Page 119 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

“Angela, it’s me, Dremulus. Can you hear me?”

Still nothing. The body on the mattress breathed, but Angela Duboise frowned. Her jaw became slightly slack, but her eyes moved fast beneath closed lids in the rapid-fire way that showed she was deep in the dream state.

“Angela?” The wizard’s voice wasn’t reaching her.

It was enough for Bellus to raise a concerned eyebrow at Gellar between scribbling in his notebook.

“What’s wrong?” Gellar demanded, mindful of keeping his voice low.

“She’s with someone else,” the Sleep Wizard replied with an edge of worry beneath the professional calm. “She is not listening to me.”

“Has this happened before?” Bellus’s quill hovered over the half-written page of his notebook.

“No.” The Sleep Wizard’s long white hair and beard shifted as he shook his head. “Never.”

Condorr stepped closer, ready and willing to jump in at any moment. Gellar had been surprised that Zarek had recommended Condorr be present because he’d shared a connection with Angela over chocolate. Even though Gellar saw Zarek battle daily with the demon that contained his fire, he was a captain who saw people’s strengths for the bigger picture, a rare gift for someone so powerful. One the Commander did not want to lose over laws broken because of this mortal woman.

“Do we call Zarek?” Condorr asked.

“No,” Gellar commanded. “We sent Zarek into the human realm to not interfere with this operation. We can’t risk the Claiming affecting this. Let’s play this out.”

Not for politics—though the threat of the Continuum Council, and Zarek’s actions against the Accords, were a wound that needed closing before it became fatal. All of that was true. But underneath the strategy, and all the careful calculations Gellar had been making since the moment Zarek had walked into the dining hall holding that woman’s hand like she was already his, Gellar needed to know what she was.

For centuries, Gellar had fought against Katarra. Watching too many of his brothers and sisters fall, only for the Black Cloaks’ numbers to simply return the next night while the Vanguard held the line with fewer soldiers each passing decade.

When the Seers had spoken of a new power, it gave him hope that they finally had something that would shift the weight of this war. So he needed to know what power this mortal woman, Angela Duboise, had.

“Keep going. Finish it,” he ordered.

The wizard nodded tightly and returned to his work as the witches kept casting around the circle.

Gellar nodded at Bellus and Condorr to stand down, but they were the kind of warriors who never truly stood down.

Angela Duboise’s fingers tightened around the medallion that hung from her neck, as a frown formed between her brows. Her breathing changed, becoming shallower as if the surrounding air had turned hostile. It was similar to the way they’d trained their Vanguard to face their fears in a battle.

But then her back arched as if something was about to snap her body in half. And then she became still, as if frozen.

He’d seen possessions before, but not like this.

“She’s stopped breathing.” Condorr held his palm out to read the magick. “The air in the room is doing something wrong.”

There was a subtle pressure change, as if the room had inhaled and kept inhaling, so much so the candle flames were pointing toward the center of the dreamcatcher’s circle like a compass needle finding north.

The hair on his arms stood on end.

The wizard paused, his face full of worry.

“Keep going,” Gellar ordered. Magick like this had to come from somewhere.

Bellus made a sound as a crack splintered across his spectacles, like ice breaking on a frozen lake in spring. The historian became pale as he carefully removed them, only for the glass to shatter like sparkly dust.

Then came the eerie crack of a whip snapping in the air. It came from the wall of windows, where the glass fractured into a furious network of webs that grew like skeletal fingers stretching for an escape.

“I think,” Bellus said carefully, “we should wake her up.”

Condorr nodded beside him, hands on his blades, ready to draw.

“Don’t touch her. We have to let this play out.” Gellar was aware of the risk. But they had been fighting blind for centuries, that whatever was building in the center of the Dream Circle, was the closest thing they’d had to an answer.