A subtle change overtook the big male. It was nothing sudden, nothing huge, but a look crept over his strong features, an odd expression Lu recognized as the same one that had so changed Magnus’s face only moments before.

Resignation.

He shared a glance with Magnus, fleeting but indelibly dark, almost sad, and Lu’s stomach twinged with foreboding.

Demetrius straightened. Crossed his bulging arms over his chest. Stared hard at the map, as if it had personally offended him, his square chin jutted out like a dare. He muttered, “Cogs in the machine, Seeker, all of us. You know it as well as I.”

Magnus jerked his head toward Lu and Honor, his brows quirked as if he were asking a silent question, and Demetrius shook his head.

Whatever that exchange meant, it definitely held meaning for Magnus, because he closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, then nodded, as if satisfied.

Only he wasn’t smiling.

He adopted the same pose as Demetrius, arms crossed, legs spread, and Lu and Honor were treated to the sight of two big, handsome males glowering down their noses at them. “Have you told Jenna we’re coming?” asked Magnus, looking at Honor.

She tensed. Lu looked at her, sensing her sister’s worry.

“She’s not answering me. Not since yesterday.”

Lu sat up straighter. “Has that ever happened before?”

Honor shook her head, threaded a lock of her hair between her fingers, and began to nibble it. If Lu hadn’t been so filled with new anxiety about what their mother’s silence might mean, she would have smiled; she’d only stopped chewing on the ends of her hair when she began wearing it in a braid a few years ago.

She laid a hand on Honor’s arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Everything is going to be okay.

Honor nodded, but didn’t reply. She stood. “Are we done here?”

Magnus and Demetrius shared a look. It was Magnus who answered. “We leave as soon as Jack has those names, Lumina. Get a bag ready. But pack light; whatever you bring you’ll have to carry.”

Lu nodded.

“And one more thing.”

She looked up at him. Magnus was looking back at her with an expression of dispassion, his face closed off again. But beneath the shadows of his hood, his eyes were aglow, intent and unblinking.

“Your hair.”

Lu reached up and touched her head. “What about it?”

“It’s too . . . distinctive. We’ll get you another pair of contacts to replace the ones you lost when you Shifted, but you need to do something with your hair so it won’t be so noticeable. Dye it. Hide it under a hat. Something.”

Honor said, “I know what to do.”

“Oh. Okay,” said Lu, rising from her chair. She brightened. “I’ve always wanted to be a redhead.”

“Not red.” Magnus still wasn’t blinking. His gaze burned the air between them like a lit fuse. “Less distinctive, Lumina.”

Honor reached out and took Lu’s hand, gently pulling. “I said I know what to do, Seeker. You worry about getting in and out safely, and leave the beauty regimens to me.”

With that, she led Lu away, leaving Magnus and Demetrius staring after them in silence.

Magnus waited until Lumina and Honor’s footsteps had faded before he spoke, and even then he kept his voice low. “I don’t want to know the details. I don’t believe a man should know how he’s going to die. No good could come of that. I only want to know one thing: Will she see it?”

He didn’t turn and look at Demetrius, because he knew how difficult this was for him. His Gift of Foresight had, more often than not, been a terrible burden for him. The knowledge came to him in dreams, but those dreams were almost always nightmares. He’d known his home colony in Rome would be invaded. He’d known his two best friends would refuse to leave with everyone else, and would die defending it. Magnus assumed Demetrius also knew the hour and method of his own death, and his wife Eliana’s. On the scale of horrible things, that was right up there with knowing you were never going to die. So he didn’t look at the hulking male who’d become as close a friend as Magnus had had in the last twenty years; he just waited.

“Yes. Lumina will be there when it happens.” Demetrius’s voice was filled with sorrow.

Magnus cursed. “But she’ll be unharmed? She’ll get her mother out of that prison? They’ll escape?”

“I’m sorry, brother. I don’t know the outcome. The Dream was . . . incomplete.”

Magnus cursed again, louder.

“There’s something else, though. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Now Magnus did look at Demetrius, because the tone in his voice changed. Gone was the sorrow, replaced by agitation, or frustration.

“What is it?”

Demetrius glanced at him. His eyes were the color of polished obsidian. His brows pulled together, and the three small silver rings in his eyebrow glinted in the low light. “She’ll be different, afterward. She won’t be the same woman she is now. In fact, she won’t be Lumina anymore at all.”

“What the hell does that mean? How could she not be herself?”

Demetrius exhaled a heavy breath, passing a hand over his face. “All I know is that Lumina won’t exist anymore, not in the way she does now.”

Magnus whirled around and faced Demetrius. “You said she would survive! You intimated it, when I asked if there was anything you needed to tell me, you shook your head no—”

“She’ll live,” Demetrius insisted, his voice growing louder to match Magnus’s. “But she won’t be Lumina. I don’t know how to better explain it, Magnus. I don’t know what the Dreams mean, I only know what they show me!”

Magnus was breathing hard, his hands clenched to fists at his side. “But she will live. You’re sure of that, at least?”

Demetrius nodded, and the steel band that had tightened around Magnus’s chest loosened a degree. “All right,” he said, mollified. “If that’s the best we’ve got, I’ll take it.” He turned to leave.

From behind him, Demetrius said quietly, “You can change it, you know.”

Magnus stopped, listening.

“The future isn’t set in stone. Every action, every decision, creates a new path. You don’t have to walk into this situation, knowing what you now know. We can find another way.”

Magnus turned slowly and looked at Demetrius. “Fate’s going to have her way with all of us, D. If I sidestep now, it’s just a delay. You’ll have another Dream another night, and find out how I die a different way. Am I right?”

Demetrius lifted his chin, his gaze steady and penetrating. He said nothing.

“I made Lumina a promise that I’d bring her parents back to her, or die trying. There’s nothing in this world that could change my mind, not even knowing that at least half of that promise is guaranteed to come true. I’m a tool, Demetrius. I’m an instrument. And every breath I’ve ever taken in my life has been leading me to this.” He paused, and for a long moment the two looked at one another. With quiet reverence, Magnus added, “Dying for her will be the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s what I’m meant for. It’s my destiny, Demetrius. And I welcome it.”

Then he turned and walked away.

NINETEEN

Honor’s room—cave, Lu kept reminding herself—was well away from the warren of others they’d passed on their way through the cool, echoing passageways that led from the Assembly chamber. The shadowed beauty of the place enthralled her; soaring ceilings and secret corners and whispers teased along stone walls, the scent of water and moss, air so deathly still it felt entombed.