Loren fiddled with a lock of golden hair. “Darien tried to remotely track her last night, but he said whoever abducted her is somehow cloaking her location. Maybe the same way Darien is cloaking mine.” She fingered the talisman around her neck, the pendant glinting in the light of the chandeliers. Her throat became tight. “It scares me how long she’s been missing, Dal. They say the first three days are the most crucial in finding a missing person alive.” Perhaps their only upper hand was knowing the Darkslayer had wanted Loren instead.
Dallas’s throat bobbed. “I hate to think law enforcement might not be doing everything they can.” Tears lined her catlike eyes.
Loren threw a glance around the crowded room before whispering, “I think we need to get into that restricted hall.”
Dallas frowned. “It has a forcefield over it, Lor. It’ll probably burn us alive.”
“I’m willing to risk it.” For Sabrine. She would do anything to get her back, even if the spellwork roasted her bones. “I can’t do it without you though.”
“And what if we find nothing?”
“Then at least we’ll know we tried.” She paused. “What are you afraid of, Dal? Don’t you think it’s at least worth looking into?”
Dallas’s spine stiffened. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then help me.”
“I’ll think about it.” High above, the school bell chimed. Seeing the defeat on Loren’s face, Dallas added, “We’ll find Sabrine alive. I know we will.”
—
Third period involved a rare talk from Angelthene Academy’s headmaster.
Ivador Langdon was one of the most powerful warlocks in the city. He’d lived alone for two centuries before he fell in love with a mortal woman. Six months after they were married, she gave birth to his half-witch baby girl.
That baby girl was now sixteen and had suffered a terrible car accident this past summer that had left her paralyzed. And although Loren could see the shadows plaguing his ashen middle-aged face, he taught her class that day with the same kind of passion that had made him a favorite among so many.
However, today’s talk was different. Loren wasn’t sure how to feel as the headmaster went on that afternoon to illustrate exactly how he viewed a human lifespan.
“A human lifespan,” Headmaster Langdon was saying, his academy robes flowing as he paced the floor in the centre of the tiers of benches, “is only a speck in the vastness of the universe. A single grain of sand on a beach.” In other words, insignificant. Unworthy. Nothing but a blip in the grand scheme of things.
The class snickered. Loren sank in her seat, wondering why the headmaster seemed to be talking down on humans when he was not only married to one but had sired one as well. Beside her, Dal threw warning glances at the few cocky warlocks and witches who looked Loren’s way.
But the headmaster’s voice grew softer as he went on to say, “And yet they are the most extraordinary beings to walk the face of Terra.”
The snickering stopped. Murmurs of confusion and disgust rippled through the classroom.
Loren lifted her chin.
“How can you say all that,” came a voice from the back of the room, “and then go on to claim they’re the most extraordinary?”
“Because their lives are fleeting,” the headmaster said. He stood in a dusty beam of light that brought out the silver in his hair, as bright as the reflective ring around his pupils. “And in knowing this, they succeed in doing what no immortal ever could: they live with the knowledge that every day could be their last. And because of this, they live fiercely. With more intent and purpose in the span of no more than a hundred years than any immortal would in a thousand.”
The classroom was silent enough to hear the lights humming overhead.
“With all due respect, Headmaster,” Loren began, hand half-raised. His eyes zeroed in on her, and soon all the students were turning to stare at her as well. “But as a human myself, I’d have to disagree.Immortalsare the fiercest people I’ve ever known. I believe there’s courage in knowing that it’ll take a lot to kill you. There’s confidence in this that no human could possess.”
“But is it confidence, Loren?” he said in a kind voice. “Or is it arrogance?” He paused, waiting for his words to sink in. “I would sooner call it a false sense of security. Most immortalsarecourageous and confident, yes. But it’s because none of them have ever known the immediate threat of being able to die so easily.”
Loren had nothing to say after that, and neither did the other students.
The rest of the day passed by in a blur, and Loren couldn’t stop mulling over the headmaster’s words.
As she walked to the House of Salt at the end of final period, she wondered if it was possible that humans succeeded at living more beautifully because their days were numbered. And because they knew that, once those days were spent, they would never be here again.
16
The weekend arrived quicker than Loren thought possible.
