The Dream Crafter(6)

So the small woman was a wizard or a mage. And though spells to silence areas were common enough that Amana couldn’t tell from that alone how powerful the Japanese woman was, Amana had no doubt the two women in front of her were not to be underestimated. “Who are you?”

“Guild.”

An insane urge to laugh bubbled inside her, and Amana buried her head in her hands to stifle any errant sounds. How long had she been running from this possibility? “I guess I should be grateful you’re not necromancers.” She wasn’t, but she should be.

“I like anyone who looks at the bright side. It suits my naturally sunny disposition.” Fallon’s comment had Laire snorting, but with only a side-eyed look at the magic caster, Fallon continued. “We know what you are, Dream Crafter.”

“How can you know what I am? I don’t even know what I am.” And she didn’t. There was no example of what she was outside of legends, tales so old there was no way to tell fact from fiction.

Fallon tilted her head, the rise of her eyebrow sharing incredulity someone would doubt her. “We have sources you wouldn’t know about. Granted, even with those there are a lot of open questions, but we know enough.”

“Good for you. Whatever you know, I don’t, and I haven’t been eager to find out anything about what I’m capable of.”

“You know you’re capable of affecting the real world.” Fallon leaned forward, eyes intent like a cat before it strikes. “And that’s the only thing we’re going to ask you to do.”

The only thing? What she’d been fearing a repeat of for the last decade? What put her brother in jail? And Fallon sat there, a devil holding out Amana’s dearest desire in exchange for her soul. “What is it you want me to do?”

“The facilitator Hadrien, you’ve heard of him?” Technically Fallon was asking a question, but it had that flatness of tone that told the asker was only asking out of politeness, the answer already known to them.

Of course she knew Hadrien. He never was able to amass enough power to get to the top of the food chain, but the bastard had his hands everywhere, from outlawed magic to underground fights to procuring women for all manner of servitude. Yes, she knew him all too well. “What do you need from him?”

“He’s become a little too bold in his black market procurement. Right now he has something of extreme importance that he’s getting ready to place on private auction. It’s known as the Spellbook.”

“A spellbook? What type?” She had enough dealings in her life with wizards and mages to know a spellbook with rare spells would be worth a nice amount.

Laire spoke, her voice a high enough pitch that any bartender would double-check her ID before serving her a drink. “The Spellbook. The one and only. So unique and so powerful it doesn’t even need a fancy name. Believe me, you don’t want to know what wizards would be capable of with that in their possession.”

Something like that available to the types Hadrien would be in contact with? “How did a middling crook like Hadrien get hold of such power?”

A brief flicker passed over Fallon’s face, no doubt an internal debate over what information to impart. She seemed to feel this was harmless enough, for she said, “He was lucky enough – or unlucky enough – to double-cross some powerful people. He’s hoping that the sale will be enough to buy him protection for the rest of his miserable life.”

“And where exactly do I fit in?” That was what she needed, the price of getting her brother free.

Fallon’s hand rested on the wood of the table, her fingers moving to punctuate her words. “Here’s our problem. The Spellbook is guarded by the most feared mercenary in the new realms, and I can attest his legend is well earned. He already knows we’re after him and is guarded against a good part of what we could throw at him. It would be best for us not to get into a combat situation. What we need to do instead is attack him with something he has no defense against.”

“And you need me to…?”

“Meet up with him in his dreams and come into the waking world with the Spellbook. After you give us the book, we go get your brother and bring him out of jail. All nice and proper, and you two wouldn’t even be on the run for the rest of your lives like you would have if your plan to break him out succeeded.”

Nakoa with her, walking down the beach, hand in hand and free and together. It had been a dream that kept her going for the last several years, and now the reality was in her grasp. “I can’t.” The words poured out, even as her heart screamed at her to stop, to think of Nakoa, to offer them anything in return for her brother’s love and warmth and safe near her. “You know why I can’t. If you know us, you know what happened. You know everything else, so you know what happened that day.”