The Oracle rose, walking towards the door in a parallel path to Amana. In front of Amana the Oracle paused and said, her eyes fixed on Amana, “He will find his dream.” She exited the room, Shisen a step behind her.
Amana’s doppelganger was now in front of her, and they were both back in the bedroom of the cabin, Merc on the bed and holding the sleeping Amana’s hand. Amana stepped back, surprise and confusion rocking through her, that she had gone through all that without her demon. How? Where had the other been?
Death-blue eyes stared into her own, malevolent anger and, yes, confusion in the other’s face. She didn’t know why Amana had been able to move without her either. “What is it you found?” the other asked, advancing on Amana, those thin fingers curling into fists at her side.
“Nothing,” Amana said, wincing with the realization too fast. Spoke too fast.
“Now that’s a lie,” the other said, her mouth twisting in anger.
How had Amana experienced that vision without this one around? Wasn’t this one the key to her power somehow? “Lie or not, it’s all you’re getting from me.”
Amana moved to turn away, but the other grabbed her upper arms hard, slim fingers digging into the skin, and it hurt, even in the dream. “Keep lying to yourself, if that makes you happy, but you will eventually ally with me. No one is immune to the power we can have together.”
Amana faced her devil. “I’ll admit to many sins, but one thing I’ve never done is lie to myself. If anything, you’re the one who is desperate for me to be a liar, because that means you can take control.” Amana leaned closer, and in a fierce whisper, said “It’s not happening.”
The doppelganger went calm, her eyes considering. “I’m still here, and I’ll always be here. Give me the opening, and I’ll take over.”
Amana woke up, to Merc’s soft snores filling the room and long, slim stripes of bruises on her arms.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
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His hair was being stroked, and Merc arched into the touch, pushing his head against the hand like a cat wanting to be petted. Loved the light strokes, loved having someone touch him, not having to watch his back, and loved sleepy wake-ups instead of worry…
He jackknifed up, away from Amana’s hand, her fingers tangling only a moment in the long strands before they slipped free.
“Morning sleepy-head,” she said, calm and collected, sitting up in the bed beside him. “You look better.”
How the hells had he fallen asleep? He’d… he talked to Nemesis, and closed his to think for a minute…
Fuck.
But…Amana was here, still in her pajamas, and the book was still in the safe, sending out the same inviting waves it had been since he first laid eyes on it. “You didn’t escape.”
She swallowed hard, turned her head away, studied the painting of the mountainside as if it held the secrets of life within. “You shouldn’t trust me yet,” she said, pausing to lick her lips, the movement endearing in how visible her nerves were. “I’m still going to save my brother, and if leaving you would have accomplished that last night, I would’ve. But the Guild can’t be trusted, and there is nothing I can do by leaving you that I can’t do by staying with you.”
She was lying to him, the most gorgeous lie he’d ever heard. While her words were technically true, she would have had an easier time and more options if she had left, and she knew that. Instead, she had chosen him, chosen to stay together. He pushed the fall of hair back from her face, that face which had become dear to him in dreams, but was now becoming dearer in reality. “I know nothing can ever stop you from helping your brother, but can you wait for me? Let me finish this, and I swear, we’ll work together to get him.”
He hated the tentativeness in his voice, but no matter how hardened he was, the prospect of her turning away from him had him wanting to protect his heart, shore up his defenses.
Defenses that were washed away as her eyes lit up, joy spreading across her face as slowly as her smile did. “Are you serious? You don’t know where he is.”
“Somewhere very difficult to free him from if you needed help from the Guild,” Merc said, sitting up more and resting his back against the headboard. “It will be ugly and hard, and after it’s done it’ll mean a life on the run. Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” she said before he had even finished the last word, before he could add any other warnings. Her eyes were wide and shining, a fervent light and a focused intensity where he could see the future play across those beautiful brown eyes. “Yes. It’s everything I want. It’s hard now. I’m always running now. At least I’ll have my brother, and…if you wanted…you and I…”