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A sip of dark red wine. More steak. Baked potatoes drenched in melted butter with crispy, salty skin. Tacos. Though that didn’t make sense. Crispy shells, perfectly seasoned ground beef, shredded lettuce and cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and spicy taco sauce. Just like a fast-food joint. So good. I hadn’t had a taco in forever. Why not?

Candles flickered on the table, casting sparkling light across the silver, china, and crystal. As he ate, his armor began to shimmer and melt, revealing his face. Not as haggard and drawn as before, more like what I imagined he must have looked like before Queen Damiana called him to Houska Castle. A younger, more carefree version of himself before all the darkness and torture left their mark.

His dark eyes gleamed, crinkling at the corners in the barest hint of a smile.

“C’est trop tôt.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Drink from the grail.”

I frowned, suspicious that he hadn’t translated the French at all. Even though I didn’t speak French, I could usually piece phrases together, especially through our bonds. “The grail belongs to Gwen. She’s the Queen of Camelot.”

“Not this grail. I belong to you. If she dares, she can Call the Arthurian grail.” His armor melted completely into shining white fur. “Come, and I will show you from whence I came.”

We galloped across hills toward a tree-covered mountain, though I didn’t touch him at all. I wasn’t riding him, but rather my consciousness floated along with him as he ran. A square, stone castle loomed at the top with a verdigris roof. His stallion was lighter than my hell horse, his hoofs small and fleet as we wove through trees and leaped ditches and rivers. Soaring a little higher each time. A little longer. As if any moment he would take flight and soar like Pegasus.

He turned his head enough for one eye to look back at me. Liquid ink cut with sparks of lightning. “Wrong mythology, Your Majesty.”

But with the very next leap, he soared straight up over the towering castle walls and landed in a stone courtyard. His hooves rang and sparked on the stone.

Suddenly, he reared, rising straight up on his hind legs. Only to crash down with both front feet against the stone. Again. The steady thumps rang through the night like a base drum. Again and again. Stone cracked. Crumbled. Falling away beneath his hooves. Though he didn’t immediately fall through.

“Look.”

I hovered closer, and my attention sent a spark tumbling down into the darkness like a firefly. Slowly expanding, illuminating rough cracked earth, layers of rock and dirt and roots. So deep. The air chilled, damp and musty like a dungeon. Filled with mold and dead rotting things. The steady thumps rolled and echoed down into the hole, marking the levels. Ten, twenty, still falling into darkness.

Though I sensed an end rushing up from below, laced with spikes and spears like ragged obsidian teeth chomping up from the depths. Eager for their first meal in ages. Eons. Far older than Warwick. So old. So far. It didn’t even feel like a part of this world. Could Houska be a portal to somewhere else? Like the cenote the golden bird had tried to take Xochitl through. Or the obelisk portals in Cairo.

Light bounced back up, reflecting off mirrored black glass. Broken shards. Everywhere.

“Fill it with blood.”

“I can’t fill something so vast. Not even an endless grail cup could fill this hole.”

“You must. Or we die.”

I jerked awake, though vertigo swept through me. I could still smell the cold and fetid air wafting up out of the earth. The steady thumps I’d heard were Rik’s heartbeat against my ear.

“You’re safe,” he murmured, smoothing his hand down my spine. “All is well, my queen.”

“I just had the strangest dream.”

“A message from the Mother?”

“I don’t know.” I thought for a moment, trying to hold on to the details, replaying as much as possible in my mind for him to see as well so he could help me remember.

He snorted. “I guess we need to feed you tacos. Though the rest makes sense.”

“It does?”

“You were dreaming about Warwick because he fed you.”

Oh. He did? I listened inside me, waiting to feel his thoughts. His bond. But unless I deliberately reached for him, I still couldn’t sense him. Though I’d seen the way he paled at the thought of solidifying our bond earlier. “I’m surprised he was ready to take that step so quickly. He seemed quite reluctant earlier.”

“He wasn’t ready to be touched, so he filled a pitcher with his blood. Then he poured it out onto your hair.”

My eyebrows rose. “My hair could hold so much?”