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My gut twists at the realization.

Markus’s eyes gleam with a sickening joy as another priceless treasure becomes his possession.

I don’t remember agreeing to give over the stone, or when Castor walks me back to my room to retrieve the Helios Stone, nor the return back to the conference room.

Only the yawning emptiness left inside me when the small golden stone drops into Markus’s awaiting palm.

Atlys is sick.

We have no moon stone.

Now we have no sun stone.

Atlys is sick.

And he didn’t tell me.

43

She Has His Eyes

The weeks since the attack on the beach have been relatively uneventful. Besides worrying over Atlys and whether or not he’s okay, my time has been spent studying, training, and spending every spare second I can find researching more about the three stones.

“These finals are going to kill me,” Ramona says, leaning back on the couch in the common room, kicking off a platform boot to join the others near the fire.

To be fair, the battlefield final was absolutely brutal. It feels like it’s the middle of the night, but it’s only afternoon. Commander Hogsmith forced us into five consecutive rounds of Bannerfall, assessing our abilities to use our channeling stones while holding onto a racing horse. The blisters on my hands sting just thinking about holding onto the reins for a moment longer.

I’m just happy that he didn’t have us in the Pit for the final. I’d rather anything else but that climb.

Esther takes off her pink ballet slippers and throws them next to Ramona, then sits on the floor by the fire, bare feet outstretched.

I crinkle my nose.

“I think I’m already dead,” Leaf groans from the wingback chair.

“Holding your eyelids open won’t help,” I say.

Leaf’s fingers pull at his eyelids, opening them even further.

“What are you trying to accomplish anyway?”

“Staying awake, obviously,” both Ramona and Leaf say in unison.

At this, Leaf snaps his head up and blinks a few times. His stare lingers on Ramona for a minute before turning to me. “Tell me again what you saw.”

Not sure how another replay of the story will make any difference, but a Teller never misses their chance, I recount the battle from my vantage point. How Atlys and I joined the fight after it started, how the Jord Underlings were crawling from the earth, and how I saw tiny dots on Atlys’s arm.

“And you’re sure it wasn’t just a freckle?” Ramona asks. “I mean the man is rather pale.”

“No, I know his body. That wasn’t a freckle.”

“Yum,” Esther says.

We all turn to her.

“What?” Esther shrugs. “I don’t think I would mind if the Soul Eater sucked my soul… Probably would like it,” she adds wistfully.

“Ew,” Ramona says.