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“It’s clear something is coming and that’s really why my family wants me to take my full power back. It’s also clear that everyone, including my family, has their own designs for me. There’s so much manipulation. And, I guess, I’ve left myself open to it, because I’ve been so unsure in who and what I am. In my power.” Her eyes flashed. “No more.” She squared her shoulders and looked out at us each in turn. “I’m taking my power back. No more running from who I really am, fromeverythingthat I can be. No more living as just pieces.” A growl rumbled from her as she uttered with so much conviction, the strength of it reverberated through the cave walls all around us, “It’s time my life became my own, time Itookit.”

The words she was speaking… I’d wanted to hear them from her for so long. I’d wanted her to come back to herself, to rise above the repression.

But the way it was happening tainted it. The fact that she was hurting from the secrets Nyx had discovered her family had been keeping from her. The fact that she was caught up in something extremely worrying and complicated with the True Celestials.

“Kai?” she pressed, when I didn’t respond quickly enough.

“Yes, if that’s what you want, I can create the failsafe.”

“It’s what you want, too, isn’t it? What you believe needs to happen?”

“I believe that there should be a way to check all beings of great power.ButI don’t believe that you need this to be able to take back your power. Your control is much stronger than you give yourself credit for. The other night in Meforian Forest, I barely had to hold my magic against you—you were in control even amidst all the sexual intensity and wildness, even when giving V what he needed with his primal side. The failsafe will be fashioned should anyone manage to take control of you, should something happen where your power is no longer your own,notbecause I don’t trust your ability to wield it.”

“I do feel more in control, and I hear you. It’s just been a long time since I’ve had my full power at my disposal, so it does concern me. I want to believe I can handle it, and I’ll have to focus on that when I carry out the spell to return it to me,butthere still exists that sliver of doubt, and this failsafe will help me to let go of that.”

“I say whatever makes you comfortable to take back your power, because it’s clearly needed right the hell now with all this other shit going on that Nyx has reported, combined with the test results,” V spoke.

“I need you to work with Kai, too,” she told him. “Work on being able to use your Primal Celestial Resonance at a moment’snotice. You’ve only used it once so far, and it wasn’t your chief intent to do so, it just happened in the moment. If the True Celestials do come, that ability can serve to protect all three of you, if anything happens to me, or if I’m not right there in the moment.”

“He’s not ready,” I cut in.

V swung his head my way. “You’re talking about what happened in class?”

“And the way you approach your power in general. You don’t wish it to be reined in. With that outlook, it makes teaching something involving such precision a near-impossibility.”

“Find a way,” Ariana urged me.

I eyed Vorzyr. “Your course with Gabriel Morgan begins this week. Attend two classes of hisForbidden Weaving & the Art of Spellbreaking, follow his instructions precisely, focus on controlling your power not from the standpoint of taming it, but from desiring accuracy and precision. Then come to me and we’ll work on honing your secret Celestial ability—as well as others.”

I was expecting some pushback, but he nodded right away. “Fair enough, I’ll do that.”

“Well… good,” I responded.

“We all need to pull together. That takes precedence over my dragon ego, yes?”

The corner of my mouth turned up.

Nyx chuckled. “I love it.”

“I thought you might, babe,” he said, winking at Nyx.

Ariana was far too deep in mission-mode to take any of that in, and she stepped up to me, urgency radiating off her. “When we create the failsafe, you won’t be able to store it within yourself—at least not for long. The magic is far too potent. But you’ll need to have access to it immediately. So we need to figure out a solution that can—”

“Your staff,” Nyx spoke up.

Ariana took his words in and eyed me. “He means your Scepter? You still have that? I thought you damaged it during the Coven Games a few years back when you took out that necromancer?”

“I found a way to repair it.Andstrengthen it. It’s impossible to break now, actually. By any supernatural being.”

Her eyes lit up. “Then that’s perfect for this task.”

“Color me intrigued. Let’s see this special thing,” V urged.

With a snap of my fingers and a brief spark of my magic, I called it forth and I was grasping it in my right hand in the very next second.

“I call it my Aetherbound Scepter,” I said.

It was a specially crafted, enchanted weapon of intellect and precision. The sleek, onyx staff was wrapped in rose-gold etchings that glowed when it was active. At its center was a swirling orb of my magical energy that pulsed in reaction to my mind and what I was willing my power to do. It served to strengthen my spells. But it could also store them and release them later like a time-delayed trap.