“You’re kidding,” I choke out.
“Nope, I’m not,” he answers simply, like it’s obvious that we weren’t truly fighting for our lives within those passageways. “You were never in any real danger, Nori. The final trial is created to weed out the mentally weak, more so than to weed out prospects by death. Although that is certainly a probability.”
“So that’s why I couldn’t see what Finnley was seeing unless I touched his face,” I whisper.
He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, debating on how much knowledge to leak. “Correct. They took each of your biggest fears, as well as a combined fear, and brought them to life. As an officer, I was able to get all the details from your maze run.” His eyes cut to me, but he looks completely unapologetic. “Seems like your little friend doesn’t care for wraiths, hence his battle with one. The thing that keeps you up at night…” he trails off, hesitation smeared across his face.
I bite my lip. Hard. “Keep going.”
“Your biggest weakness is yourself and losing those you care about. That’s why the mirrors were incorporated. You were forced to face your reflection and lose your friend in the same way.”
I don’t say anything. I just let him continue.
“And last but not least, you both hate spiders.”
I brush a small strand of hair behind my ear and give him a subtle nod. I don’t disagree with him. “So Finnley never really got pulled into the mirror? It was all in my head?”
“He stepped through an archway you couldn’t see. Something called him through so that you could live out your own horror, so to speak. But all in all, he was never technically inside a mirror.”
“Although something did call him through the archway?” I repeat, stopping to face Ambrose.
He slips his arm off my shoulders, allowing it to fall to his side. “Correct, but only the Noctryns know what it was. They pick and choose the information they share with the Veil officers.” His brows furrow in an angry pinch.
I’m both annoyed and impressed at the dark wielders’ tenacity.
I can feel Ambrose’s heavy stare on me as I replay everything in my head from that day. I know he’s trying to decide whether he wants to ask something or not.
“Go ahead, I can see the wheels spinning,” I tell him, stopping to fully face him.
He clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck with his hand, his bicep flexing with the motion. “Have you had any dark manifestations?”
“I haven’t had any manifestations, period. Light or dark.”
His tongue pokes the inside of his cheek. “No shadows or mind manipulation abilities making themselves known? No success with their blood magic?” he asks, his gaze sharpening on me.
“Nothing,” I confirm. At this point, I’m not sure how upset I’d be if a shadow emerged. At least it would besomething.
“Thank the gods.”
“Should I be thankful, though, Ambrose? I’ve shown nothing. Nada. Zip. I’m literally one of the last who have yet to manifest,and I’m starting to really doubt the outcome here while you’re dancing around in gratitude.”
He blinks. “It’ll happen, Nori. You’re just a late bloomer,” he assures me, his eyes hardening like there isn’t another option or explanation.
I kick the snow and start walking again. “Have you heard any updates on Professor Huntsal? I wasn’t sure if they shared anything in your officer’s class that the rest of us aren’t privy to?”
He pulls his gaze away before throwing his head back and sighing. “No. They haven’t shared much except updated orders. We’ve been assigned the task of investigating her disappearance, while the Noctryns have been assigned to look into the missing dark object. At this point, we’ve both come up short. Whoever took them had complete access to the academy and a big enough reason to risk taking them.”
What kind of reason would someone have to risk something so big? The ramifications of doing so would be astronomical.
“They’d have to be very familiar with the academy layout as well as where dark objects were being kept,” I murmur more to myself. “Or know someone else who has this information.”
“Nothing for you to worry that pretty little head about,” he assures me, scooping up a ball of snow and chucking it across the field. “From what I understand, you passed thatdickhead’sinterrogation with flying colors.” He puts extra emphasis on the word dickhead.
“Well, it is something for me to worry about, Ambrose,” I correct him. “And honestly, the interrogation wasn’t as bad as I imagined it would be.”
He stops and looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. I shrug and pull my hood up. The snow has started to fall again.
He jogs to catch up with me, gripping me by the shoulder, stopping me and spinning me toward him. “Don’t trust him. Any of them, butespeciallyhim. He always has some kind of tricktucked up his sleeve,” he states. “I mean it, Nori. Don’t mistake what you think is kindness for anything other than it is. A means to an end.”
