Page 62 of Bright Soul

“She gives us privacy,” I said.

“She is a powercore. There is no privacy,” he countered.

I raised a brow. “Okay, she’s your daughter.”

“One who I have failed immeasurably,” he murmured. He sat up and looked over at a group of defenders coming and going from the front entrance. It was a shift change, and amongst theCrystal fae was Geo in his gargoyle form. He spotted us and started for where we were sitting.

“What do you mean? She still adores you,” I said. He just had to see everything she’d done for him lately to prove it.

“I was not strong enough to say goodbye to her. I so desperately wanted her…to live…” Phaeron cocked his head, looking at Geo strangely.

I hardly noticed, though, standing and holding my arms out to Geo. His face lit up, and he took his human form to lift and whirl me around. “Good morning, beautiful,” he said.

“Safe and sound because of you.” I shared a kiss with him once he placed me back on my feet.

Once we broke apart, I expected Phaeron to have disappeared, like he so often did when I took my eyes off him for a moment too long. Except this time, he was where I’d left him. “Take her away if you please. She must be getting tired of my stories by now,” he said.

“Okay.” After a pause, Geo reconsidered and added, “We will be at breakfast. Come with us and get your ration.”

My astonishment must’ve been obvious, as Phaeron winked before Geo laced his fingers with mine and tugged me along to get some essential calories for the day ahead.

24

PHAERON

We ate breakfast in a waiting room with Cress’s coven, as the hospital’s tiny cafeteria was already packed full of defenders and staff members gulping down their rations before getting to work. The witches were quite excited…breakfast was bacon and eggs.

Cress had gotten plenty of compliments for the formal braid I’d given her, with rows of tiny, hearty wildflowers tied just behind her ears. I was rather proud of my handiwork. She sat between Geo and me, taking slow, distracted bites while she chatted with Willow, who’d perched in a seat across from us.

“We can just announce that Ocean Gate 438 is open and ask for backup. I bet you people will come,” Willow was saying. “My maybe-father won’t close it unless I go through it, so why not get some help?”

“It would be unwise,” I said in as gentle a tone I could muster. I could see she was in delicate spirits, excited to have a role to play in the conflict she’d barely gotten a chance to fight in. “We need specific help. If you put a call out to the greater supernatural world, the first people to arrive through that oceangate will be young glory-hunters and a handful of demigods foolish enough to think they can take Myuna on directly. They will only feed her and make her stronger.”

Willow’s face fell. “But—”

“How will we even separate the help we want verses the help that arrives?” Geo asked.

“Easily enough. We don’t ask for help,” I said. Cress had been in the earlier meeting where we’d discussed this already and nodded tentatively. “The fewer living souls inside Cerris City, the better. If we truly wish to take advantage of Ocean Gate 438, we will evacuate the whole city, including the staff at this hospital. We’d scare the bounty hunters into returning to where they came from. No one remains except those absolutely necessary to our mission.”

Dubious glances turned my way from every witch in earshot. I folded and crunched down a whole strip of bacon, waiting. The salt and fat exploded on my tongue just right, and I closed my eyes from simple pleasure. I could’ve eaten a whole side of bacon rather than the two sad strips each of us had been rationed.

“If all of our support leaves,” Geo said slowly, “who will remain to take care of Myuna?”

Roe, sitting close enough to pick up the conversation, pitched in, “There’s no way everyone can be evacuated, no matter how far-reaching Wren’s stream is. Too many people will die if you’re thinking we leave too and collapse the pocket dimension behind us.”

“I didn’t say we flee. I’m not convinced Myuna can be erased so easily, anyway.” I didn’t hide the troubled twist to my mouth. “What if the fabric of Cerris City rips around Myuna as it collapses and she ends up in the middle of a major human city? It will be the Age of Decay all over again, butmuchworse with such a huge population of unaware humans facing a hungry cosmic deity.”

“We don’t know that will happen,” Roe said.

“We don’t know that it won’t,” I countered. “Auric et Vess has a plan to return Myuna to Soiluire. It will not require an army to carry out. All we have to do is get him close enough to her to manipulate the Void that clings to her like a second skin.”

Willow stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Going back to getting as many people out of Cerris City as possible. We could use the stream for announcing a gathering point and avoid mentioning the ocean gate.”

“Indeed. But we must be prepared to fight. We will face the majority of Myuna’s forces, as the unnaturals will follow survivors or sense a big group amassing and attack. When we win, we break up the flow of unwilling servants into her service and destroy what she’s already amassed. She will be forced into the one thing she doesn’t want to do…” I bared my fangs in a bloodthirsty grin. “To get up and fight for herself.”

Cress worried her lip. “But if we lose…”

“We’d be completely fucked, right?” Willow murmured. “We’d deliver everyone left in Cerris City to Myuna’s monsters.”

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