I looked around as the spots receded and the ringing faded from my ears. Karyos was still there, rising a little shakily from beside the tree. Luna was struggling to her feet. The silver mist of her curse was barely visible; it was returning, seeping back along her limbs, but it seemed to be recovering, as if it had been depleted.
There was no sign of Anne. And there was no sign of Variam.
“Vari,” Luna called, looking around. “Vari!” She turned to me. “Where is he?”
I closed my eyes, reaching out through the dreamstone. Vari.
A moment, then I made contact. Variam’s thoughts were frantic, intense; he was fighting. I’m here! Anne gated us out and she’s pissed.
Where are you?
No time. Get Landis. Tell him—
Shock and pain flared in Variam’s mind, making me stagger. An instant later the link snapped.
Vari! I cast about for Variam’s mind, trying to establish the connection. Vari!
Nothing.
I opened my eyes and looked at Luna, troubled. “What’s happening?” Luna demanded. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly.
Karyos crossed the open grass to join us. The three of us stood alone.
chapter 14
You have to find him,” Luna told me for the third or fourth time.
“I’m trying.”
I was sitting with my back against a tree. Karyos was kneeling next to Luna, frowning slightly as she bound herbs to the wound in Luna’s arm. It seemed to hurt, judging by the way Luna was flinching, but her attention was on me. “Can you figure out where he is?”
Across the clearing, animals were working to clean up the damage from the battle. Birds plucked up burned leaves; squirrels and mice nibbled off splintered twigs and carried them away. Not all were working; some were searching. A squirrel came bounding out of the woods to hop up to Karyos. Karyos met its eyes for a second, then the squirrel bounded away. Karyos glanced at me and shook her head.
“Alex,” Luna pressed.
I sighed and broke off the path-walk. What I was trying to do wasn’t easy, and Luna was making it harder. “I can’t reach Vari through the dreamstone in the present or in any future I can see.”
“Then what about—” Karyos pulled the bandage tight and Luna winced. “Elsewhere,” she said once she’d recovered.
“If I enter Elsewhere,” I said, “I’ll be able to touch Variam’s dreams.”
Luna brightened. “Then he’s—”
“I’m also going to be intercepted,” I said. “A jinn, or more than one. They’re powerful in that realm. Much more than me.”
“But he’s alive?”
“He’s alive. But adding that up, he’s either Anne’s prisoner or under her control.”
“There,” Karyos said, rising to her feet and taking a few steps back from Luna. “Your wounds are not severe.”
“Thanks,” Luna said. As she relaxed, the silver mist of her curse spread down over her arm; she’d been holding it under tight control. A faint tinge had still reached Karyos, but at Luna’s gesture, it flowed from the hamadryad down into the ground.
“Nothing?” I asked Karyos.
Karyos shook her head again. “I do not believe it is here.”
“What isn’t?” Luna asked, flexing her arm.
“When we were facing the jann in this clearing, one of them was holding the monkey’s paw,” I said. “When we fought them outside my cottage, I didn’t see it. Karyos’s animals have been searching the Hollow.”
“And finding nothing,” Karyos said. “I believe she took it away.”
Hermes came trotting out of the trees. He sniffed the air, then walked a few steps towards me before stopping, his eyes narrowed.
“Hermes?” Luna asked. “What’s wrong?” She followed Hermes’s eyes.
“I think I can guess,” I said, getting to my feet. The spear was lying on the grass by my side. I reached down and picked it up.
Immediately I felt the spear’s presence in my mind, alive and hungry. Killing all those jann hadn’t sated it at all. It wanted to drink Hermes’s blood, but nowhere near as much as it wanted to kill Karyos. I could see her flesh opening up beneath the blade, red blood bright on the—
With a shudder I let go of the spear and the image winked out. The spear bounced on the grass and lay still. “I think I’m figuring out why Levistus left this thing hanging on his wall.”
“I do not like that weapon,” Karyos said.
“When you picked it up,” Luna said slowly, “I thought I felt . . .” She drew back slightly. “Does it want to kill everyone?”
I shook my head. “Not you or me. But Hermes, and Karyos, and all of those jann—that’s another story. I think it’s an imbued item meant to kill magical creatures. Or maybe anything nonhuman.”
“Remove it from this shadow realm,” Karyos said clearly.
I nodded.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Luna said. “What do we do about Vari?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then find him!” Luna said. “The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be.”
There was a frantic note to Luna’s voice, and I looked at her sideways. I knew Luna cared about Variam, but this . . .
Luna read my expression. “You don’t get it,” she said. “Anne wasn’t going for Vari.”
“At the beginning—”
“Not at the beginning. At the end. That gate spell was meant for me. I was out of it, but my curse wasn’t. It couldn’t stop Anne’s spell, but it could redirect it. The curse made her take Vari instead of me.” Luna stepped closer, eyes alight with urgency. “We have to save him. Please.”
I looked back at Luna and hesitated. But before I could form an answer, something flickered on my precognition. I looked up, my eyes narrowing.
“Alex,” Luna said.
“We’ve got trouble,” I said.
A chime sounded, echoing through the Hollow. The note was harsh, warning. It sounded twice more before falling silent.
Luna frowned, looking around. “Wait, is that . . . ?”
“Breach alarm,” I said. Since we’d set up the wards, we’d never had an enemy successfully force entrance to the Hollow. Now we were getting two in one day.
“Breach alarm?” Karyos asked.
“We set it up when we moved in,” I said. “Gives us warning when someone tries to force their way through the gate wards.”
“Can they do it?” Luna asked.
I’d already seen the answer to that. “Yes.”
It was the worst possible time for us to be facing an attack. Variam was gone, Anne had switched teams, and both Karyos and Luna were hurt. And I was already tired.
But who would be attacking? Anne wouldn’t trip the alarm. The Council would, but I couldn’t for the life of me think why they’d choose now of all times. Morden was gone, Rachel was gone, Onyx was gone. The only one that really left was—
Reason and divination gave me the answer at the same time. “Oh, shit,” I said, my heart sinking.
“What?” Luna said. “What’s wrong?”
“Both of you, take Hermes and get out,” I said. “Right now.”
“And leave my tree?” Karyos asked. “Humans may flee their homes. I cannot.”
I looked at Luna.
“No,” Luna said. “We need to go after Vari. We are not splitting up.”