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He bent low, but still knocked his head on the mantle of the fireplace on their way out. Knight circled them, scattering soot and licking Lio’s hand.
Cassia reached up to rub the spot on Lio’s head. “My poor, overtall bloodborn.”
He wiped the soot off the tip of her nose. “I will gladly bang my skull on any number of fireplaces to explore secret Lustra passages with you.”
“Now it will be so much easier to sneak about without endangering your innocent reputation,” she teased. “Let us see if we can find you a more accommodating entrance.”
After some exploration, they discovered that the wall behind a tapestry in the bedchamber also worked as a portal. They plunged into the passageways again, this time taking Knight with them. Cassia’s steps were sure, her small, silk-slippered feet rustling in the ivy with purpose. She paused occasionally at forks in the passage, her aura reaching, before she guided them onward.
“I am in awe of your sense of direction,” Lio said.
“It’s much easier to navigate here than at Solorum. I’m not sure if that’s because there’s more Lustra magic at Patria, or because my own power is awakening.”
“How fortunate I am to have such an expert guide. The magic in this place makes me feel like a foreign guest, lost in the domain of a very powerful matriarch who isn’t quite sure she likes me yet.”
“Well, that makes me her heir, and you my consort, so she had best accept that you’re here to stay.”
Eventually Cassia halted them before a crumbling archway that was filled in with stonework. She squeezed Lio’s hand. “This will take us to the shrine room, where Eudias agreed to meet us.”
The outside world demanded their return. Lio found himself frozen on that threshold. Not only because he dreaded telling the mortals what had befallen Pakhne and feeling their pain in the Blood Union.
Until he told them, they still lived in a world where she was safe and whole. He wanted to let them keep her just a moment longer.
But he couldn’t wait forever. It was now his duty to tell them the Collector had shattered a piece of their world beyond repair.
Hand in hand with Cassia, he left her domain. They came out in a spacious chamber with shrines to each deity around the edges of the room. Every delegation of mages was represented, including Anthros, Kyria, Hypnos, and Chera. Even the other Twice-Seven Scions like Angara and Andragathos had shrines of their own, despite being lesser gods.
But not Hespera, of course. Beside the shrine of Hypnos, where a shroud hung to represent the god of death, her rightful place was empty. Tenebrans and Cordians always left it so to symbolize their rejection of her.
Eudias stood there with Ariadne. With so many spells in the room, it took Lio a moment to realize what the two young mages were looking at with such apprehension. Knight’s growl warned him.
There was a stain of necromancy upon Hespera’s empty place. On the floor rested a leather gauntlet with a symbol painted in blood on the palm: an Eye of Hypnos. A Gift Collector’s glove, holding a dead rose.
Eudias lifted wide eyes to Lio’s. “Can you sense him?”
Lio fought the urge to pull his Grace into his arms. “Cassia, get back inside the tunnels.”
“I’ll go get Mak and Lyros.” She darted back through the wall, one hand on Knight.
Lio’s magic honed, ready to destroy the glove with a spell and engulf the entire fortress in a blast of thelemancy that would banish the Collector.
He held his power back and counted to three. Gathered a veil around his magic. Four, five, six. Then cast his concealed seeking spell through Castra Patria.
Lio shook his head. “He isn’t here.”
Eudias swallowed. “But he was.”
“We met him last night,” Lio admitted.
Eudias drew himself up, as if coming to a decision, and shared a look with Ariadne. “I believe it’s time none of us kept any more secrets.”
She nodded firmly and took his hand, despite Lio looking on. “I know about the Collector. Eudias told me what happened to him—and that you saved him. You will always have my gratitude.”
Lio bowed his head. “As you have ours, for being such an ally to all of us.”
This was one of the Kyrian mages who had given Lio’s family his little sister. How was he to tell Ariadne he had failed to protect her temple sister Pakhne?
Lio sent up a prayer to Hespera, hoping Kyria would also hear, and found the words.
