2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
T he day has finally come and I’ve done everything I could to prepare, but even trudging down the path through the thick, darkening woods feels like walking straight into a beast’s lair with no protection whatsoever.
We can’t even let Jaeger or Alaric use their speed to cut the journey short. It would mean risking a shorter time to react to possible Nature Magic misfirings, of which there are many, many more than there used to be, back when life was normal.
Luckily, even without magic, we’re supposed to arrive at around midnight. I walk in silence, my eyes fixed on Jaeger’s back with Raven and Alaric following me closely. I’m taking the time to practice the ritual hand gestures that will enable me to use the time portal, and when I’m not doing that , I’m going through the plan in my head.
Let Jaeger take care of getting us into the castle itself.
Keep my head down as we locate the portal.
Do the hand gestures as quickly and accurately as possible.
With some luck and the help of the monkshood plant I’ve eaten to amplify my Aurora powers, I should be able to pinpoint the day the two of us met, well before any of this shit started happening.
I keep practicing the gestures. I can’t allow myself to imagine actually succeeding. The very second I do, I start getting too emotional, hope and longing and a kind of impatience I’ve never felt before threatening to send me spiraling.
It comes as a sort of relief, when we finally approach the edge of the woods, spotting the castle walls through the trees even before we leave its cover.
Jaeger throws a look over her shoulder and I do the same, all four of us exchanging determined looks before we step onto the clearing.
Frowning, I keep following Jaeger, half my focus on the two vampires stationed on each side of the enormous double door, half on trying to process my confusion.
Around an hour ago, we passed the clearing on the edge of which the Seven Dwarves is nestled. The bar run by the famous fae brothers is still open for business, the music blaring from inside, but the atmosphere was far from the usual light, fun one, most of the clientele now vampires in Baldur’s employment.
I guess I was expecting to see the Academy much changed, even from outside.
Shrug it off, I tell myself as I keep walking, bracing myself for the encounter with the guards. The atmosphere doesn’t matter. It does nothing to change the fact I’m walking straight into the territory of the man who has everyone on the hunt for me.
It doesn’t help that the Academy’s magic is said to be rejecting him, forcing him to use guards instead of spells to keep people out. It doesn’t comfort me that Jaeger says we’ll be arriving at the end of their shift, when they’re bound to be tired.
And it doesn’t make things any better, when I sense my wolf sniff at the air even before she says, “Look up,” and I see the faces of the last people who tried to sneak past the guards, their disfigured heads impaled on rough spikes.
My heart pounds in my chest.
I can sense the guards’ inquisitive eyes on us well before we slow to a stop in front of them.
“This bloody wind, fellas,” Jaeger beats them to it. “Makes me long to get inside.”
I frown. There’s barely a breeze in the air.
Then it hits me. Jaeger is the most powerful Mind Magic wielder I’ve ever known, but luckily for us, she’s never been one to take herself seriously. She once told me that the downfall of most vampires is plain old arrogance. When faced with an opponent they need to get under their control, they almost never use the oldest trick in the book. You start small, infiltrating the mind with an inconspicuous change like the change in the perception of weather. Only then do you strike with something that the target would normally instantly register as mind manipulation.
I sense Alaric inhale sharply just before one of the guards presses his hand to his hat, as if trying to stop it from flying off his head. “Sure is,” he says with a laugh.
The eyes of the other one sweep over the three of us, stopping to linger on my face.
Jaeger catches the look. “Aren’t her scars magnificent?” she asks. “She got them fighting in the South.”
“You’re lucky you got out alive,” the guard tells me, obviously seeing my face too altered to be able to recognize me.
I give him a solemn nod.
“No need to fuss over us, fellas,” Jaeger tells them. “We know exactly where we’re expected.”
And just like that, the first guard gives him a smile and opens the door for us, my ears almost instantly filling with faint sounds of soldiers training.
As we walk inside, I have to remind myself this is no huge victory for us. “Getting us inside won’t be a problem for me,” Jaeger told me just before we left the mansion. “It’ll be getting us out , if it comes to it.”
I let my eyes sweep over the castle grounds. Instantly, my heart sinks. The Dame Gothel statue is gone, a statue of Baldur’s shadows now occupying her spot. There are tents strewn all over the grass, soldiers chatting in front of them. And then there are the groups training wherever I look.
