me with a strong hand before I could run to the old desk and the junk I’d found behind it. When I looked at him in surprise, he gave an emphatic shake of his head.
“If another mage has taken control of the mirror, he could kill us with it. Stand back.”
“And let you take the full brunt? No way. Mick, you have to stop protecting me.”
Mick shot me a grin that held his old fire. “You know that’s an argument you’re never going to win.”
He more or less shoved me behind him and tugged aside the desk without much effort. Behind it lay a beat-up painting and the heavy frame of the magic mirror, facing the wall. Mick seized the frame in his big hands and turned it around …
“What—?” I ran forward, and this time Mick didn’t stop me.
The frame looked the same, a gilded thing from the 1890s, its gold leaf flaking off. But it was empty, holding nothing but blank space.
Chapter Eighteen
I stared, dumbfounded. Mick slammed the frame back into the wall, sending more flakes of gilt drifting to the floor.
“Are you sure this is where it was?” Mick growled.
“Yes, that’s the mirror. Or was the mirror.”
“Then the mage has already been here.”
Shit. “Looks like it,” was all I could say.
Drake had come in behind me. “This is grievous news.”
“You think?” I sat down, folding my legs under me, the floor cold. “But what can he do? This is my dream, isn’t it? And yours,” I said to Drake. “Must be Emmett’s too,” I finished glumly.
Mick wrapped warm fingers around my wrist. “This is no dream. This is real.”
“It can’t be.”
Mick frowned down at me. “What I want you to do, Janet, is tell me everything—why you think this is a dream, how you learned about Drake and the Dragon Council, who this mage is that did this to me … Everything.”
I sighed. “You won’t believe me.”
Mick’s grip tightened. “I’ve lived more than two hundred and fifty years and seen many things. You didn’t believe in dragons before you met me, did you? So try me.”
I had to concede his point. I wanted to retreat someplace safer, somewhere not close to the vortexes, but Mick held me there, his hand strong, his gaze firmly on mine. He wouldn’t budge until he was satisfied.
I let out a breath. “All right,” I said and settled my legs under me. “Once upon a time, there was a bad, bad mage called Emmett Smith, who coveted a magic mirror.”
I was interrupted by shrill screaming. Not inside, but outside, in the parking lot. A woman was crying out, her panic true.
Mick made it first out the door, even though he’d been furthest from it. Drake held back to let me precede him, as though he felt the need to continue his duty as rearguard.
We spaced ourselves around the gallery so it wouldn’t fall under our collected weight, moving as a fighting team even as we responded to the crisis. We made it down the front stairs without anything dire happening and across the rubble-strewn expanse of the lobby.
Mick wrenched open the locked front door and stopped. I peered around him and blinked in astonishment.
Maya Medina stood in front of the hotel, her fists balled, eyes wide, tears on her lovely face. She was in her white work coveralls, her black hair pulled into a ponytail, which hung down her back as she stared up at the hotel with a look of horror.
When she saw Mick, me behind him, and Drake behind me, her screams cut off and she let out a long, relieved breath.
“Dios, Janet, I thought I was crazy.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and glared at the hotel again. “But I must still be crazy. What the hell happened to this place?”
Mick didn’t want to let me past him, but I ducked around him and went toward Maya, my hands out as though I calmed a scared child or panicked animal. “You know me?” I asked.
Maya gave me an impatient look. “Of course I know you. And him, and him.” She pointed at Mick and Drake in turn. “But everyone else has gone insane.”
I hesitated, not knowing what to tell her. Any reassurance would be a lie. There was too much magic in this situation for it not to be dangerous.
“It’s a spell,” I began. “It’s making us dream of the past. Emmett cast it on us.”
Maya stared at me then looked exasperated. “You mean