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His head jerked up, and he bit his lip with fingers pressing into paper. “Um… I…” He folded the journal shut. “I think the Calling wants me to leave.” He hated saying that, but the restlessness that seeped into his soul pained him just as much. The people he’d found here were too nice, too helpful, too perfect for what he’d expected being dragged to. That had to be the explanation with how badly he wanted to refuse to give into the phantom force nagging at him.
Marielle frowned and her head dipped slightly to the side, tendrils of hair cascading past her cheek. “Are you sure?”
He scoffed. “No, but?—”
“I’ve always said the Calling is a bit of a cruel faerie trick,” she whispered. “It sends us out and away from the people we once knew to keep us uncertain and afraid.” She pushed away and turned to the oven, popping it open to the fresh scent of warm cookies. “Why don’t I pack some of these up for you for the road then?”
Grey slid off the stool. “You don’t have to?—"
But she was already bundling them up and shaking her head. “I know I don’t have to.” Marielle placed the cheesecloth of cookies in front of him. “Us hemomancers have to stick together.”
* * *
He’d left the neon-green-stitched gloves behind for another hemomancer to take his place in the sanctuary of a house he’d dragged himself away from. Marielle’s quick hug and whisper to stay safe lingered with him as the sun dropped in the sky, conjuring the shadows. The Calling didn’t let him idle for more than five minutes, it’s cry more and more urgent as dusk closed in, rolling over the sky like a blanket that made Grey long for sleep. He clapped his hand over his mouth as a yawn slipped out and half-stumbled over roots into the edge of a clearing.
Blue-green blades of grass reached for the waning sunlight, an eerie, ethereal glow coaxing him further inside. Grey rubbed his arms, biting down on his tongue as he slowly crept along. The crunch and snap of small stones and twigs under his boots made every nerve in his body jump. Finally, a shadow came into view, its shape pointing skyward like a beacon to the stars.
Grey stopped short, the purple glow of the horizon slipping away as he took in the monument from his dreams. Only this time, it bore a detail he hadn’t seen before: a hemomancer mark chiseled into the top of the obelisk. He took a shuffling step to the right, tilting his head as he caught another faceted mark engraved in the stone.
A right-side-up triangle. The mark for halomancer.
His knees buckled, and his head whipped around at the sound of a pop several yards back. The shadowy figure with short, choppy hair poking out of a knit cap froze like a deer in headlights. They both jumped at the quiet rumble of a motorcycle, and Grey spun to a guy dismounting his bike on his left—a tilted arrow inked on his arm.
“Oh, shit,” came a hiss from the other side of the obelisk just before high beams powered on behind them.
Grey threw up his arms in defense, the light forcing him to squint until the rev of a new engine jump-started his heart. They were all Called here.
To a six-sided obelisk.
Six mancers—one of each.
Six sacrifices for the Wild Hunt.
This time his instincts overrode his Calling.
Run.
He sprinted back across the clearing, fueled by pure adrenaline and the crazed, frenzied cries of the drivers and feral goons giving chase.
Faster.
Grey glanced over his shoulder before pitching forward and smacking against the grass. He scrambled back to his feet, ducking into the brush and slipped. A yelp escaped him in his tumble down a small hill. The wind pushed from his lungs when he collided with a tree, sending his head spinning as he shakily pulled himself up.
Tears sprang to his eyes as the voices grew closer, and he gulped down air the second his body would allow it during his pathetic half-jog, half-limp away from the obelisk, despite losing some of his bearings. He gasped, leaves curling and fluttering downward as his pain receded, like he was the bringer of autumn.
Keep running.
Breaking into a sprint again, he shot forward, his legs crying out just before a shock rippled through his body. He seized, falling backward with a scream tearing from his throat as small, dazzling sparks ran along the near-invisible mesh net. The crunch of newly dried, shriveled leaves turned his scream into a sob.
“Aw, come on, kid. You should be honored.”
A gloved hand wrapped around his arm, dragging him away from the fence. Grey twisted, gritting his teeth as he flailed in his attempt to sink his fingertips into the guy’s flesh.
“Careful,” came another man’s voice. “Think this one’s our hemomancer.”
Another sharp crunch reverberated through Grey’s soul, chilling him to the core. “Let me fucking go—” He batted away a second glove reaching for his bag.
“Flip him over and pin him. This is too damn dangerous without him restrained.”
