Wildblood

Chapter 54

54

When Miya learned that Kai had been taken, she knew the blood soaking the bar towels wouldn’t be the last of the night. Her injuries stopped hurting the moment Connor told her. A crushing weight settled over her chest, and she sank to the floor next to the domovoy, tears like lava on her face.

Failure stung like a bitch.

“If we storm Pyotr’s compound, we’ll be gunned down like ducks.” Ama’s voice of reason barely filtered through the fugue.

“We don’t even know where it is,” Crowbar added glumly.

“I can get in.” Miya looked up when the crunch of glass subsided. Both the white wolf and the bartender had stopped pacing, turning to stare at her. She’d never seen Ama so disheveled. Gore streaked her hands and neck, her white hair crusted with red and mussed from combat. Bastien left for the nearest corner store, promising to return with first aid and extra cleaning supplies. Miya had used up what’d remained on Ama’s insistence, tweezing out glass, disinfecting cuts, and wrapping them with medical gauze.

Crowbar threw her arms out, her face as blotchy as Miya’s. “How?”

“I can go through the dreamscape.” Miya swallowed, eyes darting to Gavran. “Physically.”

Tear the seams of reality.

Ama stalked up to Miya, desolation etching her usually serene face. “You know how hard that is on your body. If you go in there, you’ll be in enemy territory. You don’t have the luxury of resting.”

Miya let out a shaky breath. “I know.” It’d been years since she’d had to rend her way through realms. She only ever dreamwalked now, but she was desperate.

“My question stands: how are we going to find them?” Crowbar insisted.

Them. Kai and Caelan. The sting returned, dogged that Miya choke on her blunders. “Gavran can help me.”

The raven cocked his head, offering an assured beat of his wings.

Miya pushed to her feet, the domovoy chittering as he fretted. “He’s our sentinel—on this side and in the dreamscape. It might take some muddling, but it’s our best shot.”

Ama and Crowbar exchanged worried glances. After several moments of weighty silence, Ama surrendered to a tired slouch. She wrapped her arms around Miya’s middle. “If anyone can do it, you can.”

An affirmation, a gesture of confidence—trust that Miya could handle herself without support. “Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing the white wolf back. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

Crowbar hustled in, glomming on with a fierce bear hug. She rested her head on Ama’s shoulder, and the white wolf craned her neck to plant an affectionate kiss on her girlfriend’s forehead. Gavran too joined them, roosting on their entangled arms and nuzzling their faces. They still had each other—a bond forged from love—and together, they were an ironclad fortress.

As they pulled apart, Miya scratched through Gavran’s plush breast while he purred from her shoulder. Odd and willful as he was, he remained with her unconditionally. He’d peck out Kai’s eyeballs for stealing one of his peanuts, but in the end, his allegiance was to his family. And Kai was family.

Now, all Miya needed was a ritual. Tearing through space wasn’t exactly whimsical, and unlike dreamwalking, it couldn’t be done anywhere. She needed to make a door—a gateway. The fallen elm’s memorial in Boston Common would’ve been ideal, but she didn’t have time to go there. She needed something here, now. The bar had sold for cheap because it was haunted. It had a history—a tether to the other side.

Miya’s eyes settled on the domovoy, then trailed up to the old mirror on the wall.

Maybe there was a way.

Ancient trees were an anchor and a suture between worlds. They were fixed points, something proximate to both sides. The domovoy was a spirit tied to his family and home, but he was also immaterial, invisible to most. Perhaps he too could be an anchor, a stitch between realms. And as far as ritual was concerned, what better to act as a doorway than a mirror?

Gavran hopped off Miya’s shoulder when she snatched Crowbar’s citrus knife and crouched in front of the domovoy. She opened her palm, face up, and he placed his little paw in her hand.

“I need your help,” she told him softly. “Kai and Caelan are in danger. I have to find them, but I need a shortcut to the dreamscape. Do you think you could help me make one?”

The domovoy tilted his head and chirped, withdrawing his paw. He needed strength—more than just carbohydrates. Miya cast Ama a questioning glance, and the white wolf nodded.

Miya brought the blade to her palm, blood ribboning over the swell of her hand. The domovoy bent forward, fixated on the pooling liquid.

“This is my oath,” Miya began. “Lend me your strength, and you will be fed in my home for as long as I live. You’re no longer tied to this place; you’re tied to me.”

The domovoy stretched his paw, tentative. He gazed up at her with large round eyes, then flattened his palm against hers. A vow made in blood. Warmth spread through Miya’s veins, her pulse singing as newfound power wove through her like sprouting ivy.

“Thank you,” she breathed, feeling the domovoy bolster her. They were connected now, and wherever she made her home, the domovoy would follow. For now, it was the King of Spades, but she’d freed him of the four walls that’d sealed him here. He’d outlived his first family and was left confined to their residence without recourse. Now, he’d never be forced into isolation again.

Miya gave the domovoy a tender smile, then rose to face the mirror. She extended her arm, and Gavran eagerly found purchase. Miya placed her cut palm against the cold glass, and a delicate stream of blood leached from the wound, drawing a path through the room’s reflection. As the scarlet trail fractured the room in two, the glass roiled like water disturbed by a raindrop. Miya was that disturbance. Gradually, the reflection morphed—no longer the King of Spades, but a dark corridor lit only by pallid fog. Miya grasped the dream stone, feeling it hum against her skin. That umbral tunnel wasn’t her destination, but it was a path forward. With Gavran at her side, she’d find her way.

Zverev had his nose. The Dreamwalker had a bird’s-eye view of reality.