So he’s a Celtic god, the good doctor’s a wolf, and I’m alake? Okay, I may experiment with a lot of herbs in my tea blends, but evenI’mnot perpetually high enough to buy that.
“No way,” Ani says, still smiling. “No fucking way.”
Ani’s practically bouncing on his toes. Kirin looks like he’s about to throw up. Baz looks completely dazed, and—if I’m being honest—a little turned on. And Devane? He looks like he just figured out I’m the bringer of the goddess-damned apocalypse.
“Cass,” Baz says, and Devane just goes, “I know, Baz. I fucking know.”
My heart is beating wildly—I don’t know whether it’s mine or the owl’s, or some strange interlocked spirit we both share.What do you know?I want to shout.
As if he can read my thoughts, Devane sighs and says, “Starla Milan isn’t just the witch who can translate her mother’s prophecies. She’s the—”
The owl takes flight, and the vision vanishes in an instant.
I awaken in my bed with a start, bolting upright, my heart still hammering.
On the pillow next to me, glowing in the moonlight filtering in through the window, is an owl’s feather.
Thirty-Two
STEVIE
Armed with a giant travel mug of black tea blended with crushed vanilla bean and mint leaves, I head out the next morning for the library.
After the crazy owl incident, I didn’t sleep at all, too afraid that if I closed my eyes, my feather would disappear and I’d have to accept it was all a dream.
But when the sun finally rose, the feather was still there, soft and beautiful and as real as the pillow it rested on.
As for everything else that happened last night?
My head is still spinning. Baz saved my life, and there was a moment there in the common room when I could’ve sworn he wanted to kiss me. Not just in that flirty, constantly-sexualizing-every-word-everyone-says kind of way I’ve come to expect from him, either. There’s some kind of connection between us, and every time I think of him, I can’t help but recall that strange dream in the meadow. The man with the beautiful tattoos, with the same color eyes as Baz. His sensual kisses, his moans, the way his every touch set my body on fire…
Cernunnos…
OhGoddess, my core aches just to think of it again. But those are dangerous thoughts—totally forbidden from this moment on. Because now I know the cold, hard truth: For whatever reason, four Academy mages—including the illustrious Dr. Devane—are hiding something from me.
Somethingaboutme.
It’s enough to set my blood boiling, and I’m this close to blowing the lid off the whole thing, demanding a full explanation, and refusing to do a single line of translation on the prophecies until I have my answers.
But when Kirin opens the door to his office, his smile and energy wrapping me in a warm welcome, my anger turns to something much worse.
Pain.
Looking into his green-gold eyes—eyes whose mesmerizing beauty captured my heart months ago—I try unsuccessfully to keep the sting of betrayal from eating away at my heart.
We’re supposed to be a team—Kirin said as much.
So how come I feel like I’ve just signed a deal with the devil and missed most of the fine print?
“Good morning,” he says brightly, stepping aside to welcome me in. “You ready to hit the books?”
I’m ready to hitsomething, but I rein it in. Going ballistic isn’t going to bring me any closer to the truth—not to the ones in Mom’s prophecies or the ones hiding behind Kirin’s sexy smile.
“How was the party?” he asks as we climb the stairs to the archives.
“You didn’t hear?” The way Baz was talking about it in the cave last night, it was clear he and Ani had already told Kirin and Doc what happened at the river.
“Hear what? I was in the archives until about three or four in the morning, totally secluded. Crashed in my office after that. In fact, I just woke up about ten minutes before you got here—hence the bedhead. Well, to be more accurate, office-chair-head.”
