Page 41

A lastir had come back to the cottage underground with Annelise, and he was wearing training gear, no less.

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” I asked.

Alastir moved forward, and without answering my question, he came to Nik’s side. He put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly.

“I wasn’t sure, I didn’t—” but Nik cut off Alastir’s words before he could finish.

“It worked, old man. It worked.” Nik placed his own palm over Alastir’s hand. “I owe you my life.”

“It was only a spell that I conducted, boy. The blood, the blade, that was all Diana. It is her you owe your life to,” Alastir replied, his mouth thin as he gazed down at Nik.

“I owe her much more than that.” Nik’s reply was gruff as he turned to meet my gaze.

I shared a soft smile with him in return .

“The Mother has worked her magic, once again,” Alastir said, laughing to himself.

He turned towards me. He appeared younger than I had ever seen him before. The corners of his eyes were still creased with wrinkles, but there was something spritely about him.

“I heard there’s a march to war in the coming weeks, one I would be sorry to miss.”

“You’re joining the resistance?” Puck asked, his arms crossed over his chest. “How many times have we tried to recruit you? Asked you to join? Your answer was always the same… ‘I am too old for war.’” Puck’s impression of Alastir had us all bent over with laugher.

“I am,” Alastir replied, his lips curving into a smile.

“But Annelise… her visit changed my mind. Osiris was my dearest friend, and I was his advisor for many, many years before his death. Annelise became like a daughter to me in her time in The Stone City. Diana is the true queen, and I would be honored to live long enough to see her take her place on the throne. To be a better ruler for Istmere than Donika or Osiris ever were.”

“So… what you’re telling me is that you like them better than us?” Puck jested, leaning back in his chair with a shake of his head.

“That’s exactly right.” Alastir laughed, and I had never seen him so joyful. “I’m not sure my skills will be with the blade, but I wish to help in… other ways.”

“Thank the Mother.” Tess pushed back in her chair, pushing the dream walking book away from her across the table. “ Because we desperately need your ancient knowledge to figure out this dream walking crap.”

“Ancient?” Alastir asked, his brow raised in question.

“You’ve got to be what, one thousand years old by now?” Nik laughed, standing to allow Alastir to take his seat beside Tess.

Alastir narrowed his eyes at him. “You’d better watch yourself, boy. My magic can swallow yours whole. You know as well as I do that witches are mortal .”

“So just eighty-or-so then?” He laughed, backing away from Alastir with his palms raised in surrender.

“We’ve got no time to waste,” Alastir said, ignoring Nik and pulling the chair he had offered up to the table.

Having Alastir as my council would be invaluable. He had known Donika wanted to recruit him and had been cloaking his location for years. She would be shocked to know we had him and his wide breadth of knowledge on our side.

“What is it we are researching?” he asked, pulling out one of the books from the stack.

“Dream walking,” I replied with a sigh.

“When is the last time you walked in dreams?” he asked, his eyes glimmering as if he already knew the answer.

“A few nights ago,” I replied, swallowing hard. I wanted to forget all about Donika and Nik’s father in bed together. “Zachariah was… with Donika.”

“What do you mean with her?” Saanvi asked.

“I mean… in bed.”

“Ah yes, daddy dearest bedding the ex-girlfriend. That’s not gross at all,” Puck chimed in, his gaze on Nik .

We all shot him a glare.

“It isn’t news to me… unfortunately. Donika didn’t bother hiding her comings and goings with me while I was Noctani. She thought I was entirely devoted to her, and it had never even occurred to her that there might be a cure. She thought her secrets were safe with me for eternity.”

“And did you find this… disturbing… as Noctani?” Puck asked.

Tess kicked him hard under the table.

“Let’s spend a little less time psychoanalyzing the situation and a little more time focused on what we are trying to accomplish,” Alastir offered.

“Agreed.” I shot Puck a glare, and he raised his hand, miming that he was zipping his mouth shut. I doubted that would last long. “Her Noctani numbers have been greatly reduced since we saved Nik. Anyone in his band of allies was killed in the battle. Isaac included.”

Alastir’s expression was grim. “That I already knew, the Mother had shown me.”

“The Mother is awfully discerning in her visions, isn’t she?” Puck asked.

“What happened to zipping your mouth shut?” Tess asked, cocking her head to the side with a playful smile.

Puck gave her a grin that showed all of his perfectly white teeth. Alastir sighed, running a hand through his thinning hair. I could have sworn I heard him mutter children under his breath.

“What we don’t know is how many Araneoch she has managed to create,” I replied, bringing us back on topic.

“Corian, her right hand, has managed to dream walk and pull me into a dream before because he had left a token in that location. We are trying to figure out how to do the same. How we can dream walk to wherever she is keeping her Araneoch to analyze her numbers. To leave a token behind to ensure that we can check back any time we need to.”

Alastir sat back, stroking his long, grey beard. “That’s quite simple,” he replied.

“Simple?” I asked, my voice incredulous. “We have been poring over these books for days, and weeks before that the last time we were here in Siraleth. We haven’t been able to find anything.”

“Do you know much of the magic of dream walking?” he asked, his tone indicating that he already knew the answer… and that it was no.

“No,” I confirmed sheepishly. “Only what we have been able to discern from these books.”

“Well, dream walking in a certain place is quite simple—” Before he could finish speaking, I interrupted him.

“The problem is I don’t know how to intentionally dream walk at all. Every time I have, it’s been my subconscious pulling me into The Stone City.”

