“Very well.” His jaw was tight. “Do you want her to stay?”

Lucia glanced at Cleo for a long, heavy moment. “That depends,” she said. “After all you’ve heard here, do you even want to stay?”

Was that a trick question? To gauge how strong Cleo’s interest was in this subject?

No reason for her to falter now.

“Yes,” Cleo said firmly. “It’s all so incredibly fascinating. I want to stay, if you’ll let me.”

Lucia didn’t speak for a moment, her attention sharp and unwavering in its assessment of her. “Yes, you can stay,” she finally said. “After all, it’s your ring that seems to be the important piece here.” She held out her hand. “May I have it?”

“Of course.” Cleo didn’t hesitate to pull it off her finger and give it to Lucia, who looked down at it with awe.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

It was. And it wrenched Cleo’s heart out of her chest to see it in someone else’s possession.

Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. This could still work.

Alexius pulled the shutters over the windows and closed the balcony doors, casting the room into shadow. He lit several candles and placed them in a cluster in the middle of the floor.

“Melenia went over this spell with me in detail, which will channel all four parts of your elementia,” he said. “Please, sit, both of you.”

Cleo sat on the floor, about five feet away from Lucia. Alexius sat down in front of them, creating a triangle with the candles at the center.

“I will warn you, princess,” Alexius said to Lucia, “that this will drain both your magic and your energy. I don’t yet know how much. But if I find it’s harming you, I will put a stop to it.”

Lucia nodded. “Understood. I’m not afraid. How do we begin?”

“Melenia has been working with your father to construct the Imperial Road,” he said. Cleo gasped as Alexius motioned with his hand, sending light spreading out across the floor between them. Finally, the light morphed into a shimmering map, which Cleo recognized immediately as Mytica. Mountain ranges, forestland, beaches, cities, towns, villages, lakes, and rivers—all rendered in exquisite detail on this magical landscape. It was like something from a dream.

Alexius studied the map. Then a new line of light appeared, etching itself into the landscape.

“It’s the road,” Lucia said, her eyes wide. “I recognize it from the maps my father studies every day.”

“The road is important,” Alexius explained. “It was engineered by an exiled Watcher, like myself. The road is infused with his magic, specifically as Melenia has instructed.

“There are four points along this road, four locations that Melenia determined to be powerful places that hold a more concentrated level of elemental magic than anywhere else in Mytica. She has used the road to join these places of power, threading them together like pearls on a necklace. Three of these locations have been the setting of fateful moments of blood magic. Blood that was spilled on or near the road then triggered elemental disasters, which confirmed them as ideal locations.”

Cleo stared at Alexius now, barely breathing. Elemental disasters—she’d experienced one herself. A massive earthquake on the day of her wedding right after the slaughter of Jonas’s group of rebels.

Blood magic. Could it be true?

“Sounds complicated,” Cleo said.

He nodded. “The recovery of the Kindred is a complicated, layered process. Nothing this important is ever easy.”

She had to agree with him on that.

“So where are they?” Lucia asked. “These places of power?”

“I can’t reveal that. You must be able to see them for yourself, using your own magic. When you do see them, you will then be able to awaken the crystals and draw them to these magical locations. Your magic is as pure as the magic possessed by the Kindred themselves, and it is only through that spark of magic that they can be physically claimed, piece by piece.” He glanced at Cleo. “The claiming is slightly less complicated than the awakening.”

“How are they claimed?” she ventured, needing to know everything she possibly could.

“Through blood magic. To make the crystals appear, the symbols for each Kindred must be drawn in blood at the locations.”

Incredible. It was all too much, yet she wanted more. “I’ve heard it said that the power of a crystal is so great, it can corrupt one who touches it,” she said. One of Cleo’s beliefs about her ring was that wearing it would protect her from corruption.

“That warning that applies to Watchers,” Alexius said, his expression distant in the flickering light of the map and the candles. “A warning which has often gone unheeded in the past, I’m afraid.”

So the crystals wouldn’t corrupt a mortal. Was it true? Could she trust anything this boy said?

He could be lying. She had no way of knowing for sure what was true and what was false.

“How do I do it?” Lucia asked, now frowning as she stared at the map. “How do I awaken the crystals?”

“This will help you. Watch.” Alexius leaned over and took the ring from Lucia, then balanced it on its edge before her, flicking it to set it spinning. “As long as you concentrate on it, it will keep spinning. Clear your mind of everything else. Think only of the ring and the magic it contains. Its power will enhance what you already have.”