Chapter 20
Caught You
Veda started walking around the cylinder, heading toward the right and completely unaware of my existential crisis. I had to jog to catch up.
We passed at least four hallways as we rounded the golden center. A giant black letter marked the marble walls of each corridor branching off from the central cavity.
“The A-Block is for administrators—not The Tower kind, but like, you know, the ones who handle guild logistics,” Veda explained.
“The old people. Professors. Trainers. Winifred has an office there. You probably won’t use this hall much.
The C-Block is for communal spaces like the library and cafeteria.
Communi. The D-Block is for training. Disciplina. ”
She paused at the fourth hall, marked with an N.
A girl with rose-gold hair down to her waist leaned against the opposite wall, her posture lazy and calculating all at once. She raised her top lip in what might have been a sneer that took nothing away from her beauty. She was 700K quality if I ever saw it.
“This is the one hallway you do not want to wander down, dear princess,” the sneering strawberry blond said on cue.
“And this is Marigold,” Veda said flatly. “Just ignore her. She’s a miserable old hag with a jealous streak.”
Marigold didn’t react to Veda’s comment.
Her eyes raked down my body from head to toe.
I still wore the oversized sweatshirt that draped to my knees—the one Soren gave me.
She sported a flowing, white sundress that swirled with the non-existent breeze.
Strappy gold sandals decorated her feet in contrast to my complete lack of shoes.
And her bare limbs added just as much to her style as her clothing, long and slender with skin that advertised softness no cream or serum could bring mine.
“Everyone here thinks you’re going to save us all.” Her expression turned smug. “I’m betting you’ll be the end of us.”
“I don’t even know you,” I turned to face her fully, jaw cocked to the side, “But you already have a problem with me. Almost like you’ve been thinking about me a bit too much without even meeting me. Little pathetic, don’t ya think? Like a fan. Or a stalker.”
Marigold scoffed and pushed off the wall. One hand slid to her hip. “Stay out of Neko if you know what’s good for you.” She pivoted but threw one last look over her shoulder. “And you might want to stay away from Soren, too.”
Then she sauntered off down the hallway without waiting for a reply.
“Case in point,” Veda muttered. Then loud enough for Marigold to hear, “Jealous old hag.”
I didn’t give a smile, and couldn’t match Veda’s snicker. Marigold’s words needled away at something in me.
“I’m betting you’ll be the end of us.”
Why did it ring so true?
“Come on,” Veda said, veering toward the next corridor. “You’ll be in the L-Block. You won’t have to deal with Marigold there. She’s not allowed anywhere near that hall.”
Veda continued around the Wall of Calling, and I followed until we reached the next branch. A large L labeled this one.
I wanted to ask Veda why Marigold would tell me to stay away from Soren, but I figured it had something to do with the “jealous” part. Marigold liked Soren. She probably even had his attention most of the time, but if he was my Guardian and meant to protect me, she might have felt threatened.
Yeah, right. In what universe could I compete with the likes of her in that department?
The L-Block was a long stretch of white doors. Each one sported a silver plaque with the letter L followed by ascending numbers.
“What’s in the N-Block?” I asked as we passed L013.
“N is for Neko. It’s a dormitory for beings that are…a bit more dangerous than average.”
“Beings?”
“Just people,” Veda said quickly, sparing me a sideways glance. Her voice dropped a bit. “Just stay off that hallway. And the T-Block. You’re in the Lumos dorm, so you’re totally safe here. We only put people with spotless records or harmless…abilities in this hall. Here we are.”
We stopped at Room L044, and I felt that Veda had her own unanswered-questions graveyard ready for me if I tried to ask anything else about the hallways tonight.
Beings.
Not people.
My gut twisted.
Great. All I need is to find out that vampires and werewolves and angels and demons are real.
I swallowed hard as the sinking sensation in my gut reminded me that the last two were nowhere near out of the question. The tapestry had been full of such images.
As strange as these people and their beliefs were, I’d learned that nothing is truly out of the realm of possibilities, considering The Tower was still on Earth. I was on Earth.
Whatever. I’d deal with all those questions tomorrow. My nap on the boat must have been awfully short because I was already completely knackered. Yawns were stacking up in the back of my throat before Veda could manage to unlock the door.
She kept her goodbyes short—thankfully—and I wasn’t even sure if I closed the door before crawling toward the shower.
I was so numb with exhaustion that I barely registered the sting as the steaming water washed over the scratch down my calf.
