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“Okay,” Alaryia said. “Tak and I are going to start peeling off the first layer of this thing. When we hit a booby trap, we’ll stop and let Indaturan and Ystelyan deal with it before continuing.”

“That seems reasonable,” Matthias said. “Is there anything we can do? I mean, Sonia’s learning new wards and Lyd is resting, but the rest of us?”

“Not really,” Alaryia said. “Contact your other allies and tell them what has happened, maybe? I suspect they are wondering where you are.”

“My family know,” Adrian said. “But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to send messages to some of the others.”

“You should,” Lydia opened her eyes briefly. “Though I imagine Melissa told her mother.”

“Yes, I’ll send a few imps,” Matthias said.

“Good,” Alaryia turned her eyes back to the rapier. “And we will deal with this.”
***
Lydia dozed fitfully on the couch, slipping between vivid dreams and short periods of wakefulness. It wasn’t very restful so eventually she groaned and sat up.

“Trouble sleeping?” Adrian asked.

She nodded. “The sort of dozing that makes you feel more tired, not less tired.” She frowned as she tried to chase down the images from her dreams, certain they were important. “I think whoever created that thing is trying to find me. I think that’s what my dreams were about.”

“That’s entirely possible,” Alaryia said. “We need to take a break from unwrapping this anyway so I’ll have a look. If you’re sensing them, we might be able to identify them from that.”

“And then I’ll get Mal to make you a sedative,” Ystelyan said.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Lydia said. “I think I kept waking up because they would have found me if I fell asleep.”

“Dream tracking?” Alaryia said. “It’s possible but unusual. We’ll soon find out.”

“And if it is, there are ways to use it against the user,” Indaturan said. “We’ll be able to completely misdirect them so they won’t be able to find you.”

“That would be good,” Lydia said. “I can’t not sleep, after all.”

“I’ll look now.” Alaryia came over and sat on the arm of couch. “Lie down and try and doze again. I’ll monitor and see if I can sense what you did.”

Lydia did as she requested and almost immediately, her mind flooded with the same disjointed yet vivid images as before and the definite feeling that someone or something malicious was looking for her. Before they could lock on, however, she was pulled back to wakefulness by Alaryia.

“Defintely dream location,” she said. “And whoever they are is very good.”

“Definitely not Aneria then,” Indaturan came over to join them. “She’s no good with dreams at all. Let’s put up the misdirection, then see if we can identify who is really doing it.”

“Yes, of course,” Alaryia said. “I’ll let you handle the misdirection since you’re better at it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Are you okay trusting me to do this, Lydia-ida?”

Lydia just nodded and he smiled. “Let’s do this, then.”

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