sighed. I don’t know who I am. Am I a taiga or a ryuu? Or both? A taigryuu? She giggled. But then she grew pensive again. What kind of soldier am I, though, if I have no weapons? Or maybe I do, I don’t know. They were on me when I came to the gate. . . . I think Bullfrog injected me with genka after he knocked me unconscious?
Oh gods, it was Sora. Or at least a version of Sora. She’d come back to the Citadel, only to be confronted by the councilmember most vehement in his belief that she’d succumbed to Prince Gin’s charm. So Bullfrog had subdued her by shooting her with genka, a botanical drug used to pacify violent prisoners.
This is a dream, right? Sora asked. I’m dreaming that you’re in my head, Daemon. . . . Ooh, look, a green serpent! Isn’t it pretty?
Daemon smiled drowsily, at Sora missing him and her being back, and at the green stars shaped like a serpent. But the constellation’s tongue—a green comet of some sort—flicked as it floated by, licking Daemon’s cheek with a stinging twitch. The sharpness roused him.
He batted the serpent constellation away. How was this happening? Sora was hallucinating because of the genka, but she’d somehow pulled Daemon into her dream.
Maybe this was another facet of ryuu power. The Society had thought they understood magic, but they hadn’t even scraped the surface. And here was something even more, an extra dimension to gemina bonds. Maybe, in her drugged state, Sora’s new powers had expanded the connection she and Daemon shared.
Sora, I know you’re, uh, slightly giddy, but I need you to listen to me closely. Where are you?
In the stars?
Daemon looked up. It seemed they were indeed flying among the stars. He wondered if they were seeing the same thing.
I mean, where is your actual body? he asked. A shooting star whooshed by him, so close it nicked his arm. He massaged the burn, but it vanished quickly, as dream burns do.
In a room . . .
Sora, I need you to focus. This is important.
He could feel her try to pull herself together.
Lemme try . . . to see . . . the wakeful world, she said.
Her thoughts struggled to make progress, like she was slogging through a swamp. But eventually, she said, I see it. It’s a fancy room. A big one. Sora’s voice cartwheeled groggily, and he could see the physical manifestation of it, jeweled green spirals spinning in slow motion in the air.
He had to find her in real life, outside of this dream.
Big, fancy room. Hmm.
The councilmembers had large suites, lavishly furnished. Perhaps she was being kept prisoner in Bullfrog’s quarters?
Daemon needed to alert the other taigas. And he needed to get to Sora before the rest of the ryuu arrived. He tried to shake himself out of the dream. But the stars reached out with tendrils of light that held him fast, like vines wrapped around his arms.
Sora, let go of the connection. You have to let me out of your delirium.
Huh? Her dizziness spun through him. But I don’t want to be separated from you again.
Daemon’s breath caught in his throat. Sora had always been self-sufficient, an island in a sea of taigas. But now she needed him.
You won’t lose me, Sora. You found me. And I’m coming for you right now. But you need to stop projecting. You need to let me out of the hallucination.
Silence.
Sora . . .
All right.
He felt her hold on for another moment, and then the starlight released him and he fell through the darkness,
down
down
down
until he hit the earth with a jolt. His eyes sprang open to reality, and he bolted up from where he lay on the boathouse ground. Early morning traces of light greeted him.
It was real, Daemon told himself, even though a part of him still wasn’t sure whether it had just been a realistic dream.
No. It was real. I know Sora; it felt like her. Despite the fact that his gemina was drugged, being reconnected in that hallucination was the most whole Daemon had felt since they’d been separated on Prince Gin’s ship. He actually felt more than whole.
He strapped his bo onto his back and shook Broomstick awake.
Broomstick was up in less than a second, knives in hand. “Ryuu?” he asked.
“Sort of,” Daemon said. “Sora.”
“Here?” He looked around the boathouse.
“It’s hard to explain. She came back to help us, but Bullfrog didn’t believe her and drugged her with genka.