“How are you?”

  I tilted her chin up, looking into her eyes.

  “Better,” she smiled weakly.

  “By the way, why did you go take a bath in the middle of the night anyway?”

  “I wasn’t feeling well… I had a bad dream… Very bad… I woke up with a sensation of magic quietly tearing its way out… A warm bath always helped me in moments like that; I’d relax right away and calm down if I caught the bad surge in time…”

  “Why didn’t you call me right away?”

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” Lori muttered.

  “I thought I could handle it myself… But it hit me so suddenly. It’s never hit me like that before…”

  I shook my head disapprovingly.

  “This isn’t the time to spare my sleep, Lori. You need to wake me immediately.”

  “I already realized I did something really stupid,” Lori sighed.

  “I’m sorry…”

  She was still trembling slightly but gradually relaxing, calming down. I held her tightly, stroking her hair, running my fingers through her black locks.

  “You said you had a bad dream… Tell me about the dream.”

  Lori didn’t answer right away, tensing up and curling back into a frightened ball.

  “I think he’s trying to reach me,” she whispered.

  “Who?”

  “Effu…”

  In response to my questioning look, Lori answered:

  “I don’t remember the details of my dream, but I remember a strange flickering of colors before my eyes and a voice… A creepy voice that kept repeating the same phrases, pounding harder than a sledgehammer…”

  “What phrases?” I frowned.

  “Come to me…let me in…we will become one…I will make you strong… I think… I think Effu wants to take over my mind,” she added, and her eyes glistened with tears again.

  I scanned Lori’s aura again with concern, paying special attention to her mental blocks that I had personally set up recently. And I pursed my lips unhappily when I saw something that did indeed look suspicious — a faint energy trace.

  “It’s not Effu, Lori. His appearance in the Armarillis dimension isn’t currently possible; the space itself protects us here. But someone was indeed trying to break through your mental defenses… They didn’t break through. I put a good block on you, it held and will hold against a hundred such mental attacks. Just tickled you slightly, and you felt it through your dream. That ‘tickle’ is probably what triggered your attack. But… it’s not Effu. A primordial spirit of chaos would leave a very bright energy trace that would be impossible to hide. And here… the sensations are completely different, basically.”

  Lori sobbed again and looked at me anxiously.

  “Then whose voice did I hear?”

  “I don’t know, Lori… I don’t know yet.”

  I damn well really didn’t know. But I intended to figure it out in the near future.

  The last thing we needed was for some mental nasty to be able to penetrate Armarillis… And why was this nasty specifically trying to press on Lori’s consciousness?

  ‘We will become one,’ huh… If it’s not Effu, then who else could be trying to penetrate someone’s consciousness with such claims, and for what purpose?

  Is this some creature from the flip side of the world? And if so, how could it penetrate Armarillis if that’s impossible without the owner’s consent? Or is there an owner, and they’re among us?.. Or is this not some spirit, but a mental attack from the flip side of dreams? What’s even happening there now, in that dream fabric, after Effu’s breakthrough from the third level?..

  So many questions and no answers…

  “I will definitely protect you,” I added confidently, kissing Lori on the corner of her lips.

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  “From anything and anyone who threatens you. I promise.”

  Lori smiled and settled more comfortably on my shoulder. She ran her warm palms across my chest. So nice…

  “Stay with me…”

  “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. And I’m not letting you sleep alone anymore. I’ll feel calmer that way. Tonight I was working until three in the morning, went to sleep in my own room so I wouldn’t wake you… and I shouldn’t have,” I sighed heavily.

  “If I’d been sleeping next to you I would have sensed something was off right away and acted even faster…”

  For a while we just lay there silently in each other’s arms, each thinking their own thoughts. Actually, we were probably thinking along the same lines, but I was frantically running through ideas for additional protections for Lori. And wondering what creature could have so brazenly tried to get into her mind, triggering a dark attack? And why? I didn’t know what kind of creature it was, but I desperately wanted to squeeze its throat…

  Outside the weather was bad and it was slowly getting light. Raindrops drummed against the glass, tapping out a steady rhythm, as we continued lying in each other’s arms, intertwining our fingers and simply warming each other with the warmth of our hearts.

  “I love listening to the rain,” Lori said in the silence.

  “And I love twilight…”

  “Why?”

  Lori shrugged vaguely.

