Page 64 of Soulbound

"You little snake!" Morgana hissed, her hands falling at her sides as she breathed hard. But she looked perplexed. "You're an apprentice!"

"I warned you once," Cleo whispered, feeling something hot slide down over her lip, saltiness flooding her mouth, "that I could see the future—"

"He took your Visions from you!"

Her own father. Cleo blinked, the world going a little blurry. "As Drake said, nobody can take another's magical gift from them. Not without sundering their ties to sorcery completely. My gift is still there. I just have to find a way... a way to unblock it...."

"Cleo?" She could hear the words distantly. Feel someone shaking her.

See the imps starting to flee.

Fury danced in Morgana's eyes, but Cleo blinked and then there were two images before her; Morgana slowly backing away, even as her reflection started to flee.

"Cleo!" It was Sebastian, looking down at her with frightened eyes.

She was on her back on the floor. She couldn't remember falling.

"It's all right," she whispered, or thought she did. The world was starting to blur. She could see a hundred images of him, reflecting into the future. That ice pick was working its way into her brain.

"You little fool, what did you do?"

She thought she was going to vomit.

Then Ianthe was there, sweeping a cool hand over Cleo's brow. "Close your Third Eye. Now, Cleo!"

A thousand Ianthes.

A thousand Sebastians.

"I don't think... I can...."

Then a surge of coolness washed through her as Ianthe brought peaceful, blessed darkness to Cleo's fractured world.

Chapter 14

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH her?" Sebastian demanded, placing his unconscious wife on her bed in Rathbourne Manor. "She's not waking." Panic swept through him. "She hurt herself."

Hurt herself to save you.

Gods, would he ever stop bringing destruction down upon those he cared for?

Ianthe twitched the curtains shut. "I've sent for help. There's not a great deal I can do at this moment." Her cool face momentarily looked younger, the mantle of power slipping just enough to let him see her indecision. "Divination isn't one of my gifts."

Lucien eased a hand over Cleo's brow. "Yes, but it's one of mine." He winced. "She's overtaxed herself, I think. Severely. I can sense the strain around her aura and her mental faculties. Eleanor? You have divination gifts too."

Sebastian had been ignoring her until now—he still couldn't look her in the eye—but Eleanor Ross sat on the edge of the bed and took Cleo's hand in hers. "She's still projecting something."

"Will she recover?" Sebastian demanded, pacing by the bed.

Lucien looked up flatly. "I don't know."

"What she did is extraordinary," Eleanor breathed. "I've only ever seen one other person display even the slightest gift like this. She was future-walking, and it's a dangerous gift, to See one timeline, and react in another. She's clearly untrained too, which is why she couldn't draw back."

"This happened because of me," he said hoarsely.

The three of them looked at him sharply.

Merde. Sebastian's nails dug into his palms. "I wasn't strong enough to face my mother. I thought I was. I thought I could destroy her." And in trying to do so, he'd forgotten everything he'd been taught in the past month. The second he'd seen Morgana, his careful attempts to harness his will and work his sorcery through ritual and sigils evaporated, and were obliterated by the rash power of Expression.