The cold rain and the sound of strange words, whose melody I’d learned to recognize by now, brought me back from a vertiginous world of dizziness. I saw something shimmer on the floor, all around us, and a bluish wall rose from the ground and covered us, forming a small dome. Still confused I noticed I was sitting in the middle of a huge Magic Circle, and that Lea was standing just a few feet away, checking the bright symbols inscribed on the floor.

I tired my best to stand up, my legs still shaky, and fought the dizziness that tried to pull me down again. I looked around, still astounded, and dried my wet face, noticing that the barrier around us even protected us from the rain that kept falling on the outside. From what I was able to understand from the dark shadows surrounding us, we were somewhere amongst trees, maybe the small park near my house.

“Mari, are you all right?” Two big, warm hands held me gently, but I instinctively pushed him away.

“Take me back!” I ordered him and his worried expression was replaced by a deep disappointment.

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Lea!” I contested and he ran a hand through his wet hair.

“Anyway, it won’t be long.”

“You don’t understand!” I claimed in exasperation. “She doesn’t want to just defeat him! She wants to make him cross his own limits, so that he himself ends up destroying everything, so that there’s nothing left to keep him here!”

“Master will never do such a thing,” he guaranteed me with absolute certainty and I nodded.

“Exactly. And then what happened the last time will happen again!”

“My Master will never lose to such inferior evocations.”

“And so if he doesn’t? What about Alexander? And Jonathan?” I insisted and he averted his gaze. “I can stop her!” I declared but Lea shook his head in absolute denial.

“Sigweardiel knows all too well the risks implied in this war. Besides, even if I did want to help you, I can’t. Master told me specifically to keep you in this Circle until everything is over. That’s what we all decided after our last encounter with Telane. I can’t disobey him.”

And that was that, I knew.

It was as if the ground below my feet had disappeared. The certainty that Lea would never let me go, and that I had to stay in that place, far from him, plunged my mind into darkness. Walls I didn’t know existed rose inside me, closing over me, threatening to crush me. Just like Lea had told me, I knew he would never use his power to defeat Telane, afraid he might destroy everything around him. She probably knew that as well, I realized in terror, and that’s why she was attacking him, even though he was so much stronger than her. But that would mean that he’d be at her mercy, just like what happened eighty years ago, when his Brothers had Sealed him away. And a dark fear took over me when my mind played in front of my eyes all the possible terrible scenarios, until there was only one coherent thought left. I have to go to him.

My own voice resonated through the ocean inside me and echoed back a similar response. It was the second time I could consciously access that point of total harmony and I finally understood what he’d meant when he’d told me about the synchronicity between my Soul and my Human feelings. The heat wave that washed over me made me hold my breath and a golden light broke through the shadows that had stolen my sight.

With trembling hands I looked inside my sweater for the origin of that glow and held the small, incandescent ring tight in my hand. I recalled his words, when he’d told me how and when I’d be able to activate the powers Sealed inside the Circle, and reinforced my own will.

“Mari?!”

I ignored Lea’s worried voice and closed my eyes, squeezing the ring. Inside me there was only one will, only one command. I’d never felt so whole, so complete, so free of any doubts or questions. I took a deep breath and allowed my voice to echo my determination.

“Take me to him!”