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The monk nodded, slowly, his wide eyes jumping around the room. “Let’s get him on a flat surface where each of you can touch him.”
With Lexa’s help, Luc moved Nix to the floor as Ur shoved the sofa out of the way, its feet scraping across the marble.
“We’ll call upon our power, yes?” the monk said, situating himself at Nix’s head, then looking at each of them, as they found a place: Ur to Nix’s left, Luc on his right, Lexa at his feet. “Theoblitoriumis usually only done by a member of our Order, one with the ability to ferret through the power feeding the memory. This is my power, yes? The purpose of the procedure is to sever the power feeding the problem, then to take it so that the godblood can reset. What you’re asking” –he looked at Luc– “is more complicated.”
Luc grimaced. “I know.”
“You will help me choose the memories.”
Luc nodded.
“You” –the monk, taking charge, indicated Ur and Lexa–“will contain his power so we don’t lose it and bolster the god of day and light to assist me. Don’t touch the yoke’s power.”
“Remember, try not to destroy the memories,” Luc said.
The monk looked skeptical, but he nodded once again, then closed his eyes.
Luc did the same, and like the sensation of twirling through time and space through a portal, he felt his consciousness spiral into Nix’s mind, though Luc was still connected to his physical form. His awareness, however, was strange in that he could feel the power of the others—the monk tugging him into Nix, along with the added consciousness of his father and sister. He worked to get his mind where it needed to be with Nix’s.
Suddenly, a hallway stretched out in front of him, no beginning and no end that he could see, lined with door after door, like Elsewhere Doors.
“I put Elsewhere Doors in the spell.”
“Here,” Luc said.
His father and sister’s power drew on Nix’s godlight, and doors faded, but many still glowed with bright, golden light. The yoke.
Luc reached for one and opened it.
Inside, he sat with Nix on the rock awaiting the witch. “I forgave you a long time ago,” Nix said.
“This one?” he heard the monk say as if he were far away.
“No,” Luc answered, closed the door, and walked forward, checking the next and the next. “But the memories are in order.”
He turned in the hallway and ran in the opposite direction from that memory until he thought he’d run far enough to reach the spell, then opened another door. Nix was fucking the milkmaid in a darkened room. Luc slammed the door shut and shuddered. “Almost there.”
Turning back toward the beginning, he walked a few more doors, bypassing the dark ones for those threaded with light. One was Nix walking into the trap Luc had set for him. He watched Nix walk into the spelled shed with the milkmaid, then disappear into the spell.
Luc closed the door. “Not this one,” he said and reached for another door. When it opened to the meadow, Aurielle was pulling a sled, then bent to pick up the key. “This one. Here. This is the first one.” His heart ached as he left the door open for detachment, knowing Nix wouldn’t choose this but aware that Aurielle would.
Luc raced through the hallway, leaving open the pertinent doors for the Oracle’s power and closing the door to any others that seemed peripheral.
With a glance over his shoulder, Luc watched as the door of a memory he’d selected slammed shut. The Oracle’s power attached a lock to the door, then moved onto the next open door, repeating the process.
When their task was done, Luc blinked out of the trance and looked at his father, his sister, the monk, each of them blinking back into their reality. Luc looked down at his brother, who also had begun to stir, and when Nix opened his eyes, Luc smiled back.
The room spun, his vision dimming. And when darkness overcame him, he didn’t fight it, sliding straight into the abyss as it swallowed him whole.
32
Brinna surged up from the deep gray with a gasp.
“Brinna?”
Lucian’s voice drew her, and she turned to find Lucian standing on a rocky shore, water lapping quietly behind him. She didn’t have time to appreciate the beauty, but her heart relaxed, heat blooming around and through her chest as if everything was alright once more, though she knew something must be vitally wrong.
She moved toward him, only to hit a wall. It shimmered as she pushed, stretching like the membrane of an egg. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get to him.
