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“I will find out,” Miranda warned them, “and once I discover how a leech is managing to feed off of a Hesperine, I will use it to discover how I can perform essential displacement on your kind.”
An empty threat, Lio hoped. Surely the only reason he and Cassia were able to defy the laws of magic was because they were Graced.
Miranda’s lip curled. “You Hesperines have always violated the rules of the game. You shouldn’t exist. It is one of my most important duties—making you extinct. I’ll enjoy stealing your magic, once I discover how. And I will relish every moment of killing you slowly after I’m done. Just imagine me outliving you, using your mind magic against all the people you left behind.”
That didn’t frighten Lio. But what did was the thought that Miranda might extract the secret of Grace from them. Hesperines had managed to conceal it from their enemies for sixteen hundred years so the Gift Collectors could not use the Craving against Graced pairs. He and Cassia had to find a way out of this without revealing the nature of their bond.
“Your lesson is over,” Miranda announced. “Now it is time for me to get to work.”
She spun toward Lio and plunged her dagger into his chest.
THE GRAND DESIGN
Cassia screamed his name. The torrent of his magic stopped all at once and hurled her back against the table. He slumped, dangling from his shackles.
“You need him alive!” Cassia cried. The Lustra roared with her.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Miranda said. “It takes more than a dagger to kill a Hesperine. Think of that as a stopper in his magic.”
“Lio?” Cassia called. “Lio, can you hear me?”
His eyes came open, and he lifted his head.
“I’m here,” she said. It was all she could do for him. Remind him, as he had done for her, that he did not suffer alone.
“I know,” he said hoarsely.
Why must Lio endure this? Kind Lio, who had never harmed a soul in his life. Why had Hespera paired him to Cassia and let him be dragged into the Collector’s plans for her?
Footfalls told Cassia the Gift Collector was coming to her side again. She kept her eyes on Lio.
Miranda’s voice came from the opposite side of the table. “Let us try the most straightforward solution first. I’ll put some magic back into you, so you will no longer need to leech. Perhaps your aura will release Lio after that.” Miranda chuckled. “I love seeing you try to be brave when I explain what’s about to happen to you. But I can smell your fear, Cassia. What affinity shall we use for this experiment? Why don’t I give you Pakhne’s magic? You’ll hate that.”
“None of this is your fault, Cassia,” Lio said.
His voice was the last thing she heard before Miranda’s fist made impact with her chest. Cassia’s ears roared, and stars exploded on her vision. She tried to suck air into her hollow chest, but a crushing weight seemed to collapse her lungs. Pain tore into her throat.
But worst of all, she felt consciousness slipping away. No, she had to stay awake, despite the pain…had to protect Lio…
She fell into darkness.
When she came to, she heard Lio saying her name. “I’m here. Come back to me, Cassia.”
Cassia coughed. “Are you all right?”
“She hasn’t done anything else to me,” Lio reassured her. “You were only out for a few minutes. The displacement didn’t work.”
Cassia opened her eyes in time to see Miranda yank the dagger out of Lio’s chest. His face twisted with pain, and a spot of blood bloomed on his robes. His magic slammed into Cassia, numbing her pain and filling the hollowness inside her.
So much power. If only they could turn it against Miranda somehow. But Cassia was helpless in its flow, the straps biting into her skin as her body arched.
Lio grunted in pain, and the channeling ceased. The dagger was back in his chest. Miranda unrolled a scroll on her work table, running a finger down the gore-stained page with her lips pursed.
Could she feel the way the Lustra magic snapped its jaws around her? If so, she gave no sign.
Cassia focused on the wild magic that was rooted deep beneath Paradum. The Lustra reached back, and a whine sounded in her arcane senses. It was trying to help her somehow, but it seemed unable to.
It was nothing like the magic in the passageways at Patria. Here at Paradum, the Lustra seemed to be a wounded animal. She felt like a damaged creature herself, crumpled just out of the Lustra’s grasp.
