Okay.
Her exhaustion carried through the single word, and my gut twisted.Are you sure—
But power surged through the link, distinctive and chaotic. My brain filled with white noise and golden light.
And then, no matter how hard I reached, I couldn’t find her.
20
Rafael
I held Riley tight as the golden light swirled around us.
Isobel tried to grab on. The bloodmagic reached for me, its tendrils seeking…
The Sorceress was still far enough away that when I pushed back on them, hard, I succeeded. Just before Riley yanked us all away.
Or tried to. She was so weak that I sensed her falter. My hands were folded around hers, and I pumped her everything I had to give. It wasn’t much, but she grabbed hold, and the surrounding trees vanished.
I landed, hard, on my knees, with Riley still cradled in my lap. Lucas’s fingers loosened from where they’d held onto her arm. I heard him exhale in surprise as he rolled to his feet.
What materialized out of the golden fog wasn’t the academy as I’d seen it in a dream. Instead, we landed on a rooftop in what was clearly a city—and judging by the poor state of repair of what we lay upon, not exactly a shining example of one.
“Where are we?” he asked.
Riley stirred sluggishly in my arms. Sweat poured down her face, and her eyes seemed unfocused. When they first blinked open, they were gold. I stroked my fingers along her damp brow, and when I pushed her hair back—I saw shiny black Dragon scales along her temples.
They were on her arms, too. And when she spoke, her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Cara doesn’t want us to come back to the academy.”
Lucas’s eyes flashed like mad. When he saw me staring, he said, “Nikolai is losing it. Aria has been calming him down. She’s pretty much the only one who can when he gets to that point.” His lips quirked. “Works on me, too.”
I got the feeling the conversation had just slid into X-rated territory.
“But Cara’s with him now.” He frowned and then cursed. “The council wants to use Riley to take Nikolai to Isobel. Are they nuts? I know Isobel is powerful, but Nikolai—” His voice cut off like someone had grabbed him by the throat.
I felt as though my insides had turned to ice. “That’s why they don’t want us back at the academy?”
Lucas swallowed. “Nikolai says he’s going with Cara. They’ll get Havoc to send Riley a visual when they have one.”
“I can Jump us there,” Riley whispered.
I met Lucas’s gaze over her head. She wouldn’t be Jumping us anywhere, not like this. Then Lucas saw the scales.
He cursed and dropped to his knees beside her. “Riley. Focus on being your human self. You’ve absorbed my Dragon, this time. You need to think of you as you.”
She groaned. “I just want to sleep.”
I touched her and pushed what I could find of the healing energy into her. It wasn’t much, but I sighed in relief when the scales dropped away.
“Can we gate?” I asked, meeting Lucas’s concerned eyes.
“Depends on whether we can find one.” He rose again, and turned to survey our surroundings.
The morning light cast a golden glow over what was definitely a large city. We looked to be about seven stories up, which was high enough to see over many of the neighboring buildings. I followed Lucas’s gaze to a distant archway of stone.
“Hellfire,” he said, planting his fists on his hips. “We’re in Sarti.”
I wracked my brain for why that name mattered. It was a place associated with darkness…
