“Killian!”
“You need to wash your feet,” he says, like this was the only option.
I have no words – just growls as I stomp out of the chuckin’ freezing water.
I’m not going to pretend this isn’t a risk as we break fresh ward potions on the front door of the cottage and discuss the sleeping arrangements.
“That won’t last long,” I point out. “My ward was gone by the next day.”
“We’ll refresh it every night,” Seth says, shrugging like its no big deal. “Why don’t we let her break it with us?”
“No,” is all Pax says, moving away.
“Recipe for disaster,” I mumble, moving in the other direction.
I’m also not going to pretend that sleeping isn’t going to be hard work. I’ve opted for the study, pulling a few spare blankets from Eydis’ closet and the cushions from her window seat.
“I’ll stay awake until midnight,” I mutter.
But those books. All that information we have to sift through – it’s going to be on my mind, and even sleeping after midnight will be hard.
Sabers don’t function well without sleep. We don’t need a lot, but a solid night every moon phase is essential or our powers diminish in order to maintain regular metabolic functions. We have to get a full night, any night, within the phase. And we sleep like rocks.
Rocks with nightmares, in my case. Killian’s too.
The big guy looks agitated as he waves a hand towards the couch and grunts a noise that indicates his choice is final. Our rooms in the White Castle are warded. No sound in or out. No screams. No having to admit that he sleeps like bloody shit. But soundproof wards require doors, which not a single room in this cottage has.
Denial is Killian’s real weapon of choice.
He eyes Kitten but talks to the group. “I’ll wake at midnight for the second shift. Go to sleep.”
Pax grabs Kitten by the shoulders and begins to steer her towards the stairs, followed closely by Seth.
At least my nightmares come and go. Months without them – then a night with them. Since Kitten has been here, the daymares are the worst. Her gray eyes morphing to the shades of women I’ve watched die. Sometimes she isn’t even looking at me, but suddenly I’m remembering, and the remembering feels real.
The rush of Allure that would draw me to a woman. The desire to sweet-talk her. The need to hold her. The pleasure as we tumbled and danced. Minutes turned to hours, and each second my Seed would draw out power from her weaker being. Surface energy at first, then the thing that keeps us alive – the energy that is our soul.
Not that my soul isn’t wide open for them to draw from, they just can’t.
And then, when my power is still begging for more, their eyes would glaze, their muscles grow weak, and their breaths shorter. By then it was too late. Guilt, remorse, self-hatred, they all swim up inside me. Wrapping around my heart and reminding me I’m dangerous, too dangerous, and I don’t deserve Kitten.
Never will.
Kitten, Pax, and Seth move into the bedroom. I take the stairs two at a time and begin arguing with myself over whether or not a sleeping potion would be my best option – just this once. We can’t defend her, save her, if we’re sleep-deprived – and I need to save her.
But as I work into the night, I realize I can’t.
Can’t find the recipe. Can’t find a reference to any of the effects of the potion, or the spring. Just can’t.
I pace the small workspace. From the left wall to the right, then the window, then back again, my mind tumbling. I’ve read each of the appropriate books on the shelves. Opened every file in the drawer. Looked in every cupboard. I have to be missing something. But I’ve been looking all day!
Still pacing, I pick up, then put down, one object after another until finally I hear Seth, Shade, and Pax’s voices fade away.
The house goes still, and I stop pacing.
Outside, the world is dark, and the only movement is a flicker from the mortal manor on the horizon.
Everything in me knows that the answers must be here. But feelings can’t compete with logic and reason.
I have all three. But still no answers.
I look down at the object in my hands – the spyglass – that I don’t even remember picking up. The metal is cold against my eye, pointing out toward the Manor. Toward the light. Perhaps there’s a stone wall and the building in the dark, but I can’t see anything at all. I know I added looking into this to my to-do list for after the bigger problems in my life, but it’s intriguing. The lens is frozen over with delicate veins of ice etched across the domed glass. Crystalline.
I breathe short huffs of air onto the glass and try rubbing away at it with my sleeve. But that just makes the crystals glimmer and shine. Silver against the black inside.
Kitten was looking through this. She was seeing something. I sensed the change in her, her reaction. What in the Aeons could have frosted the thing over since then? I inspect the wall where it was hanging, the nearby bench. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Just the Silvari glass in my hands.
Silvari glass that Kitten seems to have an affinity with. Object still in hand, I rush down the stairs. Past Seth snoring, and into the sitting room – where Killian has already begun to growl and sweat. Shade’s saddle bag is slung over the back of the nearest single seat. Just a few paces into the room.
But if I startle Killian, the guy will have a knife to my throat before my speed can kick in.
Or not.
All of his blades are in the kitchen. Away from his immediate reach. He’s chosen to put his weapons on the other side of the room. I won’t get an immediate blade to my throat, but
