She sent a telepathic message to Fiona, but even though her obsidian power was in play, it couldn’t pass through the shroud. The same with Marguerite.
She looked up. Leto seemed to be holding his ground, still flinging hand-blasts, but for how long?
* * *
Leto hurled the hand-blasts one after the other, as though his desperation to keep Grace safe had amplified his power. But for all that, Greaves met each blast effortlessly. At least the swiftness of the blasts did keep Greaves from attacking Grace again. But why did she remain on the bed?
“I see you have a new form,” Greaves said.
Leto didn’t answer. Anger fed his power, and he flicked his wrist three times and rushed power at Greaves.
But his former master shunted them aside. “Your abilities have expanded.”
“Yes. So has my motivation. I want to live now. I didn’t before.”
“You should always be prepared to die.”
“Fuck off.” He shunted a couple of Greaves’s hits aside while powering up. But he felt Grace’s presence suddenly and simply allowed her to enter his soul very deep. He knew what she was after and felt her acquire the same power.
Good thinking, he sent as he flipped another blast at Greaves.
As soon as she left, and he could sense her reshaping her powers, he hit Greaves with all he had. Grace joined him.
Grace’s unexpected blasts struck Greaves in the chest, and he flew back against the wall by the fireplace. Leto knew better than to stop, and Grace must have had the same idea because they advanced on him and rained hand-blasts at him in quick succession. His body jerked and started to smoke until finally he fell limp.
Leto moved to stand over him. Was this possible? Had he and Grace together defeated the monster?
Grace approached him. “Is he dead? I can’t believe we might have actually killed him? Is he dead?”
The answer came swiftly as the body vanished and Greaves called to them. “Come, come, my children. Did you think killing me would be so simple? Or that even together you had enough combined power to destroy me?”
As Leto turned, Grace with him, the next blast flowed over Leto’s body like a sheet of molten ore, heavy and burning hot. This time he was thrown against the same wall, and Grace with him. He had no illusions about what had just happened. This blow would finish them both. All Greaves had to do now was bring in his death vampires.
So was this how it would end for him and for his woman, smashed up against the wall, in the same place Greaves had just inhabited?
He opened his eyes to slits. He could manage nothing more. Grace was in a heap next to him, her limbs bent at weird angles and blood flowing from her nose and mouth. He smelled burning flesh. He tried to reach her mind, but nothing was there.
* * *
The pain was beyond Grace’s comprehension or tolerance.
Before she could make sense of what she had done, she apparitioned and the moment she did, the pain was gone. At least Greaves couldn’t prevent her from doing this.
Her first thought was again of Casimir. Maybe she had sufficient power to bring him through the heavy shroud that Greaves had created over the cabin. She focused on him, and her ghost-self flew through the cabin and the dense shroud all the way through nether-space, past Second Earth, to the portal to Third.
She found herself in a room that had a wall of windows. Casimir was pacing the length. She called to him.
He turned toward her. His eyes went wide as he looked her up and down. “I saw you like this in Moscow Two when you took Leto away.”
“Yes, this is my apparition-form.”
“What’s happening? I just realized that something is wrong with my voyeur window. Is Leto all right?”
She shook her head. “Greaves has us trapped in Leto’s cabin, beneath a shroud of mist that no one can penetrate. I can leave in this form, but neither of us can fold out of the room. I’m hoping I can bring you back.”
“Let’s go.”
He moved toward her, and she put her apparition-hand on his shoulder. She thought the thought, but nothing happened. She tried several times, but she couldn’t move him back with her.
She shook her head. “This isn’t working. Just … let Endelle know. I’ve got to find some way to do this. I’m going to Beatrice. Maybe she can help.”
“Yes, go. I’ll do what I can here.”
She focused on Beatrice and began to glide past Third; then she was at the palace. Beatrice sat in her chair, the lavender yarn in a ball at her left elbow.
“My son has hurt you, hasn’t he?”
Grace explained the situation. “Can you help me?”
“Try to take me back with you.” Beatrice reached for Grace’s arm.
Once the connection was made, Grace once more attempted the return trip—but she couldn’t do it, not with another ascender.
Despite her apparition-form, she fell at the philosopher’s feet. She didn’t know what else she could do. She laid her head on Beatrice’s lap. “Did you know this would happen, that your son would take my life?”
“No, but it seemed like a logical thing for him to do. You are one of the greatest threats to his plans.”
“I learned Leto’s hand-blast skill just now.”
“You’re very powerful, Grace.”
She frowned as she fingered the silk of Beatrice’s skirt. She felt the woman’s gentle hand on her head. “I don’t want to die. I want to live and be with Leto, to share his bed. I want to bear his children, but I’m barren. My life has been so barren, so useless.”
“Don’t say that. You were always beloved wherever you went.”
“And yet I held back from love. Even after I completed the breh-hedden with Leto, it was as though I was still a ghost with him. He could be outside of me or in me, and yet could he really embrace me and hold me? Hold who I was? Oh, Beatrice, I didn’t want to be a ghost with him, an apparition. How do you make the apparition real when you’ve been a ghost your entire life?”
And there it was, the hard truth, the deep understanding that finally came to her. She had been a ghost in her life from the time she’d given up her baby for adoption. She’d lived in the shadows of life, always keeping herself safe, keeping herself from harm.
Now she was near death, as was Leto, and she had no way to help him or herself. How had this happened? Why had this happened? “I’ve lived in the shadows all my life.”
Beatrice spoke softly. “My dear, you don’t even know, do you?”