Page 94 of Spirit Storm

"Yeah, I'm good," I tell him. "And I'll be even better once we're all home."

He gives me a quick kiss. "We'll meet you at the forge castle."

When it's just me and Asher, I hold out my hand. "If you will, kind sir."

He takes my hand, and we're gone.

The air outside the forge building is cool and smells like pine. I raise my fist and rap my knuckles on the door.

A moment later, the door swings open and Mica stares at me. She grabs me before I can speak and hugs me hard enough to rearrange my spine. "Holy shit, are you all right? Izzy texted me what happened. What an absolute disaster."

I squeeze her back. "Yeah, it was a giant clusterfuck, but I'm fine. Well, I'm upright and functional, and that's as close to fine as I get these days."

She pulls back and looks me over, steel-gray eyes moving from my face to my hands and back again, assessing.

I wave her off. "I'm good. Actually, I just had a little pep talk with Birdie and I've got an idea."

Asher brightens. "Birdie? Was she at the infirmary?"

"No, she brought me to her apartment and gave me this little guy for good luck."

I pull out the troll doll, and Asher lights up. "Trolliver Queen. Damn, it's good to see you, buddy."

Mica doesn't seem to know what to make of us, so I put her out of her misery. "I'm here to donate more blood." I step past her into the building, Asher on my heels. "I've got twice as much power now. I don't know what it is or how to use it yet, but that's beside the point. We're donating Asher's blood too."

Asher blinks. "We are?"

"We are. It hit me while I was chatting with Birdie, my blood connects me to Tharuzel, which makes it useful for locking onto him. But Asher's magic is the opposite of everything Tharuzel is and stands for."

I look at him properly. "He couldn't get through your shield. I don't think that was just because of your awesome power. It was what you are. Your intention. You are goodness and light, Ash. Compassion and love, in one extremely chaotic package. I think imbuing your blood and your essence into the weapons will be like poison to Tharuzel and his demons."

Asher stares at me, and his grin breaks wide and entirely unbothered. "I'm demon kryptonite."

Mica is already moving. She beckons us toward the back of the building with two fingers, and I follow, stepping through the archway that leads toward the forge room.

I stop.

The Concordance Mirror stands against the wall of the front room where we hung it, and I catch my reflection as I pass.

I take a step back.

My reflection steps back with me. Not a half-second behind, not lagging in that unsettling, untethered way that made my stomach drop every time before. It moves when I move, stops when I stop, blinks when I blink.

Perfectly in sync.

I lift my hand and wave at myself, slow and deliberate. My reflection waves back, bright-eyed and blue-haired, everything exactly where it should be.

"Well, would you look at that?" Asher stands behind me and rests his chin on the top of my head. "Yay, you."

Something warm and quiet opens in my chest.

I meet his gaze in the reflection and smile. "It's like everything happens as it's meant to."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It's after seven in the morning when we finish with Mica at the forge building and drop Lily and Violet back at Hallowind House. It may have been a rash decision to pull out of Arcana so quickly, but it's amazing to see my sisters back home.

Asher pauses long enough to let the puppers out for a pee and to feed them and give them some belly rubs, and then, he, Wylder, and I are out at the standing stones, and he's using the Hallowind ancestral power to portal us back to the Order chapter in Nassau.