. “It is unlike any magic we have ever seen. It appeared to operate on the same principles as a spirit gate, but—”
Queen Soteira shook her head. “It was a stationary portal between two fixed locations, but that is the only resemblance it bears to an Imperial spirit gate. The underlying principles were entirely different and far more destructive. It felt as if he had ripped a piece of our land from its natural place and banished it elsewhere. As if he had performed essential displacement on the world itself.”
“A displacement gate?” Uncle Argyros suggested.
Apollon crossed his arms. “There’s no telling where the other end was. He could have brought an army into Orthros if he had wanted to.”
“It’s astonishing he didn’t try,” Aunt Lyta said.
“But he didn’t want to bring anyone in,” Cassia murmured. “He wanted Skleros to get away. With me.”
“Yes.” Lio’s voice was strained. “He said as much to me. You were his target.”
“Iama mage.” Cassia’s words failed her. But she had learned she must not let the most horrific moments of her life fester in memory. She must not allow her enemies to lurk where she did not want to look. She made herself speak, because she knew it robbed power from him. “The Collector told me I’m not a Sanctuary mage, as if he were an authority. I think he knows what kind of magic I have, and he wants it.”
Lio’s jaw clenched. “That would explain everything.”
“It sounded like he was planning to take me somewhere where he could perform an essential displacement on me. Is that possible? Can he steal someone’s magic against their Will and take it for himself?”
Lio nodded. “After the Collector is finished with someone, he takes their magic. He tried to take Eudias’s power with him when he left, as he did Dalos’s.”
“The Collector is out there somewhere, projecting his mind through his victims and stealing their magic?”
“That’s why he has so many affinities. It seems his supply of magic is virtually endless, limited only by the endurance of the mage through whom he wields his power. He would have pushed more types of magic through Eudias until it killed him. That’s what he did to Dalos in the effort to defeat us at the Equinox Summit.”
Was that what he might have done to Cassia?
“Skleros never could have escaped with you through our ward.” Queen Alea’s voice, her very presence, were deeply reassuring. “That’s why the Collector had to resort to a dramatic, unstable portal spell.”
“I know you must wonder how he ever got into Orthros,” said Queen Soteira, “how such an entity could ever cross our ward.”
“It will never happen again,” Queen Alea said simply.
“He played a game with me.” Cassia had never heard Queen Soteira sound so dangerous. “He knew what it would require to avoid my detection. Every time I focused on Eudias, the Collector must have receded from the young man’s mind and deeper into Skleros’s. When I scrutinized Skleros, the Collector was free to increase his influence upon Eudias. He used the young mage’s good heart and the necromancer’s heartlessness as disguises. When Eudias passed through the ward, all I sensed were his good intentions. Knowing what Skleros is, when I felt the death in him, I had no cause to be surprised.”
“You mean the Collector possessed Eudias and Skleros?” Cassia asked.
“Not in the same way. There seems to be a distinction between those he abusively controls and those he relies on as his ‘Overseers.’”
“He called Skleros one ofhisGift Collectors. Does that mean all of them are Overseers? Did he found them? Why does he want to harm Hesperines?”
“If only we knew. What we have seen of the Unseen Hand is…” Uncle Argyros held up his little finger, measuring its tip with his thumb.
“I’ve told you everything I learned during my encounter with him,” Lio said. “Perhaps Cassia has something to add that will help us understand him better.”
