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“Dane?” Juniper went to his side but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Hey, earth to Dane.” She snapped her fingers in his face, and he jolted.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing? You were just staring like a zombie.”
“I…I don’t know. I was looking for something.”
“Landmarks,” Adriel whispered, and the hairs on Juniper’s neck stood up. “That’s how he must have found us before. He’s getting into our heads.”
A wave of panic rushed through Juniper. “There must be a tear in the protection spell.”
Adriel rushed to the bow window and yanked the curtains shut. “I found myself doing the same thing the other day.” She clutched her throat and paled. “He’s going to find us.”
Juniper mentally checked the spell and frowned. “It has to be something else. Everything’s intact. There’s no breach.”
“He already did it once with me when you were unconscious,” Adriel argued, her body tense and her voice high-pitched with panic. “He must have found a loophole.”
“No, I checked. It’s like Fort Knox up here.” Juniper pointed to her skull.
“How do you hold the spell while you sleep?” Dane shaded his eyes and focused only on the floor.
Juniper shrugged. “I sort of set it like a watch. But I can tell when someone breaks through.”
“Some immortals are travelers.” Adriel’s voice fell quiet. “They latch on to a host and can co-exist inside of their mind for decades undetected.”
Dane curled his lip. “Like a parasite?”
“Exactly.” Adriel shook her head. “He was always private about his disciplines. He could have hidden such a thing from me. I was young and knew very little back then.”
A sense of paranoia drifted through the room like a draft of noxious gas. “Everyone stay away from the windows until we figure this out.” Juniper paged through the grimoires, searching for any reference to such things.
“How do they get in?” Dane asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s a very rare discipline.”
“Ugh, I feel so…violated.” Dane scrubbed his head as if it were infested with lice. “What if he’s inside of me right now? How do I get him out?”
“I’m looking. Let me concentrate!” Juniper blocked out their questions and focused on finding some actual answers. “I found something.”
She turned the book because the page had more hand-drawn illustrations than words. It depicted a physical body entering the mind of another.
“What’s that say?” Dane pointed to the inscription at the top of the page.
“Fantasi theid.It means thief of imagination. They commandeer other people’s visions and can even alter their thoughts. I think he was doing it to me on the mountain. I was completely paranoid with crippling anxiety, but it wasn’t me thinking those things. As soon as I realized it was him, I pushed him out.”
“How?”
Juniper shrugged. “I don’t know. I just…did.” She hunched over the book, her finger dragging down the inscription as she mumbled through the spell written in tongues. “Okay, both of you sit down and shut your eyes. Try to clear your minds.”
They did as she said, with two very different results.
“Adriel, your aura’s literally buzzing with cognitive activity. You need to push everything out so I can find any unwanted presence and block it.”
“I’m picturing a black room,” Dane said, eyes closed. “Do me first.”
Juniper placed her hands on his head and whispered the words of the incantation. The spirits rushed toward her in a wave that let her know they were there and a low humming started in her ear, as if they were also whispering the spell from a different plane. Dane swayed and grunted. His body shook subtly then she found something—a shadow that seemed to cloak his frontal lobe.
He jerked as she latched onto the presence. Her voice grew louder, as did the buzzing in her ears. Invisible hands pressed into her back and shoulders, encouraging and lending strength.
