Chapter 19
The icy floor welcomed me with a painful greeting.
“Cirian!”
Sound returned all at once, my muted senses sharpening as I passed through the Veil. Azrael’s face appeared in my vision, alongside the blotches of stars that burst to life when my head met the ground.
“Easy now,” he muttered, grabbing me by the shirt and hoisting me upright.
“Did it work?”
Bastien questioned me frantically. His eyes were wide, and it took me a moment to recall what would be driving such urgency.
“Yes,” I concluded, rubbing the site of impact on the back of my head. “I found him. Go ahead with the revivification.”
He nodded, disappearing from my sight as the language of the Reviled filled my ears, buzzing with power.
“Are you alright?” Azrael asked, no doubt picking up on my lack of enthusiasm. “This is good news, yes?”
My mind was still reeling. It was difficult to determine a response appropriate to looking Death in the face, much less having a conversation with them. Leaning on my honed skill of compartmentalization, I pushed aside that interaction for the time being and nodded at the lavender-haired man.
“Yes, sorry. That crack really hurt.”
“Did you find my brother then?”
Lynette was still seated on the second table, craning her neck to watch Bastien at work as his attention shifted to the green anima stone in Tobias’s hand.
“Yes. And he laughed when I said that we tested the spell on you first.”
Lynette seemed pleased at this news, her posture relaxing slightly.
“Then he’s really coming back to us?” Azrael questioned.
I nodded. “Yes. He’s really coming back.”
He embraced me, planting a wet kiss on my cheek as he did.
“This night will be over soon, then.”
“Cirian, Azrael, I need your help.”
Our attention turned to Bastien as he lingered over the anima stone.
“My magic is too depleted to give him all that he needs. Since he’s already got the other two stones, I need you both to spare as much as you can. I want to make sure there’s nothing preventing us from bringing him back right now.”
We moved into position, Azrael over Tobias’s chest, while I took his opposite hand, my palm pressing against the cool surface of the gem.
“As much as you can,” Bastien repeated, the sweat on his brow rolling down.
A tether appeared, drawing down from my chest to connect to the hand I used to hold his anima stone.
I turned on the tap of my magic, allowing it to pass through the connection.
I nearly yelped when I felt the first brush of his consciousness against mine, those lingering bits of his magic that I had called back from the Ether.
This was really happening. Tobias was about to be returned.
Nothing else mattered.
I pushed every bit of magic I could from my veins, wringing it out like a sopping cloth till the tether that ran between us glowed like the sun, blinding in its brilliance.
“That’s it!” Bastien exclaimed, releasing his hold on Tobias’s hand and bending his fingers into a sigil that he passed over the body, his lips forming the words of our salvation with practiced ease.
A sputtered breath was the first sign of life. Then I could feel it—a pulse coming down the tether—a connection long overdue.
His eyes fluttered open, blinking away the months of slumber as his chest expanded with the rhythms of life.
“Tobias!”
I knew not which of us spoke his name first, but each of us continued where the other left off, singing him an appellation chorus that echoed one another till our throats were parched and our tears had run dry.
We reached for him, with grasping hands and grieving hearts, and relief that washed over me like a summer rainstorm.
“You’re going to crush me if you keep on,” a hoarse voice came from beneath the jumble of jubilation.
Removing myself from that tangle of limbs and fabric, we each retreated enough to let Tobias breathe. Azrael cradled his back, helping him up into a sitting position. He wouldn’t stop grinning, his gaze drifting back and forth over the lot of us.
Tobias was actually here. The months filled with his absence had stretched far longer than certain years of my life. But the end of that torment had arrived, at the hands of those who loved him most.
“It’s good to see you all,” he spoke, his voice splintered from his long rest. “Especially in the flesh. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance again.’
“You should never have lost faith, Tobi,” I teased, trailing my fingertips down the outline of his arm. “One way or another, we were always going to wake you. Did you think we’d let you go so easily?”
“I knew not the obstacles you’d have to overcome,” he admitted, lips curling in a sheepish grin. “Nor the price that would have to be paid for starting the Second Awakening. But my heart rejoices, knowing that you three have made it through stronger than before.”
“Guess I’ll just be shoving off then,” Lynette piped up, once again attempting to stand and nearly falling from the table. “You don’t need me hanging around to bring down the mood.”
Tobias craned his head, his sights falling on his sister for the first time.
“Lenny,” he muttered, eyes glistening with moisture. “Thank you for waking her, too.”
