“Good!” he said with a chuckle. “Because I think you’re stuck with her. Though Eilahn alone is not adequate protection for you yet.”

“I know how to be careful.” But a frown tugged at my mouth. Being careful hadn’t helped me the past few days, had it? “My house and the police station are warded like crazy.” I could take care of myself at home. Yeah, I’d have to become a hermit, but it would be worth it simply to be back.

Helori wasn’t smiling anymore. “You know how to be careful in your old paradigm,” he said, serious. “It served well enough for a time with Zakaar and Eilahn watching over you, and limited interest in you from other than Rhyzkahl. You are known now, so that interest is no longer limited. Others will seek you, and you are yet unschooled in the arcane beyond basics.”

A sick knot began to form in my gut. “What are you saying, Helori? That I can’t go home?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m saying that you need to be far better prepared before going home. Even a brief visit before then would require an escort in addition to Eilahn, and it would still be inadvisable.”

“Okay, so I’ll summon more demons,” I said, desperately clinging to the comforting thought of getting away from this place soon. “I’ll owe favors if I have to.”

He reached and laid a hand on my arm. “You have had a brief glimpse of the work that Idris does, yet you comprehend only a fraction of it,” he said with quiet insistence. “You know now that there is so much more apart from rudimentary Earth-side summoning. You need expanded skills, and you have the resources, now, to acquire them.”

My eyes dropped to my hands in my lap. The low breeze stirred my shirt, brushing the fabric against the scars covering my torso. A nameless dread rose within me. “I can’t stay here,” I said hoarsely. “My aunt and my friends, they don’t know what happened to me. They don’t know if I’m alive or dead.”

“They can be notified through Gestamar, when next he is summoned,” Helori said quietly.

I let out a harsh laugh utterly devoid of humor. “Yeah, that’d be some letter home. ‘Hey, y’all, weather’s great here. Miss you tons. Oh, by the way, I got the shit tortured out of me, and everything’s all fucked up. Write soon!’”

“They would know you lived,” was his gentle reply. “Your choice to stay here and learn is critical, Kara. To best protect those on Earth, as well as yourself, you need to be as strong and capable as possible. Zakaar will most certainly be watching over your friends and family in your absence, though his primary focus is Ryan.”

I heard what he was saying. I would put everyone in danger if I returned home. Not just myself. Heartsick, I let the hope of going home anytime soon crumble to ash.

Helori shifted his hand from my arm to the base of my throat, touching the sigil carved there.

I drew back. “Don’t. Don’t touch them.”

He kept his hand extended toward the sigil. “You must look,” he urged. “You must know.”

I stiffened. “I’ve seen them.”

“You will not even glance at them now.” His eyes darkened with concern. “They are a part of you. You need to know them.”

“I know them, I promise,” I said, voice cracking. “I remember every agonizing instant that went into the making of them. Every day, for the rest of my life, I get to have the reminder of how stupid and gullible I was.”

He shifted to crouch beside me, looking every inch the syraza even though he was in human form. “You can use them to remind you of that, or you can use them to remind you, every moment of every day, of how strong you are to have thrived despite the motherfucker’s best efforts to destroy you.” He cocked his head, dropped his eyes to the scars that showed above the neckline of my shirt. “I look at them and see tenacity and strength. You need to know what Rhyzkahl put on you, not just that he put them on.”

I scrubbed at my face. “I look back at my time with him and see all the hints and clues that I should’ve picked up on.”

“When you first realized his intentions, what did you feel?” Helori asked quietly.

My lower lip quivered despite all efforts to maintain control. “I was…I don’t know. I was disappointed.” I scowled. “That was my main feeling. So fucking disappointed that he turned out to be such a…” Shaking, I took a deep breath and screamed it: “FUCKING DICK!”

Searing anger rose, near startling me with how foreign the sensation seemed after being so long immersed in panic and fear. I’d been ready to direct the anger at myself, yet now I knew that wouldn’t do me any good. I was the goddamn victim.

“Were he standing here right now,” Helori said, “what would you do?”

I swiped at my eyes, not surprised to find that I was crying. “I sure as hell wouldn’t scream anything. Not even a choice name.” I took a deep breath. “I won’t scream for him anymore. I’ve screamed too much for him already.” My gaze drifted to a flock of iridescent green sea birds swooping and diving into the water. Last time I’d seen a flock wheeling, I’d been in the gazebo at Rhyzkahl’s. “I hate him. He’s less than scum.” Then I smiled very slightly as I returned my attention to Helori. “But if he was standing right here, I might very well kick him really hard in the goddamn balls.”

A whisper of a smile touched his face.

I drew a deep breath and then blew it out. “Mzatal healed my body,” I continued. “Nothing hurts anymore.” I toyed with a patch of sand that had made its way onto the blanket, drew random patterns in it while I spoke. “The problem with healing my body of the injuries is that my mind feels like it should be healed as well.” I paused. “It’s not. It’s just as stretched and twisted and shattered as my shoulders were. I can be a real tenacious bitch.” I shook my head, gulped. “But this…. It’s like I’m barely holding onto myself.”

“Yes. I know,” Helori said. “It is why I proposed this time away for you. It is why we are here—to help you regain that hold.”

“You proposed it?” I gave him a puzzled look.

“Mzatal was exhausted and truly confounded about how to expediently work with the loss of yourself.” He gave me a gentle smile. “I offered this as a possible means.”

“Thanks,” I said softly. “I didn’t even know you before this.”

“As I said, once you summoned Rhyzkahl single-handedly, you became known among the syraza,” he said, then chuckled low. “And now you are getting to know something of me, though that can be a blessing and a curse.”

I laughed weakly. “I’m infamous. Great.”

My gaze returned to the gull-things. I could do this now. I had to do this now. Hands shaking and heart pounding, I shifted to kneel. I grabbed my shirt before I could panic and change my mind, then practically ripped it and my bra off and threw them aside. Breathing shallowly, I knelt half-nude before him.

Helori traced a sigil in the air above us. I flinched before realizing it was just the damn pygah, then scowled at my reaction.

“Be gentle on yourself,” he murmured. “As he was not.” He traced three more sigils around the pygah and set it spinning slowly above us.

“I made it this far, didn’t I?” I replied, though my voice quavered. The resonance of the pygah combined with the other sigils to form an almost palpable cocoon of calm. Slowly, I unclenched my hands, though I still wasn’t ready to look at the pygah or myself yet.

He took gentle hold of my left wrist, straightened my arm, and held it nearly straight out from my shoulder, so that I didn’t have to look down to see the scar where the mark used to be. “Look first here,” he said. “The first evidence of your betrayal.”

Ghostly echoes of the essence agony shimmered through me as I forced my eyes to the long, rippled scar. Sweat stung my armpits. “The fucker,” I whispered.

“He knew when he placed the mark that he meant to use you,” he told me. “Though the way you were used shifted from the original intent.”