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“It’s not.” Moira set the last candle. “It’s time we push into her mind, as she’s pushed into all of ours. It’s a good, hot needle under the skin, if you’re asking me. And Cian deserves to give her a taste of her own.”
She straightened. “Will we be able to watch?”
“Thirsty for some vengeance yourself?” Cian questioned.
Moira’s eyes were cold smoke. “Parched. Will we?”
“If all goes as it should.” Glenna took a breath. “Ready for some astral projection?” she asked Cian.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Step inside the circle of candles, both of you. You’ll need to achieve a meditative state, Cian. Moira and I will be your watchers, and the observers. We’ll hold your body to this plane while your mind and image travel.”
“Is it true,” Moira asked her, “that it helps hold a traveling spirit to the safety of its world if it carries something from someone of it?”
Glenna pushed at her hair again. “It’s a theory.”
“Then take this.” She tugged off the band of beads and leather that bound her braid. “In case the theory’s true.”
After giving it a dubious frown, Cian shoved it in his pocket. “I’m armed with hair trinkets.”
Glenna picked up a small bowl of balm. “Focus, open the chakras,” she said as she rubbed the balm on his skin. “Relax your body, open your mind.”
She looked at Moira. “We’ll cast the circle. Imagine light, soft, blue light. This is protection.”
While they cast, Cian focused on a white door. It was his habitual symbol when he chose to meditate. When he was ready, the door would open. And he would go through it.
“He has a strong mind,” Glenna told Moira. “And a great deal of practice. He told me he studied in Tibet. Never mind,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m stalling. I’m a little nervous.”
“Her wizard isn’t any stronger than you. What he can do, you can do.”
“Damn right. Gotta say though, I hope to hell Lilith is sleeping. Should be, really should be.” Glenna glanced at the window at the thinning rain. “We’re about to find out.”
She’d left an opening in the poppet, and prepared to fill it with grains of graveyard dirt, rosemary and sage, ground amethyst and quartz.
“You have to control your emotions for the binding, Moira. Set aside your hatred, your fear. We desire justice and sight. Lilith can be harmed, and we can use magic to do so, but Cian will be a conduit. I wouldn’t want any negativity to backwash on him.”
“Justice then. It’s enough.”
Glenna closed the poppet with a plug of wax.
“We call on Maat, goddess of justice and balance to guide our hand. With this image we send magic across air, across land.” She placed a white feather against the doll, wrapped it in black ribbon. “Give the creature whose image I hold, dream and memory ancient and old.”
She handed the ritual knife to Moira, nodded.
“Sealed by blood she shed, bound now with these drops of red.”
Cian showed no reaction when Moira lifted his hand to draw the knife over his palm.
“Mind and image of the life she took joins her now so he may look. And while we watch we hold him safe in hand and heart until he chooses to depart. Through us into her this magic streams. Take our messenger into her dream. Open doors so we may see. As we will, so mote it be.”
Glenna held the poppet over the cauldron, and releasing it, left it suspended on will and air.
“Take his hand,” she said to Moira. “And hold on.”
When Moira’s hand clasped his, Cian didn’t go through the door. He exploded through it. Flying through a dark even his eyes couldn’t conquer, he felt Moira’s hand tighten strong on his. In his mind, he heard her voice, cool and calm.