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“In other words, you think someone intentionally infected Ryn’s target hoping it would spread to her?” Felix asked gravely.
“Most likely, yes.”
“How do we stop it?” I asked, an emotion I refused to admit might be fear clinging to my chest in rivulets attached to the woman whose hands I still held.
The female shook her head, eyes downcast to the floor.
I would have snapped at her, but the alpha beat me to it.
“Sabina!” he snarled, command leaking through his tone.
“I don’t know. There’s nothing here on how to stop it,” she flipped the page back and forth, looking at each side before throwing it down. Her childish reaction and the minimal impact of such a violent action on a piece of paper should have amused me, but that clawing emotion continued to dig into the very root of my soul.
My demon slammed at his cage, rising to take over my visual cortex sharing image after image of the Red Pines keep turning to ashes below my fingers. The first to die would be that stupid Boralis bastard - choked by his own tacky costume.
I forced down my demon as silence fell upon the room like the shroud of death itself. I clung to my Thief’s hand, her fingers growing colder as the moments stretched out before us. Cold infused her skin, replacing earlier warmth, reminding me of an unexpected frost upon early fall leaves. Her eyes opened, rivulets of silent tears running in facets down cheeks that paled as the moments stretched to minutes. Her murky colored eyes sunk into the pale yellow that had begun to cling to the whites around her irises.
I looked to my second in command, his face gravely disturbed by what he had heard.
Looks like I’m going in.
Chapter Twenty-Three - The Consequences of Common Room Spiders
Aeryn
Storm clouds stretched above the fields lending a somberness to the already decaying air. The mid-autumn breeze did nothing to dissuade the scents of dying fields and falling leaves that coated the normally green fields in a layer brown touched with red and gold hues.
It felt abnormally cold, even for Alberta in October, with strong northern winds cascading down from the arctic circle above. A storm raged in the distance where warm air rolling from the tips of the Rockies clashed against the cold front, sending sheets of hail from the sky. But although we could make out the storm in the distance, it did not pull Ness and I from our day outside. Nothing could have drawn us back to the keep, especially with Sister Arietta hunting us down. Heavens above but she did have the worst punishments, my knuckles still red and bruised from the ruler she’d used just hours before. I would have gone to the infirmary for repair, but Arietta had forbidden it.
A good caster was a humble caster. And a humble caster accepted her punishments.
What a load of crap. Ness had been so upset she’d bribed one of the older students, who had the gift of visual manipulation, to create a spell of illusionary spiders for us. Against my better judgment we’d set them loose in the girls’ common room right when Sister Arietta had arrived for evening inspections.
We hadn’t expected Arietta to respond so quickly, especially since she had a terrible phobia of spiders. Had I not fallen into a disgusting passage smelling of mildew and damp Earth, we would have been caught hiding in the catacombs. Ness had nearly screamed as we struggled through it, cool dirty water running down our backs mimicking actual spiders. Let’s just say neither of us had really enjoyed the journey, which was one of the main reasons we hadn’t returned to the keep yet.
I knew we’d have more trouble for ourselves every minute we remained here. I felt anxious, like a string connected me back to the keep. We needed to go back. I felt the need to go back. I had to go back.
But Ness looked so peaceful lying amongst the last vestiges of wildflowers. And it was my screw up that had brought her here - if I hadn’t disobeyed Sister Arietta’s instructions to study earlier, she wouldn’t have smacked my knuckles. I never would have gotten hurt. Ness never would have released those spiders, and we never would have had to run away.
Then again, the thunder crashing above us didn’t make me feel all that joyous to stay out here for too much longer.
“Ness!” I screeched to stay above the rolling noise from above. “We should go back!”
The anxious tug became more desperate as the sounds of thunder became a near constant barrage to the senses.
Ness didn’t say anything as she just continued to look up at the sky. Thunder crashed again, but she didn’t move, her body as still as the broken stone statues I’d seen in textbooks of ancient Rome.
I fidgeted anxiously back and forth, my watch ticking just as loud as the roiling thunder from above. For a moment the thunder morphed, sounding more like a growl before twisting back.
But despite all the sounds overhead, no light flashed around me.
There should be lightning.
Or should there be?
Before I could stop myself, I was beside her, pulled as if floating on a cloud. My chest was breathless, but I didn’t have time to cough as I studied my silent friend. She appeared asleep; her eyes closed in a repose that was neither peaceful nor painful. The more I looked at her, the more she truly resembled a statue, her skin pale and leached of its usual vibrant glow.
“Ness?” I called to her, reaching out to touch.
