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“Then make it respond, Miss Calla,” he hissed, stepping in close, their noses nearly touching. His breath wafted across her face. She turned her head, every inch of her aching to get away from him. “Make it respond. It spoke to you just now, answering your plea to break away. Make it answer your desire to find the Arcanum Well, or what you just saw will become your reality. Do we have an understanding?”
She stared up at him, hatred shooting from her eyes.
He repeated, eyes still a horrid, shining black, “Do we have an understanding?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” His attention went to his men. “Take her back. We are done for the day.”
As the group prepared to head back, Klay finally let go of her, the sudden absence of not having anything to lean on, combined with the lingering images the imperator had forced into her mind, made her sway in place, chest swelling with anger.
The imperator was still watching her, and so was Johnathon. It was the former who said, “I’m giving you ten days, Miss Calla. Ten days to fully awaken your magic. The next time I summon you back here, you’d better have something worth showing me.”
—
As soon as Loren was back through the Veil, the noise of the waterfalls filling the tunnels, she took off the ring, the armor and magic instantly vanishing, and shoved it into the pocket of her jeans.
She stepped up to the table where she’d left her bag, and as she slung the strap over her shoulder, she swung it harder than she needed to, knocking the open briefcase of syringes onto the floor.
“Stupid cunt!” barked one of the guards, his gravelly voice volleying against the walls.
Syringes rolled, a few of them clinking against her sneakers.
“I’m sorry,” she blubbered, bending to pick them up. As she fumbled to grab some and dump them back into the briefcase, she kept two in her palm, slipping them up under the sleeve of her jacket—
Right in the nick of time too, because the imperator was there, pulling her to her feet with fingers that bruised her arm.
“Get her out of here!” He shoved her at Klay, and she stopped herself before she could crash into him.
“I’m s-sorry,” she said again, managing to stutter convincingly. She was careful to keep both hands gripping her sleeves tightly, her head down in feigned embarrassment, trying her damn best not to draw attention to the syringes that were pressed up against her wrist.
Klay grabbed her by the upper arm and led her out of the tunnels, pulling her along beside him so quickly that she could barely keep up.
When it came to Spirit Terra, there wasn’t a lot Loren was certain of, but she did know this: it was her magic, combined with the blast of the Arcanum Well, that had cut through the Veil. The Well was the reason there was an entrance into the realm of the dead at all, and it was the Well that had birthed her.
If she could figure out how to get into Spirit Terra, how to open another door somewhere else—somewhere that wasn’t so heavily guarded by the imperator’s men—then maybe she could go into the realm on her own and find the Arcanum Well before they could get to it.
And, more importantly, once she knew how to enter the realm on her own, she could show Darien.
She might not be able to tell him what was going on with her, but she might be able to show him. She would never lead him down here—down to a place so heavily guarded by the imperator’s men, a move that would surely spell death for him and anyone he brought with—so this was her only chance.
She would just have to figure out how to do it.
26
At school the following day, Loren detected a change. There were new faces here, new people walking the hallways—new professors, all of them dressed in academy robes.
She knew better than to fall for that trick. These people were here for her. She could see it in the way they watched her, tailing her down every corridor and into every classroom. Of course the imperator would be able to get away with such intrusive behaviour. She wondered which lies the new headmaster had been forced to believe. Perhaps these people had told the headmaster—Miles Osborn was his name—that they were here for research. Whatever they’d told him, he’d clearly believed it.
Loren’s first class of the day was incantations. The course was a requirement for entry level jobs in herbal magic, so even humans like her, who could perform no spells, were required to not only take the course but to pass in flying colors.
Lucky for her, she had the best partner in the class, and that was Sabrine Van Arsdell.
Sabrine was exactly the person Loren needed to see. As soon as the professor ended her lecture, and told them to practice what they’d learned today for the next ten to fifteen minutes, Loren jumped at the chance to talk to Sabrine.
Where she sat at a desk next to Sabrine, she turned in her seat, the legs of her chair grinding across the stone floor. “Remember that day in history class when Griffith got mad at me for texting?”
Sabrine snickered, her fiery eyes rolling. “Professor Griffith always gets mad at you for texting,” she teased. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that, girl.”
