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Ja, Meister. I didn’t need to rely on my years of study to recognize “Yes, Master” when I heard it.
The explosive cries of a flock of seabirds bursting into flight shattered the moment. I shifted, waiting for the flapping to subside, considering what I’d heard.
Is he in control? He who? A vampire? Tracer? Trainee? He could’ve referred to any number of people on this island.
There was more gruff murmuring, a pause in the wind, and then: Sie werden unvorsichtig.
“They grow reckless. ”
Again, who?
Reckless. The word harkened back to my chat with Carden. There were so many different ways to be reckless. There was reckless brave. Murderous recklessness. Or my favorite kind of reckless, disobedience. Then another wrinkle occurred to me: There was also the recklessness of pure instinct that was the Draug.
I hung on for more, but the voices dissipated and never returned. Even so, I dared not budge. I needed to make certain the men were far from here.
As I waited, I did several dozen careful scans of the cliff side, but f
ound nothing. There were no clues. No murder weapon waiting for discovery, flashing “look at me!” in the twilight.
Bored of that, I stared at the runes for a while, discerning others carved along the moss-covered stone. But they quickly lost their power to comfort me. Soon, I was just cold.
I decided to give it fifteen more minutes, an arbitrary amount of time more to wait, and bided it by staring out at the sea. When thoughts of Carden and my need for him grew too piqued, I distracted myself by pulling a sheet of paper and pencil from my bag to take a rubbing of the runes. A little reminder of my humanity, of how tiny and meaningless we were. That time marched on, but the rest of us had expiration dates.
I thought about who might’ve left the graffiti so long ago. What would I carve, if given the chance? Drew + Vampires 4ever? I smirked at the thought. How fleeting our human dramas became when viewed through the telescope of centuries.
Finally, the sky turned the color of metal, and the air took on a bite too sharp to ignore.
I scrabbled my way back up the hill. Since I was able to leverage my body and control where I put my hands and feet, I found it much easier to go up than down. Carden had been right: Using the strength of my legs was the key. I scanned the rocks as I went, but saw no more evidence beyond that scuff left by Trinity’s heel.
On the walk back, the pencil rubbing was an odd weight in my bag. Other people had been here thousands of years ago. And who knew, maybe others would walk this same bluff a thousand years hence. I tried to feel a sense of connection to my fellow man through the ages, but instead all I could think was how those Vikings were long dead, and someday I would be, too.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mei-Ling and I picked up Emma as we headed out the door. The week had limped along. I’d risked my neck to find clues, and all I’d found was a bunch of old Viking graffiti. Worse, I remained torn about Carden, feeling desperate to see him again but also hoping desperately that I wouldn’t.
Emma sensed something was up with me. “Are you okay?” She’d asked it slowly, her words heavy with meaning. But then she flicked a glance at Mei. We needed to be discreet in front of this girl we didn’t really know.
Between me having a new roommate and Emma joined at the hip with Yasuo, I wondered if we’d ever talk openly again. “Yeah, I’m okay, I guess. ”
“You haven’t been the same since your mission. Ever since you saw…that girl,” she said carefully. But I knew immediately whom she meant. I’d seen someone I could’ve sworn was my old roommate and nemesis, Lilac.
Lilac, who was supposed to be dead.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. That, and—” We stepped outside to see Yasuo waiting for us.
“Yo, lovely ladies,” he shouted in greeting.
“Never mind,” I mumbled. The sight of him made me inexplicably grumpy. Sometimes a girl just wanted some girl time. “It’s no biggie. ”
But I needed to be mature about this. Emma and Yas were my friends. I was glad someone had found love. I would be mature about it. “Yo, yourself,” I called back. “Isn’t this out of your way?” The guy’s dorm was a creepy castle-looking thing on the other side of campus; it would’ve been much faster for him to have simply walked to class and met us there.
He clapped a hand to his chest. “It must be love. ” His goofy tone was meant to play down the meaning of his words, but I knew there was truth to them.
Emma’s response was to look down and zip her jacket, the tiniest smirk the only thing to indicate that she’d heard.
Calm, cool, and collected—that was Emma. It was why I loved her. She wasn’t one of those squeeing, melodramatic kind of girls, who got all weepy and huggy and ohmygod-I-love-you about things. It was what made her and Yasuo so easy to stomach as a couple.
Our friendship was the same way: smooth, steady, and drama free. I didn’t need her to squeal and flap and air kiss to know she loved me. Emma would have my back till the bitter end. It was all the show of love I needed.
