Cameron and I sat side-by-side on the biggest pink sofa in my office’s waiting room, each of us wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket. Two cups of steaming tea lay on the coffee table. We’d spent the last hour sharing our life stories—and getting warm and dry again.

Then, suddenly, Jason was in the room. The front bell hadn’t even rung. Honestly, I didn’t know why I even bothered having one. Or locks. All of my recent guests had been immune to them.

“What happened?” I asked Jason.

He moved forward. There were a few scratches on his body, but nothing major.

“Shortly after you left, the Phantom made a portal and escaped through it,” Jason said.

“He made his own portal?”

“Yes.”

I’d only ever seen one other mage do that: Ruby, one of Vib’s ‘children’. She and her brethren had performed a lot of other disturbing magic as well. Was this Phantom linked to Vib and his Menagerie? If he was, we were in for a world of trouble.

Jason kept moving, going straight for Cameron. He grabbed my brother by the collar, hoisting him off the sofa.

“Who are you?” Jason asked, leveling a commanding glare at him.

“I’m…Cameron Storm,” he choked out. “Terra’s…brother.”

Jason’s grip tightened, and his magic clamped down on Cameron like a steel trap. My brother’s body shook.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, jumping up.

“Extracting.” Jason’s voice was pure ice.

Extraction was a kind of Phantom magic. The spell was performed by scaring your victim witless, then scraping the raw thoughts from his head—which was every bit as pleasant as it sounded.

Pain screamed in Cameron’s eyes, but he didn’t cry out.

“His mind is strong,” commented Jason.

“Let him go,” I bit out, a growl buzzing on my lips.

Jason released Cameron. “He’s clean.”

I glared at him. “You…” My body shook with barely suppressed anger. “What was that? What’s the matter with you?”

“He is an unknown,” Jason replied coolly. “He’s been out here most of his life. I had to make sure he wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t what, Jason? An assassin?” I pushed him back, away from Cameron, who was still quivering with the aftershocks of Jason’s Extraction. “What happened to you? When did you get to be so cruel?”

“You know what happened to me. You were there.”

I felt a twinge of guilt, thinking of his parents’ deaths. “What happened to you was terrible, Jason. But you had two choices: to pick up the pieces of your humanity and continue on, or to succumb to darkness and become a monster. You chose wrong.”

Jason said nothing, but he moved toward Cameron.

I stepped between him and my brother. “What are you doing?”

“I’m bringing him around back to kill him and dispose of the body,” he said.

The thing was, I couldn’t even tell if he was joking. And that scared me.

I frowned at him. “You aren’t doing any such thing.”

“Of course not,” he said with cold patience. “I’m bringing him back to Eclipse, where he’ll be safe.”

“No, you’re not. He isn’t safe with you. He’s staying with me.”

“You’re not being reasonable, Terra. I am better equipped to protect him.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust you, Jason. Not anymore. You’re no longer the person I used to know.”

Jason tried to walk around me, but I countered his movements.

“What will you do if that Phantom comes back and tries to take Cameron?” he asked. “Your position is not defendable here. And the nearest portal is too far away. If the Phantom attacks, you will neither be able to defend nor escape.”

He had a point. Damn him, he did. After two years, no one had been able to find Jason or his people. Whereas my address and phone number were in the galactic directory. We were a business, after all, and clients had to be able to find us.

“You must swear to me that no harm will come to Cameron, either by your hand or another’s.” I let the fire burn in my eyes.

“I swear it. He will be safe with me.”

Jason had done many things in his life, but he never lied. He never broke an oath.

“I’m coming with you,” I declared. I told myself I was coming along to make sure Cameron got there safely, but in truth, I wanted to squeeze in every second I could with him. We’d been separated for far too long.

Jason dipped his chin.

I looked at Cameron. “Jason can take you somewhere safe. If you’re willing to go with him.”

Cameron rubbed his head. “As long as he never does that again. My head felt like it was going to explode.”

“He won’t.” I squeezed his hand.

As his skin touched mine, a rush of images flooded my mind. It was his past. I saw him with the Revs. I saw him years earlier, being kidnapped by witches, their ship crashing. I saw him as a baby, right beside me. Braeden was right. We were connected—all the way back to the beginning.

As the last images faded out, I looked at him in surprise. “What was that?”

“I can see things, the past. Things that have happened.”

“A Prior,” Jason said.

A Prior was a mage with the power to gaze into the past, to see things as they once were.

“The images come so fast, but I can direct them a little. When I concentrate,” Cameron said shyly.

“You can use your power even without magic-augmenting accessories,” said Jason. “We’ll help you learn to control it better.”