“Do not praise us yet,” Bastien replied. “She was more trail run than anything else. We had to make sure that the concoction wasn’t going to outright kill you.”
“Except that was exactly what it did to me,” Lynette retorted.
“You came back, didn’t you?” I questioned.
“Let’s not get bogged down by semantics,” Bastien interrupted. “We need to get you two back to my flat before Wilhelm grows wise to us.”
Tobias’s expression shifted towards confusion. “Wilhelm doesn’t know about you waking us?”
“She wasn’t even thrilled to have your unconscious bodies kept in Paradise. Now that you’re awake, there’s no telling how she’d respond. After all, your sister did kill her only brother.”
“And yet, he’s the one walking around while I’ve been stuck slumbering for gods only know how long?” called Lynette.
“Lenny is also currently being actively hunted by the Adored’s elite guard, so it’s only a matter of time before they trace her back to this place,” explained Bastien.
“Wilhelm wants to protect her people, and frankly, I can’t fault her for that.
So, if you’d like to keep Lynette out of a Reviled prison cell, I suggest we get her out of here immediately. ”
A sharp sound pierced our tranquil reunion, and Azrael moved across the room in a blur of motion, holding the communication device to his ear.
“That doesn’t bode well,” I muttered, already looking to Bastien. He hurried across the lab, grabbing the compendium and tucking it under his arm.
“Wilhelm is on her way down,” Azrael said, returning. “Kaine held her off as long as he could, but she knows that you’re down here with them, Bastien.”
The door to the lab pushed open, the entire room reeling towards it, but finding no one standing in the entry. After a second, Kaine’s image shimmered into existence as he moved with determined purpose towards Azrael.
“You two take the Greenes,” I said to the Unseen. “Make it back to Bast’s flat and have Amelia start pitching the biggest fit this side of Paradise has ever seen. We’ll be smuggling the two of you out in her luggage.”
“You should go with them,” Bastien added, his golden gaze on me so filled with concern that I should have been flattered. “I can handle Wilhelm on my own.”
“I figured as the newest acting head of the Church, my first official duty should be to wield the title like a sledgehammer till they yield. Besides, Wilhelm loves me.”
Bastien’s brow furrowed. “Since when?”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is that should she waltz in here and find two very awake Greene twins, she’s going to report it to the Magi Council for leverage. The longer we can keep the two of you a secret, the less complicated our lives have to be for the foreseeable future.”
Azrael turned to Kaine, giving him a nod. The shorter Unseen moved with haste over to Lynette and hoisted her onto his shoulder without so much as a warning.
“Hey, don’t I get a say in—put me down this instant!”
“Better keep it down, Lenny,” I called. “Wilhelm may decide to deal with you herself if she discovers you.”
Grumbling under her breath, Kaine and Lynette shimmered like a mirage before disappearing altogether, the door to the lab swinging a bit wider as they made their escape.
“You’ll take Tobias?” I asked Azrael.
“Of course,” he said, lifting the copper-haired man from the table and cradling him in his arms. “Is that comfortable?”
Tobias beamed up at him, pressing his face into Azrael’s chest.
“I’m perfectly content.”
“Take the long way around to the flat,” Bastien spoke quickly as the sounds of dozens of footsteps echoed from the corridor. “They may already be watching.”
“Be safe,” Azrael replied.
“We’ll be fine,” I assured them both. “Just a quick little chat with Willy and we’ll be on our way.”
“Do not call her that,” Bastien scolded me.
“Noted.”
Azrael and Tobias shimmered and vanished, a sudden panic kicking in as I lost sight of them, but then the door moved again, and I knew that they were taking the safer option. As for Bastien and me, we had one last battle before us that had to be won.
A battle of politics.
“Why are you really staying behind?” Bastien asked, setting the compendium on the countertop, then muttering an incantation over it as he wove a sigil with his hands. The tome shimmered, then blended in with the marbled surface as he lay a veil of magic over it.
“My stars, Bastien. Are you questioning my righteous intentions?”
He rolled his eyes, obviously not satisfied with my frivolous response.
“If you must know, I was worried Wilhelm was going to tear you limb from limb if she found out you’d let Lynette walk free. Believe or not, I’ve grown rather attached to you, Bastien. I would hate to have to train someone new to take your place.”
He glowered at me, his gaze sharp as razor steel. “Trained me, eh? Last I recall, you were the obedient one who did exactly as he was told.”