Page 93 of Anomalies

I grab the chalk, plant myself in the center of a wide stone slab, and get to work. I draw big circles, then smaller ones, using the Sol Marks on the pages as guides. I copy each one onto the stone in one giant circle around myself.

They’re for protection—all of them. As long as I stay in this circle, I’ll be fine. But I have to be quick, Hunter will check my room soon, and if he finds me gone…I’ll have bars on my windows by morning.

I drop the chalk into my pocket and dust off my hands, then I take the Eldral into my palm.

Requires blood—One drop.

I prick the tip of my finger with a pocketknife, wincing when blood beads there.

Manifest with the heart. Be wary. It wanders.

I focus entirely on the specific person I want to talk to, willing my heart to stay in that one place. I can’t let anything sway me.

Someone could slip through the opening, Kimber had told me. I can’t let that happen.

I imagine my Velkan exactly how I see him every night; long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be⁠—

I smear my blood over the Eldral, and the ground at my feet rumbles, the sound of the water fading into the ether.

Cloaked in shadows, cold to the touch, the sharp click of heels on hardwood⁠—

Something cracks through the silence, like a rock has been split in two, and I inhale sharply as the Eldral bursts into a cloud of dark smoke.

Then it falls quiet. Deathly quiet.

Long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be, I repeat. One place, one person. Only him.

My heart pounds a mile a minute, but I keep still even as the smoke reaches my nose.

I inhale, deep.

Then everything goes black.

I don’t dare move my feet when I come to.

My body is still planted in that circle. Somewhere. And my soul is now in another plane of existence—a void between worlds.

The Twilight Passage.

My throat tightens when my vision sharpens. The walls around me are… the walls of my childhood bedroom.

It’s intentional, it has to be. A fear tactic, maybe? The dead like to play. But I escaped this room once, I’ll do it again. I just can’t move my feet in the process.

The temperature plummets, and a shadow darts across the pale blue walls. My heart pounds low, heavy thuds when it freezes before me, hovering in a dark mist. Then it disappears.

Great, he’s going to tell his friends that they have a visitor.

Long limbs, ashen skin, a deep, dark void where his face should be.

No one else. I can’t open communication with anyone else. Only him.

Cloaked in shadows, cold to the touch, the sharp click of heels on hardwood.

A humming sound seeps through the walls, the deep tenor of it ringing low in my ears. My head swivels when three more shadows creep up the far corner of the room, emerging like bonfire smoke. And there’s more coming.

I can hear them.

Fear slams into my gut when the shadows come into focus, materializing on the wall. There’s a silhouette of a man and a woman, watching me curiously, floating through space as if it doesn’t exist. The third ghost circles me like a vulture, ready to strike should I take one step out of this circle I’ve confined myself to. His silhouette isn’t human. Humans don’t have wings.