  “The steady tapping of drops on the glass calms me. It’s kind of… meditative, I guess. You know? I just like it, that’s all. And also… it’s beautiful.”

  “I think it’s beautiful too,” I agreed.

  “I like twilight time and drizzling rain much more than early morning and bright sunshine.”

  “We’re alike in that,” Lori smiled.

  “We’re alike in a lot of things, aren’t we? In our views on life, in our magic…”

  “Just not in our potential lifespan,” Lori whispered.

  “Hmm? What do you mean?”

  Lori didn’t answer right away. She was silent for a long time, gathering her thoughts, then spoke, carefully looking away:

  “I don’t have long to live, Cal. A year or two at most… If my magical imbalance isn’t resolved. I overheard a conversation between my father and the Mentor a year ago… The night before my birthday… They were saying they didn’t know how to save me, and that I had maybe two or three years left at most…”

  She told me in detail about that conversation and looked at me tensely, as if expecting some negative reaction…

  But I, on the contrary, only smiled when she finished speaking.

  “Is that why you ran away on your birthday? Had a meltdown? And decided to go after me because you figured you had nothing left to lose?”

  She sobbed again, nodded, and spoke quietly, telling me how she’d hated herself for her magical imbalance, how she’d been afraid to attract my attention because she considered herself problematic and unwanted by anyone… She talked and kept sniffling; the topic was clearly painful for her, and her words were like a confession.

  “Sometimes I think it would be nice if magic didn’t exist at all,” Lori whispered.

  “Living without it would definitely be easier for me. At least just living… Which is also not bad…”

  And I listened to her, listened and smiled, and my seemingly inappropriate smile left Lori puzzled.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not surprised right now?” Lori asked, sniffling again.

  “Because I’m really not surprised. I know that if your magical imbalance isn’t resolved, you have a year or two left at most. A year and a half, to be precise. I could even calculate the approximate exact date if needed.”

  “How do you know? Oh, wait… The Mentor told you, right?”

  I shook my head.

  “I read this information from your aura during our first training session, when you returned to the academy. Actually, even before the training I just needed to look at you from a certain angle, with shadow sight. The degree of aura thinning and its progressive fading is obvious to me. And I told you right away back then that I would find a way to solve this problem. Because I really don’t consider it unsolvable.”

  “I can see there are ways out of this difficult situation. There are actually several ways out, but I’m trying to find the one that will suit you perfectly and solve the problem not partially and in stages, but completely all at once. Preferably without losing any of your magical abilities, or even better with their improvement, so to speak. Actually, I think I’ve found such a way; I just need to check some details, try the ritual on myself first, and then move on to you. Basically, the news about your potentially short lifespan isn’t news to me. And it’s definitely not something that could push me away from you.”

  “Oh… Cal…”

  In that simple “oh” there was more emotion than in any other words. Lori squeezed me in her arms, wrapping her arms around my neck so tightly from an overflow of emotion that I actually started coughing.

  “No need to choke me, my phenomenal one,” I wheezed, trying to loosen the grip on my neck.

  “You’ll still need me around… And not just for a useful ritual… I’m also good in bed! Supposedly…”

  Lori laughed, and I smiled broadly too.

  Finally she’s laughing! I want her to smile and laugh as much as possible and cry as little as possible… I’d like to say ‘never cry’, but that’s not how it works, yeah.

  “But why test the ritual on yourself?” Lori asked doubtfully.

  “You don’t seem to need one like that…”

  “Well, it won’t be exactly the same, it'll have a personalized formula for me, with some modifications. And it definitely won’t hurt me. According to my calculations, the ritual should improve my magical abilities, fully stabilize my shadow side, which could even lead to awakening hidden abilities. And anyway, before conducting such experiments on you, I need to make sure it’s completely safe by testing it on myself. Plus… otherwise Eric will tear my head off,” I muttered unhappily.

  Lori smiled broadly, stroking my cheek with her hand.

  “Good thing I caught you last year,” she whispered with a sly smile.

  “And I caught you, this year,” I whispered against her lips, pulling her in for a kiss.

  I don’t know what lies ahead with everything going on with Effu, but I’m sure of one thing: together with Lori, we can handle any problems. And I’m also sure that I don’t want to let this girl go, and I’ll do anything for her safety.

  “Everything will be okay, Lori, I promise. I’m with you.”