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“She was talking about the old legends involving the Crossroads.”
“Oh, that day,” Sabrine said with a grin. “What about it?”
“I was wondering if I could photocopy your notes.”
Sabrine grabbed her book bag and dug around in it. “Afraid you’re going to fail the big exam?” She found one of many notebooks and threw it open on the desk.
“Very.” It wasn’t exactly a lie.
Sabrine leafed through the pages until she found her notes from that day. “Here.” She reached across the space between their desks and thumped the notebook down. “Give this back by tomorrow, please.”
“No problem.” But as she scanned the pages—there were nearly ten of them—she realized Sabrine had gone so in depth with her note-taking that Loren couldn’t wrap her mind around half the things she’d written down. There was far too much detail. What she needed was a quick summary—any information that might make her better understand the Veil and how it worked, how it kept their world separated from Spirit.
Sabrine had her stave out as she prepared to practice incantations, magic sparking as she waved it through the air. The other students were doing the same, the smell of candle smoke choking the classroom.
“Can you dumb it down for me?” Loren asked.
Sabrine’s stave stilled in the air. “Do I need to do it now? We’re supposed to be practicing.”
“If you could just give me the gist. Please, Sab. You know I’m not the best at this.”
She set aside her stave and turned to face her. “There are three realms that all overlap but are essentially a part of the same world. Griffith explained it best as a coin with two sides and a middle, the middle representing Terra, aka our world. On one flip side of the coin is Spirit Terra; on the other is the Fifth Dimension. And cutting across the coin, kind of like puncture holes that go through all three realms, are the Crossroads, places of liminality that are stuck between worlds, kind of like floating through space.”
“What is the Fifth Dimension?” Loren asked. And, more importantly, what were the other four? She’d heard theories about them, theories about what the Fifth Dimension looked like, but that was all they were: theories.
Sabrine shrugged.
“Is all this true?”
She shrugged again. “If she’s teaching it in history class, then she must believe it, even if it isn’t true.”
“What do you believe?”
Sabrine folded her arms on the desk. “The legends say that our world used to be one with Spirit Terra; they weren’t separate. The living coexisted with the dead in a delicate balance of things, until one day a great war ensued. Power-hungry gods and goddesses began a slaughter that would have resulted in the deaths of all beings they considered lower than them.” Her mouth twisted into a grimace as she added, “Mainly humans.”
Loren shuddered.
“But there was one goddess who had a soft heart for mortal kind. To protect them, she split the worlds in two by creating a duplicate of Terra, and she separated them with a curtain that would never come down.”
The Veil.
Sabrine continued, “One god in particular was angry at the goddess for interfering with his plans. As the Veil was being cast, and he was doomed to dwell forever on the other side of it, kept away from mortals and other lesser beings, he attacked her. But it was already too late, the Veil pulling him away. He managed to nick her with a blade of legendary black adamant, cutting her right below the jaw. But that was the most he could do before he was trapped forever in the spirit realm.”
“What happened to her?”
“Legend says she chose to live here in our world, walking among mortals. That’s where they say we all originated—werewolves, witches, vampires. From the gods and goddesses who were locked in Spirit Terra.”
“Miss Van Arsdell,” drawled the professor. She was standing right behind them.
Sabrine promptly turned to face her. “Yes, Miss Ashby?”
“Let’s see your disarming spell.”
Thoughts swarmed Loren’s head. She closed the notebook Sabrine had given her and stuffed it in her bag.
With the help of the Arcanum Well and its replica, her magic had torn open the Veil this nameless goddess had cast thousands of years ago.
Loren didn’t want to find out what would happen if these gods from legend discovered the way back into their world had been reopened.