“Just keep moving,” Jaeger’s voice booms inside my head. The touch of anxiousness in it only serves to keep me alert, my eyes fixing on the spot where the Elevator hides.
We keep walking in silence, all four of us doing our best to be as quick about it without raising suspicion.
It becomes extremely difficult, when we start passing the groups of soldiers and I spot a couple of familiar faces in them. That shifter that went to Foundational with me. The vampire girl that once lent me her notes.
Remembering the plan, I lower my head, but not before I spot the stocky old man training a group of shifters to our right, an air of severe authority around him.
My wolf takes a few quick whiffs. My eyes round.
Lorcan.
Hatred flooding my body, I force myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Only allowing ourselves a glance now and then, we keep walking straight towards the Elevator.
It makes my heart nearly burst with hope, when we finally come to a stop in front of it.
Jaeger throws us a sneaky, sly smile as we hear the Elevator start rising from the ground.
“Stop,” I hear someone call out just when it appears right in front of us.
Goddamnit. I clench my jaw and force myself to slowly turn around, only to find a frowning soldier marching straight in our direction.
Quickly, I lower my head.
“Who are you?” the soldier demands as he catches up with us.
I let Jaeger try to get us out of this, and so do Alaric and Raven. She gives the guy a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just four people headed for a meeting with the general.”
The guy frowns. “Where’s your escort?”
“What seems to be the problem, Seamus?” a familiar voice booms from behind my back.
It makes me have to fight not to let out a groan. I throw the quickest glance over my shoulder, only to see Lorcan approaching us with two soldiers trailing him.
“These people are saying they have a meeting with you,” the guy tells him, seemingly beaming with pride.
Feeling Lorcan walk around him to face us, I close my eyes for a second. “Is that so?” I hear him say.
It’s an unfortunate solution, but I prepare to shift.
I open my eyes again only to find Lorcan staring at me directly.
There’s a moment of silence, broken only by the violent pounding of my heart.
“Ah,” Lorcan then says, still staring straight at me, “Byrne, is it?”
I almost let my eyebrows shoot up. “Yes,” I reply. “You told us to be here at midnight.”
“My apologies.” He frowns. “I seem to have forgotten.” He moves for the Elevator. “Will you follow me?” Then he throws a glance at the three soldiers waiting for his orders. “Dismissed.”
They leave and the four of us step into the Elevator with Lorcan, some other soldier darting inside at the last moment.
“Posture, Maximillian,” Lorcan barks at him.
“Yes, General,” the guy says as he straightens.
I have to fight not to throw confused glances at the ‘General’. As soon as we step out into the Entrance Hall and I see that it’s currently empty, I motion for him to stop.
He grabs me by the upper arm. “What in the name of Lycan do you think you’re doing here?” he demands as his angry face fills my field of vision.
My wolf growls.
Alaric clears his throat and Lorcan lets go of my arm. “Oh quit looking at me like that,” he spits out as his eyes sweep over us all. “I did what I had to do to survive, as did you.”
The four of us exchange glances. I already feel a discussion bubbling under the surface, but the longer I’m inside the castle… The spell they put on me to keep Baldur out of my head might not keep working. So I choose to cut it all short.
“There’s something I need to do,” I tell Lorcan. “Can you help me get to the Heart of the Academy?”
He scowls. “You infiltrated the most dangerous place of them all only to try to infiltrate an even more dangerous one?”
Well, what can I say to that?
He lets out a scoff, his eyes filling with something resembling… endearment? “I can always seem to count on you to be an idiot, Miss Novak.”
A smile tugs at the corner of my lips. “Good to see you too, Lorcan.”
He grunts and looks around. “Well, there’s no time like the present, is there?”
I give him a look that I hope conveys my gratitude for doing this for me without insisting on explanations.
Then, exchanging determined nods, all five of us start marching in the direction of the stairs leading to the lower level.
But almost as soon as we do, my wolf says, “There’s something wrong.”
Then the shadows creep across my vision, followed by the sound of a tongue clicking booming in my head.
I come to a stop, blood curdling in my veins.
“Anna,” I hear Alaric warn as I sense the others stop as well.
But the voice is already booming inside my head. “You lied to me, Freya darling,” he drawls. “Last time we saw each other, I seem to recall you saying you’d rather die a thousand deaths than be my bride.” The following words are dripping with smugness. “And now you’re running into my embrace.”
My mind flashes with a series of violent images — of my body being under his control, of him trying to force me to accept him, of Jaeger barging into the room…
“What is it, Anna?” Raven nudges me softly.
