“Not this time,” I groaned, eyes clamped shut as I sank a tendril of thought deep in his mind. That curse he’d tried to bind me with was still in my soul, and we would be connected until it became a part of me and was fully invoked. I distantly heard Trent shouting my name, and I smiled as I felt the real world swallowed up by the imagined, but no less real, world of the dewar. I was on the floor in the hotel, but my mind was elsewhere, surrounded by elves.

Thoughts not my own beat at me, and I hid my mind behind Landon’s as he sent a wave of emotion and domination over them all, collecting the rising power to bend it to one will. He didn’t know I was there in his soul. I could feel his fear of what had happened and his relief because he thought he had escaped.

The dewar was exactly like the demon collective or the witches’ coven—there but not a joining of minds yet, each one remaining an individual. The sound of drums shifted the beat of my heart, and the chant tickled a memory I’d never had.

The dewar elves were spelling, and as their power rose, given direction by Landon’s will, a growing sensation of division blossomed with it, like ink on a blank page. Vivian? I thought, then quashed it lest Landon know my soul was here, piggybacked on his thoughts. But it was Vivian, and Professor Anders, and a handful of other bright silver thoughts striding through the ponderous beat of the rising curse. Their song was a half step out of sync as they tried to break the curse and prevent the lines from ending, but their voices were small and easily lost.

Morgan! Landon’s thought iced through me as he found me hiding. I gasped as a wave of hatred pinned my soul down. Now you die!

I felt my body clench as Landon spun his intent through the dewar to collect his borrowed power to his purpose. The chant for the curse to break the lines continued without him as Landon turned his attention to destroying me. Vertigo spun me as he lit a flame of destruction in the middle of my brain. My throat went raw as I screamed as Landon’s curse raced through me, burning.

Almost lost under my agony, a twang echoed through me. It was the first ley line, falling under the dewar’s curse.

The dewar drums thundered, and a cheer rose, drowning out the pain Landon had pinned me with. He turned his thoughts from me, and a comforting black presence scooped me up, rolling me in the scent of burnt amber until the pain retreated and I could think again.