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Kai was also logical, so he’d recognized that heading out to bring her back made no sense when there was already a search party active,andwith her own abilities factored in.

Instead, he’d directed his energy toward something else, something that would truly help Ariana where she actually needed that help.

He was working on finding a way to break the deal that had been struck, the damn thing that made her a servant of the Celestial Plane.

He had Vorzyr testing out his special ability that could make Celestial power submit, both to practice and learn it well so he could employ it more efficiently and the moment it was called for,andalso as a means to push back Cassius.

And Kai had tasked me to help fashion a very special type of cloaking spell. It was an ultimate backup plan, if all else failed, a last resort. The intention was to have it repel any magical or instinctual search by fusing illusion with thespell and making anything within its boundaries appear non-supernatural, essentially human. We knew at this point that Cassius was equal in power set to Ariana, but he had a massive leg up on the experience front. So we couldn’t just have her cloak herself from him. It wouldn’t hold. He’d be able to see through it. So this was a workaround that Kai had thought of with a little help from me bringing up the idea of adding illusion magic into it. If we could pull this off, we could hide Ariana away so that Cassius or any of the beings from the Celestial Plane could never find her. She’d be able to escape being their servant. It was definitely a last resort. We obviously didn’t want it to come to that. But if all else failed, at least there would exist a way for her to actually be free.

A bubbling sound drew my attention, and I jerked my head from watching Vorzyr cursing to himself as he failed to impact the magic in the test tube for the fourth time, and took in the potion in the beaker I was working with. The bubbling ceased after a few moments, and I watched as it cured properly.

Onto the next part.

“It’s ready. Where’s the vial of the extract you took from theInhibitorfromPolarisa couple of years back?” I asked Kai.

Without looking away from what he was doing, he called to me, “Glass cabinet. Far corner. Bottom shelf.”

Before I could even head over there, he snapped his fingers of the free hand he wasn’t currently using with his magical threading, and then the vial materialized right beside my beaker.

Damn.I grinned. “Thanks.”

He didn’t speak to it, returning his full focus to his task immediately.

Not surprising. He was in obsessive, puzzle-solving mode. And it was even worse this time because the stakes were so high,andheavy emotion was involved.

The truth was, we were all freaking out, and barely keeping our shit together.

Focusing on these tasks was pretty much the only thing tethering us right now.

As I went to continue on with my task, a rush of aggression and frustration hit me, coming like a damn tidal wave from Vorzyr, just a second before he slammed his fist down on the stone table and let out a snarl.

“Motherfucker! I should have headed out! I shouldn’t have let the two of you stop me! I can’t fucking do this! I’m no helphere!I’m no help doingthis!”

Yeah, we’d already stopped him from doing that—with a lot of effort. It had been a combination of us reasoning with him, me connecting with him on an emotional level, and then Kai’s power as well.

Kai tensed, then pulled away from what he was doing, and spun toward Vorzyr. His palms were down, but I could see that they were still glowing with his magic, just in case.

“You are helping,” I assured Vorzyr, stepping up to him and laying my hand on his left bicep. He sucked in a breath at my touch, feeling the comfort of it, but warring with the need to act instead of accepting said comfort.

“You can certainly do it,” Kai told him. “You have the means. You’ve used the ability twice now. Cracking this will give us a leg upandmake a massive difference to Ari.” He drew closer until he was right beside me in front of Vorzyr. “You are having trouble now because your head isn’t clear.”

I added, “Heavy, pained emotion for Ariana and this entire situation is leading the way and you can’t separate it.”

“I did it before on that mountain under otherheavycircumstances.”

“You didn’t feel helpless then in the immediate moment,” Kai pointed out. “The task you have right now doesn’t bring Ariback to us, nor achieve anything in that same sort of immediate sense. You’re dragon, your instinct is to take action right away. That can’t be done withthis.It’s different and it requires another sort of approach. But what you’re working onwillhelp her. In a significant way. In fact, that Primal Celestial Resonance ability of yours stands more of a chance than anything else—than any one of us—being able to defeat this Celestial Plane threat and give Ari her life back.That’show vital it is.” Kai waited a few moments for Vorzyr to absorb his words, and then he pushed, “Okay? Do you hear me?”

Vorzyr drew in several calming breaths, and I watched some of the tension lessen from him, enough where he could respond to Kai. “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying.” He grasped my hand on his bicep and offered me a smile, albeit a weary one. “I’m sorry,” he told us both. “It’s just—”

“We’re right there with you, believe me,” Kai told him.

“That we are,” I uttered.

He pulled at his silky ponytail. “This could break us,” he rasped. “We’d all just reached a really good place together, as a unit.She’djust reached a good place. For fuck’s sakes, she’d come so far that she’d even taken back her power. Now this… it could undo all of that progress. It could shatter everything we’ve fought to build together. And if that’s not bad enough, with this bargain in play, this duty forced on her, it could actually even take her away from us.”

“We won’t let it,” Kai rumbled, a whole lot of powerful conviction radiating off him. He gestured at the areas where we’d been working. “That’s why we’re doing all of this.”

“We can’t drown in fear and what-ifs,” I said. “We’re rising beyond that, taking a proactive approach.”