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Sorcha had to feel his concern, but it did not stop her. She stepped lightly over the ground toward it, as if they were two dancers—and only they could hear the music.

Merrick strained his senses, both ethereal and physical, but it appeared that they were the only living things of any consequence nearby. By the time he looked up, Sorcha’s whole arms were glowing red with the flame of Pyet, just as the snapping skeletal heads of the revenant spun and threw themselves down on her.

The swell of voices filled Merrick’s head, but he knew they were actually coming from his partner. The Wrayth was never too far away from her now, and the Bond suddenly felt very, very frail. Merrick wrapped himself around it, like a sailor holding on to the rigging, praying for it not to break.

If he was, as she had said, her anchor, then he was damned well going to act like it. She seemed to have even less regard for her own safety than she had when Merrick first met her. He knew what had done it. Sorcha didn’t need to smoke those damn cigarillos to tell him that she didn’t expect to live much longer. In fact, she seemed like she was rushing toward extinction with both arms spread wide.

“Not today,” Merrick muttered to himself. The Third Eye, carved in the middle of his forehead, began to glow white hot and burn on his skin. It was usually reserved for the last few runes in a Sensitive’s arsenal, but something about this revenant was bringing it out far more quickly.

Through his Center he watched as Sorcha wrapped her arms around the snarling faces of those who had been prematurely wrenched from life. They were so angry that it felt as though they might rip her skin right off.

Why are you not doing anything? He screamed along the Bond because it was true. Sorcha was merely standing there, not using a single of her Runes of Dominion—even though they were nearly bursting out of her skin.

A flash of insight burned like lightning in his brain. He suddenly understood what she was doing. The powers of the Wrayth had been proven useful last night, and she was endeavoring to use them in more subtle ways. By twining herself into the fabric of the revenant she was hoping to see what it saw—to understand what it wanted and what was coming.

Merrick felt like a total fool. He had thought she would trap the revenant with the runes, drain it of its power, and demand it show her what she wanted to know. It was yet another mark of the weakening of the Bond that she had been able to conceal her true intentions from him.

The trouble was in the nature of this geist. It, like the Wrayth, was a creature of twined souls, but the revenant contained no single core of intelligence. It was as mindless and muddled a creature as could be imagined. Sorcha was letting it wrap itself around her, and Merrick knew that she would be lost in that chaos very quickly. Revenants were responsible for more Deacons with permanent addled brains than any other kind of geist. Sorcha knew that just as well as he did, but she had become a little too sure of her own power. Lost in it almost.

Merrick raced forward, ready to attempt to pull her bodily from the revenant’s embrace, but the Wrayth and the revenant turned on him. He heard a scream that threatened to cut through his bones and was actually shoved physically backward. The breath was knocked out of his lungs, and he could hear Sorcha’s howls only dimly. Her mind was unreachable.

The barrier was so thin at the moment that this tumult could draw other geists from the Otherside. A new invasion could begin here and undo all the good work they had done last night.

Yes, the barrier is very thin. Merrick shook his head. He heard the words against his skin; a physical presence of one he knew was not in the human realm—one that had given up her body to save the world once already.

Yet when he saw her form, smoky and gleaming as it was, his heart gave a little jump. Nynnia was here with him now. Until this moment he’d not considered all the implications of the thinning of the veil. It was not just geists who lived on the other side of it; the Ehtia and their Ancient knowledge resided there too. He had loved one of the Ehtia—probably still did if he cared to admit it. Despite Zofiya, that ember still burned.

He caught himself speculating. They were in a war for survival, and that meant there was a real likelihood that he would join Nynnia on the Otherside for a brief moment, before being swept away to whatever awaited a Deacon beyond.

Merrick! Sorcha’s voice jerked his attention and his Center back toward her. She was standing within the revenant. Two skeleton heads were clamped on each of her arms, and her pain was burning along the fragile Bond. He had to concentrate . . . but it was very hard with the image of Nynnia drawing nearer—and there was something different about his lost love. He tried to split his attention as best he could.

The geist that was bearing down on Sorcha was stronger than any revenant they’d encountered, but it was as he had warned her; the closeness of the Otherside was giving them more strength and power. He was terrified of his partner burning away under the strain.

Don’t be. Nynnia was now at his shoulder. He could tell because the smell of summer roses came with her, along with a comforting warmth. Sorcha has also become stronger; the Wrayth has at least given her that.

The image of his Active wrestling with the Wrayth seemed to retreat a little, as if he were watching it through a spyglass. He could see her nature now. Long, spiraling, blue white connections ran from her and into the geist twisting above her. Pulses of power ran down these connections, but he could not tell in which direction they were going. He was frightened of the implications.

If any of their Sensitives, old or their newly made ones, saw this, they would be terrified. In the old Order they had a name for it: contamination. At the very least Sorcha would have been confined to the infirmary—at worst she would have been put down like a rabid dog.

The final rune. It had been created for a situation like this and kept secret from the Sensitives. The one secret they never shared with their partners.

When it comes to it, will you have the strength to do what is necessary? Nynnia looked at him with infinite kindness. She knew what Sorcha was to him and how deep their Bond was.

Merrick shook his head, and for the first time felt real, deep anger toward the formless woman. “She is all we have! She just pulled off the greatest feat of geist exorcism that has ever been seen. Even the First Deacon could not have done what she did.”

Nynnia seemed to blow back and forth. And you know there is only one way that is possible. She is becoming one of them. Her humanity is weakening . . .

Merrick didn’t know what to say to that. Sorcha had experienced her own mother’s final breakout of the Wrayth’s prison. He knew she had been tormented when she saw that, and by finding out her father had been one of the Wrayth. He also knew that she was deeply afraid of becoming one of them.

However, right now, with her arms outstretched, channeling or destroying the revenant, she was magnificent—and definitely not tormented.

Nynnia looked at him, and he felt stripped bare under that gaze. Remember your vows, my love. That is all . . . remember why you became a Deacon. Your father died at their hands, and—

“Merrick!” Sorcha’s call snapped her partner’s head around. She was calling him, and despite everything he followed his training.

“Your Center,” she cried, as the revenant bent toward her. He had pulled back his connection to her, and now it was barely discernable. She could see no way to hold and bind the creature without his Sight.