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Here without the burden of all your cares, you are brighter than the sun.”
    It’s not real. It’s not real. None of this is real. Wake up…wake up.
    “You’re going to have to try harder, dear one. Or…stop fighting, and rest.”
    Get away from me.
    The dreamtime was swimming and lurching all around him, conscious and unconscious fighting for control, and both fighting against the drugs that were keeping them asleep. That’s what I get for buying the good stuff.
    Suddenly he felt something take hold of the forest, grip it in iron hands, and say in a voice that shook the dreamtime, “ If you think I will allow you to throw away what I have given you, child, you are mistaken. If it’s firepower you want—”
    The energy that thundered through him—conscious, unconscious, the whole of damned creation—was so intense that, had it touched a wire, it would have knocked out the power to the entire Southern United States. It was lightning in a very fragile bottle that should have shattered. His vision was thrown into the Sight so hard he couldn’t breathe, just in time to see the wave of power flood the entire segment of the Web visible to his gift, strike the edges, and ripple back, over and over until it finally began to settle, leaving every strand glowing the color of moonlight on snow.
    Deven sat bolt upright in the chair he’d passed out in at the clinic, that soundless thunder deafening inside his head. He was drenched in sweat and panting. Bewildered, he stared around the little room, momentarily clueless as to where he was or why.
    His eyes fell on the IV pump by the chair. Drugs. Right. Except…
    …why wasn’t there a needle in his arm? The IV tube simply dangled off the pump, attached to nothing. But if he wasn’t taking anything, why was he even here?
    He pushed himself up and grabbed his coat off the hook on the door, and all but staggered out of the clinic—no one noticed. People stumbled out of the place all the time.
    “Jesus,” he muttered. The sound made his head start pounding fit to split.
    There was a bus stop half a block up the street, and by a miracle he got there and fell onto the bench, teeth chattering with the sudden blast of cold. He forced his coat on and curled up in a ball.
    Oh, I must look like a proper junkie now. Well done, Prime.
    He snorted at the last word. He hadn’t been Prime of anything in almost two years.
    He sat up, still dizzy, and tried to ground, but the dizziness only grew worse, as did the headache and the shaking. He might have mistaken it for withdrawal, except for one last thing:
    His hands started burning.
    “No,” he said, crossing his arms. “Not this. Not now. No.”
    There was a frightening amount of power moving around in him, and he had no idea where it was from—a check of the barrier he kept over the Signet bond showed nothing had changed. Whatever this was, it had hit him alone, and with every passing minute it grew worse, and worse…
    History repeating. There was only one thing to do.
    He forced himself to his feet, took a moment to figure out which street he was on, and Misted from the bus stop to Brackenridge Hospital.

Chapter Two
    “ Bring on the wonder, bring on the song
    I’ve pushed you down deep in my soul for too long…”
    Miranda wanted nothing more than to wipe the last two years from the calendar…to expunge its memory, from the night after Jonathan and Deven’s wedding to now.
    There was no joy in it anywhere; every single night had hurt. Even the triumphs—her music career was soaring, she had two new Grammys and a host of other awards—were tinged with grey from the shadows in her heart.
    Here in the Haven time stood still, or rather, life stood still—the months wore on, and they waited for something to change. They prepared themselves for the war they knew was upon them, but no shots were fired.
    She couldn’t complain. She was holding herself together better than Nico and certainly better than Deven. But she was