Constantine nodded sharply and disconnected.
My friends' families... I looked over at Axer, who was watching us both from where Sacrificial Plays was hungrily attached to him, sharing its secrets.
“Reprisal. Stavros is going to—”
“You can't think about the others in singular right now,” Constantine murmured, offering comfort through touch. “Once you are back—”
“I can’t go back.” I unearthed Kinsky's journal. Books immediately dove and formed a hungry circle around me. I looked at the closed journal, and thought of the dead woman depicted over and over by the same hand.
“Ren,” Constantine murmured.
“I keep trying to figure out how to go back.” I moved uneasily and let out a breath. It came out a little cramped and hysterical. “I keep trying to recreate what I’ve lost.” I thought of the Kinsky. At the same woman looking back from every portrait. “Holding too tightly.”
To Excelsine, to home, to Christian, to my friends.
I thought of the Third Layer wise woman, and her words on not knowing what it was to be without. “I know what it is to be without.” Without connection. Without magic. Without aim. Without restraint. Without all four of those working together.
“Ren—”
“Kinsky lacked any connection but the one—and he lost it. Valeris lacked restraint. I have lacked all at different points, and Stavros would like me to stay that way.”
“But I need to go forward, and in going forward, I might find again what I’ve been searching for.” Home. I fisted my fingers, watching the magic swirl. “Because I can’t go back.”
If I wanted to go home, I would have to make a new path there. I had to earn my own freedom. And that started with getting rid of Stavros. Because I, and all those I loved, would always be hunted by him. And he would always be a danger to the world.
He had to be destroyed. Severed of power.
And the secret was in the paintings. It was time to confirm the answer I already knew.
Priyasha, Kaine's words about seals, the symbol on the two paintings... Pages fluttered open and the surrounding books inched closer.
I held the journal and closed my eyes. Show me.
The sturdy pages flipped, fell open, and then symbols, script, and knowledge burst into the air.
I tilted my head at the images. A pentagram with circular seals pressed into the five extending tips and pyramid seals at the interior connecting points of the pentagon within.
The points shimmered when each was touched. I gave the magic a twist, setting the images rotating into motion, the points shifting around the center, keeping that which was being protected safe inside. It was like how I was hiding the installation in the Western Territories. Not in a pentagram form, but in the way that each edge was secured.
Domes were far harder to erect in wards, but they gave an increased defensive edge, as it was a lot harder to peel a part away.
But five was a sturdy, secure number.
And the symbol at the center...
Constantine cleared his throat and I jumped to see him sitting on my right with a pile of string nets, ten filled containers, a series of half-finished projects, and one wrist flat and bare against the surface. Books were all inching around, trying to creep closer to me, only held off by a quick boot.
I looked down in confusion at the chair I didn’t recall sitting in. “When did we make a larger table?”
Axer was curling magic into a series of containers across the table, a pile of glistening blades and stars freshly sharpened in front of him as well as all three of our cloaks and a slew of removed devices. One bare wrist was also sliding across the surface of the table as his fingers worked to guide the magic or mend a protection. His gaze slid over me, then, satisfied, returned to repairing the next piece of our arsenal.
Guard Rock swung his legs over the edge of the table next to Axer, watching the creep of books on the ground and in the sky. One of Guard Rock’s palms was flat on the table as well, pencil ready in the other hand. The cat had its tail in his lap and was seemingly out cold, though I saw one eyelid slide open to peer at me, then slide shut again.
At least fifty books were in a hunching perimeter around us and were avidly watching—pages whispering.
Who had removed my cloak? When had I sat down?
Constantine raised a brow. “We couldn't break you away from your trance, but you responded to simple commands, and were at baseline on all measures, including your response to our connections. Alexi and your rock thought we should leave you to it.”
His fingers lifted, and I could see him pull the protections they had been holding on the table into his fingertips. I noticed the soothing cream and tan tones of Neph mixed in with Constantine's violet and bronze, and bright ultramarine magic setting them indelibly into place—so much more stable than before.
“You are pulling from each other so easily now?”
And Neph, Neph was okay. So many ways for everything to go wrong, and so little time for me to be able to worry individually about anyone. I pulled shaking fingers down my face. All I wanted was to be able to hold all my people close. To stack into a huge pile under a blanket fort and not come up for an entire weekend.
Constantine let the magic swirl into the air to form a loose cover around the five of us. “Let's talk about you taking years from my life.”
“I can’t believe you let me not answer your call inside a place that as far as we can tell might be digesting us for a thousand condensed years.”
And after completely freaking out in Verrange.
“I was told to try this new thing called trust. I can’t say it holds much appeal so far.” But he didn’t seem angry.
Axer rolled his eyes, sealed the containers he was working on, and tucked three into each cloak.
“Did I miss the check in?” I asked.
“No, there are still a few hours to go,” Axer said.
Constantine snapped his fingers twice between us and motioned at the journal. “Now to that, and your irritating meditation. Before I take the standing offer from When You Simply Can't Take It Anymore...”
A bedraggled book in the circle perked up.
I spread my fingers over the pages of the journal. I took a moment to carefully inspect the magic this time, seeing the threads.
“I thought at first Priyasha gave the journal to me as a warning. It's like the yearbook I looked through in Greyskull’s office, but even more personalized. A singular view captured with all the sensory intensity of each moment. Kinsky’s record of his journey to resurrect Priyasha.” I looked up. “But it's more than that. Kinsky must have had just enough agency at the end to make changes to it after his capture and the revelation of Stavros's duplicity.”
“This symbol.” I tapped on the pentagram. “It was in the Crelussa Kinsky. And the one at Verrange. Sergei Kinsky's last move was to embed this journal with a way to reveal how to find his duplicitous master.”
Axer stared down at it for a moment, then looked at me with a raised brow.