He stepped inside the silent space, well lit by the spring sunshine filtering through the water above. The silver struts framing the windows sparkled with interior light, a hint of rose-gold in them. He could swear he smelled roses in the otherwise cool, still air.

Nic was everywhere and nowhere.

The silver bed with its chains caught his eye. It had once seemed so threatening, but his fears of becoming a monster seemed childish now. He didn’t care what he did or became if it meant saving Nic. Nothing mattered but that.

With somber thoroughness, he searched the many cabinets and drawers studded around the dome in the interstices between windows and found plenty of useful tools and weapons. See? Nic chided in his mind. I told you your ancestors created this stuff and left it to you for good reason. Foolish wizard that you were too afraid of what you’d find to look before this.

“I’m looking now,” he retorted to her ghost, his voice echoing oddly in the quiet space without ears to listen.

Having made a neat stack of blades, a couple of swords, and even a quiver of silver-tipped arrows, he left them by the door and seated himself beneath the circular moon window at the apex of the dome. It would be better to do this with direct moonlight, but the moon was always there, if unseen. And the water surrounded and soothed him.

Centering himself, he did his best to calm his mind with the disciplines Asa had begun to teach him. Memories of Nic in this place crowded into the empty spaces of his mind, her warm laughter, her sensual gasps and cries, the feel of her skin against his, hot and silken, redolent of wine and roses.

Though he wasn’t doing it correctly, the arcanium answered. It responded as Nic responded to his kisses, to the caress of his hand, willingly and warmly. The magic spun into him, rich and ancient. Here was more than the sum of Nic and him; there were other magics sunk deep here, planted in love and eroticism, in the extremity of sensation, and powerful intensity.

For the first time, he considered that his ancestors might not have been universally terrible.

Finally replete, feeling something like his usual self, he rose and gathered the weapons and tools. He was ready to face the hunters.

“Looking to take my job?” Jadren asked with a raised brow, surveying the pile of weapons Gabriel had scattered on the workbench. He wasn’t about to let the other wizard inside the arcanium, so they were using the workshop instead, with everyone but the swamp monster locked out.

“Planning to report me to your mother?” Gabriel returned, mirroring the raised brow.

Jadren raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sure all of this is grandparented in.” Gingerly, he picked up a thick blade as long as his forearm. “Your ancestors didn’t mess around.”