Chapter 12 #3
“I won’t do anything that would cause your loved ones injury,” he said, voice low, and watched something in her shoulders loosen at the admission.
“I’m not reckless. I tend to be calculated, in case you’ve not noticed.
And we need to be calculating. This isn’t a walk in the park.
The forest is . . . not itself. And the Chamber, whatever is inside it, likes games. ”
Lisa’s mouth tightened. “So do I. But mine usually involve Monopoly and wine.”
A humorless huff escaped him. “I’ll get you as many bottles of the best wine money can buy when all of this is said and done.”
He turned, pacing once, twice, forcing his mind into order. He’d been reacting all day, pushing, resisting, surviving. He needed something sharper than stubbornness now. He needed the thing the Chamber had been starving him of: his memories.
“I was getting pieces out there,” he said, nodding toward the mirror as if the forest sat directly behind it instead of across realms. “Not the dreams. Not the vague, creepy door nonsense. Actual fragments. The kind that comes with weight. With . . . sensation. Like my magic recognized places my mind refused to.”
Lisa’s brow furrowed. “You mean the anchor.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “You heard me call it that.”
“I listen when you talk,” she said dryly. “It’s a skill I’ve developed from raising children and dealing with customers who swear rose quartz will fix their marriage.”
Something tightened in his chest, warm and sharp. Gods, she was steady. Even now.
“Yes,” he said. “The anchor.”
He moved closer again, not touching, but close enough that he knew she felt the seriousness radiating off him.
“That spot in the forest,” he continued.
“Where the pull was strongest. Where the Chamber stopped being coy and started being . . . direct. That’s where it let the most slip.
I think it’s tied to why it knows me. Why it keeps trying to jog my memory but not give me the whole truth.
” His jaw flexed. “If I go back there on purpose—if I push into it instead of stumbling through it—I might get the story in order.”
Lisa’s eyes narrowed. “Or it might use you.”
“It’s already trying,” he said flatly. “The difference is this time I walk in knowing it’s reaching for me.”
“And you think that’s safer?” she asked.
“No.” His mouth curved, sharp and unapologetic. “But again, I’m not reckless. I’m a tad more prepared now than I was when it first started invading my mind.”
She studied him, taking him in the way she always did—like she was reading between his ribs instead of his words. Then she nodded once, determination flashing across her clenched jaw. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Rezer stilled. “Lisa—”
“Nope,” she cut in immediately, echoing her earlier tone.
“Don’t give me that look. You don’t do reckless and that’s good, because I obviously don’t want any harm to come to anyone.
But I’m a mom. Oakley is my son. Elora is my daughter.
Cassie is her family. Syndra is . . . basically the world’s most glamorous pain in my ass, but she’s still mine, too.
” Her voice lowered. “And you’re standing here telling me there’s something in your world that has the audacity to call me collateral. ”
He watched the heat spark in her eyes.
“I don’t do collateral,” she finished. “So you be not reckless and I’ll be the one bringing up the rear ready to go momma bear on some magical Chamber ass.”
The words landed in him like a vow. For a heartbeat, he almost—almost—wanted to kiss her again just to ground himself in the reality of her stubborn courage.
Instead, he nodded. “Fair enough. But, we do it smart.”
Lisa crossed her arms. “Define smart.”
He glanced at the mirror. It sat still now, reflective surface calm, pretending it hadn’t fought him like a living thing ten minutes ago. He didn’t trust it for a second, or trust he was able to control it.
“Smart means I don’t just drag you through,” he said.
“The mirror doesn’t like being used today.
The Chamber’s influence has it . . . temperamental.
” He lifted his hand, palm open, showing her the faint scorch-mark along the edge of his skin where the resistance had burned him.
“It tried to keep me from reaching you. It will try to keep me from taking you back.”
Lisa’s eyes flicked to his hand, then back to his face. “So how do we get through?”
Rezer’s magic stirred, predatory and precise. “We don’t let it know you’re actually with me.”
He stepped toward the mirror, then paused and looked back at her. “I want you with me, but you stay close. You do not wander. You do not touch anything you don’t recognize. And if I tell you to run—”
“I won’t argue,” she said, then added with a grim little smile, “much.”
His mouth twitched. “That’s the best offer I’m going to get.”
Lisa moved to his side, no hesitation. Brave as hell. Stubborn as sin. And his.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against him.
Then checked the blocks in his mind that he’d erected once he’d started coming through the mirror to Enigma.
They were firmly in place. Last, so that the mirror wouldn’t be able to sense a second presence, Rezer cloaked Lisa in his dark magic.
Covering the beautiful light that he knew it would sense.
Then, he lifted his hand to the mirror again, but this time he didn’t push like a male trying to force a door.
He pushed like a warrior taking back ground.
Darkness slid up his arm, not violent, not uncontrolled, just present. A tool. A blade. His magic wrapped tighter around Lisa without binding her, a shield that sat against her skin like warmed air.
The mirror shuddered instantly. Rezer felt its resistance constricting like a fist. He leaned in, voice barely above a murmur. “You already tried to keep me out,” he told it. “You failed.”
The golden surface wavered, then dimmed at the edges, a thin gray seam splitting the reflection like bruised light.
Lisa’s hand covered the one resting on her waist, her fingers threading through his with quiet support. “Well,” she said, voice light but eyes deadly serious, “let it never be said that you aren’t consistent when it comes to how you tease the objects of your attention.”
Rezer squeezed once, hard. “I tease you because I relish your fire. Stay close to me.”
“I will,” she promised.
He turned back to the mirror and shoved.
The resistance flared, hot, furious, then buckled under the combined pressure of his magic and his will. The surface gave, folding inward, swallowing light. Cold rushed out. Rezer stepped forward first, dragging the threshold open with sheer stubborn refusal.
And Lisa stepped with him—into the elfin realm, into the forest’s waiting silence, and ready to head toward the anchor that he hoped would finally give him all the information he needed in order to protect not only Lisa and her loved ones, but his home as well.