Alastir shook his head, covering his eyes. “We will need to start at the beginning, then.”

“I hate to cut this short, but my time is better spent elsewhere. Training and making battle preparations,” Puck said, pushing back from the table. “Anyone care to join me?”

Saanvi and Kenna raised their hands, eager to get out of this history lesson .

“Nik?” Puck asked, his gaze turning towards him.

“I’d like to stay. I want to support Diana however I can.”

Puck nodded, exiting the library with Saanvi and Kenna to make their battle preparations. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was only going to clean and shine his Katana for the next hour to escape Alastir.

That left Zion, Annelise, Amiyah, Tess, Nik, Alastir and me to congregate around the library table. The sun had set, and I was thankful that Tess had already lit all the library lanterns to illuminate the space.

“Back to business. How do I dream walk intentionally?” I asked, leaning across the table towards Alastir.

“All you need is your magic, and an anchor. The anchor can be a person, or a place.”

“I volunteer,” Nik replied, pulling his chair to my side. “I can be her anchor.”

I grasped his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze, my voice soft. “You already are my anchor.”

His responding smile had a dimple popping on his right cheek, and I thought I might melt. I hadn’t seen such a genuine smile from him in far too long.

Tess pretended to gag across the table, and I shot her a piercing glare.

“Ok, Nik is the anchor then. You will hold on to him and pull on your magic. Only enough to let it fill your core. Then… instead of letting it flow down your arms and reach your fingertips as you normally would, you want to hold it in your chest, here.” Alastir brought his hand to his breast, hovering over his heart as he spoke .

“Got it, then what?”

“Then you want to let it fill you. Let it fill your thoughts. You want to think of where you want to dream walk, but unless you have left a token, it has to be someone you are familiar with. Donika should be easy enough, I presume, since you have dream walked with her many times before, and you have a blood connection. Corian likely uses Donika as his anchor, making it easy for him to connect with you through that same blood link. It has likely been your subconscious seeking out Donika during your sleep, though.”

I nodded, closing my eyes to concentrate.

“Once you have thought of who you want to dream walk with, you will allow your magic to bring you there. Almost as if it were astral projection. Think about what they look like. The more specific details, the better. You don’t have to be asleep to dream walk, but to dream walk intentionally, you need to stay with your anchor. ”

“This isn’t the same as bringing Nik into the dream with me, is it? Because Corian did that once with Donika. He brought her with him and met me in Dragon’s Hollow.”

Alastir shook his head. “No, not the same. You just want to ensure your hand is connected to your anchor at all times. He will not enter the dream with you. That is a different technique entirely, which we can practice later.”

I nodded my head, closing my eyes again to focus.

“Once the person begins to fill your mind, you will slowly see their surroundings. You want to grasp onto that image with your magic, and you will be thrust into their environment. To wake up, it is the same as when you have walked dreams when asleep. You simply tell yourself to wake.”

Alastir explained it as if it were so easy, as if he was astonished we hadn’t already figured it out.

“Waking up hasn’t been the easiest part, either.

The dreams seem to want to hold me there.

Whether that is my own subconscious or not, I have no clue,” I mused.

“And to drop the token? We need to find where the Araneoch are and spy on them. If Donika isn’t in the same location as them, that would prove impossible.

We want to be able to walk dreams in a specific place. ”

Alastir nodded. He reached into his pocket and took out a tattered piece of paper with scribbled writing on it.

“You can use this.” He offered me the paper, and I wrapped it in my grasp.

“You will imbue this paper with your magic, and you will hide it in the location you want to visit again. Once you have found your desired subject, you can walk through the castle with them. It would be much easier to physically go there and leave the token yourself, as I assume Corian did. But in this instance, it is much too dangerous.”

“Agreed,” Nik replied, a muscle ticking in his jaw at the thought of it.

“So, I just have to spy on Donika enough until she visits the Araneoch… ” There was a note of disappointment in my tone.

“Unfortunately, yes. You can’t physically travel there to leave the token without her.

You have to be lucky enough to be taken there.

You can also dream walk with Corian if you are familiar enough with him, though that is a risk since he would know of your presence.

Leaving a token right under his nose when he can see you would be tricky, indeed. ”

I shook my head. “He practically has eyes in the back of his head. I don’t want to underestimate him. Better if I stay off his radar entirely.”

“You’ll have to practice, over and over again. Hopefully you get lucky.” Alastir nodded to himself.

My gaze fell on Nik and he gave me a reassuring nod. We would need to check in on her frequently, and hope that Corian was busy elsewhere during this next week. Alastir had already given us more information than we had been able to glean after hours and hours of poring over these books.

“If there’s nothing else, the travel has exhausted an old man such as myself. I’d like to retire for the night.” The words ‘old man’ were emphasized as he narrowed his eyes at Nik.

We thanked Alastir for his help and Annelise, Amiyah, and Zion escorted him to his chambers for the night. An uneasy feeling settled in my gut as I realized I would need to try dream walking tonight. And tomorrow. And the next night. And any free moment I had, really.

As if reading my mind, Nik pushed back from the table, pulling me along by the hand.

“You’ll let us know what you see?” Tess asked, grasping one of the lanterns in her long fingers and pushing back from the table to follow us out into the hallway.

“Of course.”

I pulled her into a one-armed hug, careful not to burn myself on the lantern she held .

When I retired for the night to Nik’s bedroom—diagonally across the hall from Tess—I turned to see her raising an eyebrow at me, making a crude gesture before I rolled my eyes and closed the door between us.