I look at her. And it’s the last thing I want crossing my lips, but… I’ve learned my lesson about hiding stuff of this magnitude. “He knows I’m here,” I say in a near-whisper.
Fear flashes through all four pairs of eyes fixed on me. I fix mine on Lorcan, a silent question in them.
“He’s out at the moment,” he grits out. “Otherwise, you’d already be dead.” He hesitates. “But Miss Novak, if he…”
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Just hurry up.”
I move to do as he says, but now, maybe because of the moment of connection with Baldur, I feel this energy pull me in the direction of the Dining Hall.
I hesitate.
“What do you think?” I ask my wolf.
She thinks for a second before she says, “I think it would be worth checking out.”
Then my head snaps back to see a soldier walking in our direction, a trace of suspicion in her eyes at the sight of the five of us just standing in the middle of the Entrance Hall.
“General,” she greets when she spots Lorcan, visibly relaxing.
“Nuala,” Lorcan returns.
The woman just passes us by and disappears into the hallway leading to the gyms.
I breathe a sigh of relief, thanking gods we have the ‘general’ with us.
But the incident makes me fix my eyes back on the Dining Hall and just go for it.
“Where are you going?” I hear Jaeger demand in a low, tense voice.
Still, they all rush after me into the Dining Hall, where the first thing I spot is the podium with the professors’ table.
The sight makes me freeze in place. In my mind, I’m back in that moment, walking straight towards him as he’s sitting in my chair with his back turned to me, already feeling strange but still oblivious to the fact that this man is about to change my entire life once and for all.
“Anna,” Raven’s soft voice snaps me out of it.
Focus, I need to focus, not let any of this shit flood me. “Sorry,” I mutter and keep walking. “Just follow me, please.”
I let the energy I sensed a minute ago lead me to the middle of the three long tables, the one usually reserved for fae students.
It’s somewhere at the center of the table that I stop, turning to explain, “It’s the portal. This spot must be directly over the Heart of the Academy.”
“What portal?” Lorcan demands.
“Just hurry, please,” Jaeger cuts in.
I hesitate for a moment, worried about leaving them all here. But if this works, I’ll fix everything before it ever happens. They’ll never have come here in the first place. So I give them all a determined nod, take a deep breath and start walking into the table.
Just as I think I’ll bump into one of the chairs, I step into the energy.
It takes my breath away, when I find myself in near darkness of a boundless space, the image of the people waiting for me to get this over with getting blurry and retreating far into the background like something I’m watching through a key hole.
I turn my eyes ahead, at the nothingness before me, and I start doing the hand gestures.
First gesture.
Second.
Third.
I stumble back — my heart pounding — when doors start appearing before me, rows upon rows and columns upon columns of doors filling the space around me.
Tipping my head back, I just gawk at it all for a moment. I fucking can’t believe I’m actually doing this.
Then I snap out of it and move to keep doing the hand gestures, when my wolf’s ears prick up at some commotion coming from somewhere behind me.
My head snaps back to see the four of them aren’t alone anymore.
They’re fighting a dozen vampire soldiers, the still grotesque-looking Serra and the shadows she’s wielding.
I rush back, but just as I’m about to step out of the portal, Jaeger spots me, grabs one of the soldiers by the neck and grits out, “No, Anna.”
Lorcan moves to help her.
“Leaving is the best thing you can do for them right now,” my wolf urges.
Yes, it’s the only way to save them.
I turn around, run a little farther into the portal and stop.
I keep doing the hand gestures, making the doors start spinning around me, so fast, they seem to turn into stars making up entire constellations.
Closing my eyes and squeezing the lighter tucked in my pocket, I try to pinpoint the one I need. It makes my wolf let out a soft whimper, and my body flood with joy, sadness and longing, when I sense Jericho behind one of them.
I reach out with my mind and grab onto it, tightly, because it’s already tugging me at my navel and starting to pull me in its direction.
It all happens so fast.
Sounds of struggling make me crane my neck to look over behind, where I see Serra charging straight at me with fury in her eyes, Lorcan and Raven at her tail.
I suck in a sharp breath and move to attack.
She grabs my upper arm, while Lorcan and Raven grab onto her .
I start thrashing to try to break free, but it’s too late.
The tug at my navel becomes too powerful and I feel myself being slung backwards and across boundless nothingness.