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"Macey!" Amber was standing in the doorway, waving as she saw them approach. "We were worried about you!"
"Everything's fine!" she called back. "More or less," she added under her breath. She was going to need some tea to get the strength to explain everything.
* * *
A few minutes later, she was wrapped in a blanket and had her hands curled around a warm mug of tea. Flint had dried her hair, although he'd managed to make it extraordinarily frizzy. Rónán had been given the same treatment - except for the hair. His short blond hair had been dried by the wind already.
Taking a long sip of tea to strengthen herself, Macey told the other Wardens about what had occured down in the sea cave. Somehow, she didn't mind Rónán hearing it all. It wasn't as if it was a secret, and if he wanted to stay along and be confused by her strange tale, that was fine. She liked the selkie, even though she'd only met him half an hour ago. She had a good feeling about him; maybe he'd be one of their future allies. They could certainly use having the selkies on their side. There were a lot of them, many more than kelpies.
"So, this thing inside the Staran is the same as the Voice?" Izban asked, summarising what Macey had told them.
"Yes, and it said that there are many more of them. If they can take on different shapes and purposes, they're going to be hard to find. I did see a tiny connection reaching out from this one though, so if we somehow managed to follow that, we'd be able to find them one by one. Maybe you have a spell for that?"
Izban nodded. "Possibly. I'd need to look at it first."
"I might be able to help with that," Jared said, making them all look at the incubus. "You said there was a hole in the cave ceiling that let in light and air, right?"
"Yes, it was tiny though."
"Then you're lucky
I'm Earth," Jared replied with a grin. "If we find that hole, I can get us all down there. Maybe together we'll be able to kill that Self-Doubt thing and heal the Staran - at least for now."
"If you don't mind, Bradaigh and I will stay here," Luch said with a cheeky smile. "We have some catching up to do."
Macey smiled back. "Of course. Now that all seven of us are united, it should be doable. This will be our first big test. Time to show the world that we really are the Wardens."
She just hoped that overconfidence wasn't yet another sibling of Self-Doubt.
17
With Rónán's help, it didn't take them long to find the hole. It was covered almost completely by bushes of sorrel, but thanks to Jared's Earth magic, he was able to spot it despite the plants.
"Clever, it almost looks like a puffin burrow," Cam remarked. "The perfect camouflage."
To Macey's disappointment, they'd not spotted any puffins yet. Maybe it was the wrong season. She loved those tiny, comical birds, even though she'd only seen them once before. But the grassy slope they were standing on was covered in burrows where they'd lay their eggs in the summer.
"The cave ceiling was stone, right, not earth?" Jared asked Macey and she nodded.
"Yes, beautiful smooth stone. No stalactites, strangely enough."
"Good, that will make it easier to find where the earth ends and the cave begins. You may all want to step back a little."
They did as he asked, watching curiously as he kneeled on the ground and put his hands on the wet grass. He closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate hard.
The ground began to rumble and shake, but it was only a gentle tremor, nothing as bad as what Macey had experienced down below in the cave. She was a little sad that she wasn't diving into it this time. It had been so beautiful to see the world beneath St Kilda, but she understood that the others had to take the boring route.
Scratch that. Clumps of earth were floating into the air as Jared furrowed his brow. They hung above the ground while the hole slowly expanded.
Macey hadn't seen Jared's magic in action yet, but somehow, she hadn't imagined it to be this strong and impressive. Tiny beads of sweat were beginning to form on his forehead as he heaved more and more earth into the air. She watched with bated breath as the hole turned into a shaft wide enough to fit even someone Flint's size through.
Finally, Jared let out a sigh of exhaustion and the balls of earth fell to the ground, far away from the hole they once covered.
"How do we get down there?" Rónán asked but Macey shook her head.
"I'm not sure you should come with us. I think this is a Warden thing that we have to do ourselves."
"I could stand guard, in case you drown yourself again?"
