AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I take in the rest of the room—the hundreds upon hundreds of articles and books and notes. He couldn’t have been sleeping. How else would he have found this much time?
There’s a picture on the nightstand, one I don’t even remember him taking. It’s of me on the grounds of the estate. I’m lying on my back in the grass, my books and notes spread around me. From the summer when he’d been helping me study. My eyes are closed, a soft smile on my face as I rested my head in my hands.
A tear runs down my cheek, and I let it fall.
Footsteps clamber in the hall, and I force myself to take a step away from the bed.
I’ll do a quick walk-through of the rest of the estate to see what’s going on, then I’ll get the hell out of here. This time, I try passing through the wall, and there’s a slight tug of resistance, but then I’m in the hallway, the book still in my arms.
Good to know.
I pass a dozen guards at most on my way to the main level of the estate, but even once I’m on the ground floor, it doesn’t get any more populated. From peeking through the windows, the grounds look deserted, as does the pool room, the dining rooms, the kitchen. I suppose there could be people in the bunker, maybe in the servants’ quarters? But overall, it doesn’t look much different from the last time I was here. If I didn’t know ahead of time, I’d have no reason to suspect Westcott seized it.
I circle through one more time, heading for the throne room. The fog is thicker here, spilling out the open door in waves. A strange sense of déjà vu washes over me, and I shake my head as I shiver, trying to clear it. But then I peer inside the throne room, and that déjà vu turns into a tidal wave.
Because for the first time, one of the rooms isn’t empty.
But it’s not Westcott or his people I find on the other side of the door.
From one wall to another, the room is packed with wendigos. The darkness seeps from their cloaks and slithers along the floor like tentacles.
My chest burns like I can still feel their claws tearing through me. That day in the field I hadn’t been able to figure out how those wendigos had been there but also not, or how I was the only one to see them…had I been in the shadow realm?
I inhale sharply, and every head in the room turns.
I stumble back a step, and their eyes track the movement.
Trackme.
Which means they can see me.
CHAPTERTEN
Teleportingwithout a clear mind is always a risk. Too much potential for error, to end up in the wrong place at best, or to never arrive at all at worst. But I’m short on other options. I’ve probably gone over my allotted time as is, and getting from New York to Western Canada without it would be no easy feat.
The wendigos drift toward me, faster than I ever remember them moving before. I run for the front door, digging my blade into my wrist as I go. I close my eyes, imagining the backyard with the others and feeling myself slip from reality between one step and the next—
—only to land on my hands and knees in an unfamiliar expanse of grass. I look around, trying to find something I recognize, but the shadows and fog are so goddamn thick, it’s like trying to see in the dead of night before I had my vampire vision. The wind howls beside me, and I feel the chill of their presence before I see them.
They followed me? Buthow?
I scramble to my feet and scoop the book off the ground.
There—lights in the distance. I blink, forcing my vision to focus.
Oh thank God.I’m on the Radmore campus. I’m just a few blocks too far.
I take off at a sprint, not daring to look behind me, not daring to slow no matter how much my lungs ache for air. Shit, which house was theirs? It was somewhere in the middle. I veer right, passing through a gate and plunging into someone else’s yard. There—three more down on the left.
I gasp for air, the muscles in my legs cramping. My body is so goddamnweakright now. A few more feet. Just a few more.
Something’s wrong. The circle is broken, and my friends are gathered where I’d been standing. I pass through the last fence separating us, on the verge of collapsing as I near them.
But it looks like my physical form already beat me to the punch. She’s on her back, eyes closed, lines of blood coming out of her nose and ears. I reach up as if I’ll be able to feel it on my shadow-realm self, but there’s nothing there.
But I hadn’t felt anything wrong this whole time. I’ve been fine.
The figure crouched over my body comes into focus last.