I followed them to the door, bringing along my sword. Just in case.

* * *

I traveled with Jason and Cameron as far as Eclipse. I stayed with my brother for hours, until exhaustion began to drag me under. It had been a long day, and I’d expended a lot of magic. Jason offered me a room there. I wanted to stay—not just for the night, but for much, much longer—but I couldn’t shake the images of the tortured princes from my mind. The more exhausted I got, the harder the foresights hit. My brother was safe. Now I had to do something about my cousins.

It pained me to leave Cameron. We’d only just been reunited. But I had to go. My life was too dangerous for him right now. Bringing him with me would have been incredibly selfish.

Before I left Eclipse, I handed him a sand slate, a magic tablet mages used to communicate; it worked where phones and other tech didn’t. “I have the linked slate,” I told him. “If you need anything, just write to me. We will see each other again soon.”

I traveled via portal back to Crystal Falls. A few minutes after I arrived at the office, just as I’d finished cleaning my lingering injuries, Father walked through the door. And he was sporting a few injuries of his own.

“Your head is bleeding!” I exclaimed.

He shrugged. “That happens sometimes.”

“What happened?”

“I was fighting a dragon.”

“Cool.” I took a long, hard look at him. “You didn’t bring anything back with you,” I said, disappointed. Most girls asked their father for a pony, but I’d always wanted a pet dragon.

“I’m afraid the dragon was not suitable as a pet, Terra. It was quite wild and foul-tempered.”

I waved him over to the sofa. “Are you going to tell me what you’re up to?” I asked as I began to care for his burns and cuts. I already had the supplies out on the table from healing myself.

“I’m searching for a missing person.”

I peeled back the burnt leather of his vest. “In a dragon’s den?”

“The dragon was unexpected.”

There weren’t many worlds left with dragons on them. Too many galactic knights took it upon themselves to go on noble quests. Well, as far as I was concerned, there was nothing noble about slaying a dragon. They were beautiful, elegant creatures. The knights called them a menace, but they were no threat to anyone. They kept to themselves and stayed on their own worlds, which was more than I could say for the knights who hunted them.

The whole thing had started when a few clueless explorers had found dragon eggs and brought them back home with them, where they’d hatched. The mischievous little baby dragons had wreaked havoc on the local population.

That was the only way dragons could get to another world—as eggs or babies. Full-grown dragons were too large to fit through a portal, and they didn’t have spaceships.

“I’ve hit a roadblock in this job,” Father said.

“Oh?”

“I need someone who can get past a security system.”

“Magical or technological?” I asked him.

“Technological.”

“Call Marin.” I grabbed Marin’s business card out of the desk drawer and handed it to him. “She’s the best person you can get for this sort of thing.”

Father nodded, rising. I pulled him back down into his chair.

“You can’t possibly be thinking of going there right now.”

“Sure.”

“You look awful,” I told him.

“I think you mean awesome. I look awesome.”

“Oh, sure,” I agreed. “If awesome means you look like shit, then by all means, go fight another dragon right this second.”

He chuckled.

“You need some rest.” I slid the bowl of soup I’d made for myself across the table. “Take your medicine and then get a good night’s sleep.”

Father looked down at the bowl, his nose scrunching up. “It smells awful.”

“I think you mean awesome.” I grinned at him.

“Oh, sure. If awesome means it smells like—”

“It’s a new blend,” I told him. “It speeds up your healing three times faster than the previous mix.”

It also tasted three times as disgusting. I didn’t mention that. Father gave the soup a dubious look, but he drank it down dutifully, his face expressionless. He didn’t even throw it up, which was more than I could say for myself the first time I’d had it.

I made myself a bowl of healing soup too, and we talked about our evenings. I told him about the ruins of Decia, Lady Cassandra’s demon artifacts. And, finally, about Cameron.

“I would love to meet him,” Father said as we walked across the street to our apartment.

“He’s in Eclipse.”

Father grew very quiet. “You’re speaking to Jason again.” So he knew about Eclipse.

“Yes, Jason is keeping him safe.” I said as he continued to give me that foreboding look. “I’ll set up a get-together with Cameron.”

“Be careful,” Father warned me.

“With Cameron?”

“No. With Jason.” He set his hand over mine, meeting my eyes. “Be careful with your heart, Terra. I know how important Jason is to you, but you must have heard of his exploits. He isn’t the person you once knew.”

“I know he’s changed,” I said. “But I also know that my Jason is in there somewhere, deep down beneath the sinister assassin facade. I just have to find him.”

Father gave me a smile—and a goodnight kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well.”

I went to my room, but I didn’t sleep well at all. Nightmares plagued my mind the whole night long.