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She couldn’t understand why her own magic was not coming to her as it should. There was something wrong with her and the letting site.
Was her starvation for magic harming it in return somehow?
Would feeding it Lio’s magic help the Lustra as well?
The idea took hold of Cassia, and she felt sure it was their only chance. They had a powerful ally in this room—the Lustra itself. If they enlisted its aid against Miranda, there was hope they could defeat her.
“Lio,” Cassia said softly.
He lifted his head slowly, his eyelids heavy. And yet she could see his love for her in his eyes. “Yes, my rose?”
Tears pricked her eyes. He had a Gift Collector’s dagger in his chest because of her, and he still called her his rose.
“Do you remember the time you cast a veil spell over the Font of the Changing Queen to hide me from a war mage?”
A smile ghosted across his face. “You didn’t stay put inside it. You sneaked away on your own instead. Self-reliant as always.”
“If the situation had been reversed, would you have trusted my magic to keep you safe?”
She hoped he would recall how she had referred to this event to send him a subtle message before. That night during the Solstice Summit, he had been about to duel a war mage, and he had needed to know she trusted him. Tonight, they were about to duel a Gift Collector, and he had to trust Cassia.
Lio’s gaze sharpened with understanding. “Yes. I trust you unconditionally.”
Her throat tightened. “Even after everything you’ve been through because of me?”
“I would do it all again,” he said, “just for that moment when you first trusted me.”
Miranda snapped her scroll shut. “This is why you make such interesting opponents. Your partnership is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. You are more powerful together—and yet I can use your love against you.”
Not if they used it against Miranda first.
Miranda touched the Eye of Hypnos on her breastplate. “But you see, my partner in this is much more powerful than either of you, and my loyalty to him in the game will withstand the test of time, long after even your eternal love is dust.”
She returned to Cassia’s side. “I met the Master the day the temple mages came to take me away. The ones who found out about my magic because of you. The Master was in the area, you see, keeping an eye on you. My spells impressed him.” She closed her fingers around Cassia’s throat. “No Hesperines rescued me, Cassia. The Master did. And he has made me far more powerful than you ever would have been, even with fangs.”
Cassia looked into Miranda’s eyes. The friend she had scorned. The monster her own choices had created.
“You deserved so much better,” Cassia said.
“I am better than you now, don’t you see? You’re just an empty creature that must be filled with someone else’s magic to survive. A leech, living on borrowed time from one feeding to the next. A slave to your appetites. I bet you fuck him while you feed on him, don’t you? Disgusting. You have no control. Not over yourself or others. Not over your fate. And certainly not over the magic you devour. You are powerless.”
Cassia kept her expression of regret frozen on her face. She mustn’t let on that Miranda had just revealed something important.
She didn’t know Cassia had control over the magic she absorbed. Was it a side effect of Grace? Or because her magic belonged to a channeling paradigm? Whatever the reason, it seemed Cassia was not just a leech like the others.
“Look at you,” Miranda said, “reduced to this. Just think. If you had made different choices, you could have become me.”
The words made Cassia ill, because they were true. “I meant everything I said about how much I regret my past. I am so sorry I hurt you, Miranda.”
“Don’t be.” Miranda’s hand tightened on Cassia’s throat. “Our battles with pain are how we win our true power. You are nothing but another of the wounds I have survived.”
Healing magic jolted into Cassia’s throat. Pakhne’s magic, once again putting Cassia back together so Miranda could try to tear her apart.
“This experiment will be your next battle with pain,” Miranda said. “I’ll try displacing Lio’s magic through you. You’re coming up in the world, leech. Now you’ll become a channel. You are familiar with that, are you not? I believe you saw Skleros displace the Dexion’s magic through a channel—the son of those farmers.”
Cassia suppressed a shiver at the memory of the poor man writhing on the ground. Could Miranda really access Lio’s magic through Cassia? They could not afford to risk it and find out. When Miranda took the dagger out again, Cassia must be ready. She would have only one chance to give his magic to the Lustra instead.
Miranda walked over to Lio once more. Her fingers closed around the dagger.