I didn’t fall asleep in the shower.
I knew that because I woke up in the bed the next morning, but I didn’t remember when the shower ended and the dream started.
I did remember the light.
Bright. Warm.
“She needs to know where her family comes from! You cannot shield her from The Way forever, Lillemore!” Grandma sounded mad.
“Eliana is my daughter—not yours.” That was Mommy’s voice. “You don’t get to tell me how to raise her. Once she knows about the Prophecy, her life will only get harder. Just because you believe our family has been called doesn’t mean I do. What if I don’t want to be a part of this anymore?”
“You don’t get to choose, Lil. The Creator calls you. And you know He’s calling her, too.”
“Lower your voice!”
I sat up in Grandma’s bed. It was still dark outside the balcony doors. I could hear Mommy’s voice downstairs.
Was she here to finally take me home?
But what was she fighting with Grandma about?
Six-year-old me tiptoed across the hardwood floor, careful to avoid the creaky board near the dresser. My fingers wrapped around the cold brass doorknob, twisting as slowly and quietly as I could. Light seeped through the crack, and the voices sharpened.
I heard Mommy talk first. It was quieter than before but easier to understand with the door open.
“—up in The Tower. Your great-grandmother had the same crazy ideas as you, and here we are, still waiting. You’re putting all of our lives at risk.
Rui Xi is getting suspicious. I can’t believe you gave her that necklace.
You think we’re just going to let her walk around identifying herself as a target?
It’s bad enough she has the mark. If Rui Xi finds out what you have been doing with Marjorie Rockefeller, he’ll either divorce me or move us into his quarters and cut you out forever. ”
Mommy’s voice sounded sad and scared at the same time.
Was she crying?
Was Daddy mad at us?
“I don’t think that’s why he’s leaving you, Lil.
He knows about you and that man,” Grandma made a weird sound like a laugh.
It wasn’t a laugh, though. “A Daughter of the Scepter having an affair with a follower of the Dark One? Eliana is going to be ripped in half between the world you want her to have and The Way that will find her. She already has a Guardian!”
Ripped in half?! I didn’t want to be ripped in half!
“I thought you, Mom, of all people, wouldn’t fall for the gossip of a bunch of dried-up old prunes playing pretend.
And that boy you love to coddle so much is no Guardian.
He’s trouble. He’s going to ruin both Eliana and me one day.
You’re just unthinkingly following whatever he tells you.
You do not know anything. I’m taking my daughter, and you are not to contact us. ”
“No!” Grandma yelled. She sounded really scared now. “You can’t do that to me!”
I woke again.
This time I wasn’t in my grandmother’s room but stark naked on satin sheets, bathed in the soft glow from the bathroom light I’d forgotten to turn off.
I sat up straight, a cool sheen of sweat on the back of my neck.
The shadows in the room blurred until I remembered where I was.
Much further than six feet underground, I was buried deep in the Earth.
The. Earth.
Exiled from The Tower.
My name is Eliana Glory Kai Xin Chapman-Chen. Dual-Blood. Non-Citizen.
Terrorist?
Daughter of the Scepter?
Savior of the world?
Destroyer of the world?
Who the hell knows?
Before I could slip further into my second existential crisis in five hours, I rubbed my face and peeled damp strands of hair off my mouth and drool-stained cheeks.
My sigh blared louder than expected.
The stone floor felt warm under my bare feet, but I’d never enjoyed sitting around butt-ass naked.
With arms stretched in front of me, I floundered toward the wall. My hands slid around on the surface until I found the switch.
The overhead light hit like a hammer, and I immediately slapped it off again.
Too bright.
The bathroom glow would do.
It was enough for me to find a chest of drawers with clothes in it. The clothes on the floor outside the shower were soaked with sweat, blood, river water, and something else.
I allowed a quarter of a second for the heat to sweep across my cheeks as I recalled how that boat ride had gone.
Swimmingly.
I rummaged in the drawers by the dim light and mostly felt around until I found clothes that fit. First, I pulled out some plain underwear that Astrid would have burned. My heart sank a little at how she might be feeling right now. Did she blame herself? Did she think I was dead?
Did I blame her? Did I wish she were dead?
After more scavenging, I pulled on brown satin shorts and a ribbed green tank. They fit perfectly, much better than what I’d had at Hearth Haven.
As I dressed, I replayed the dream (or was it a memory?) in my head.
The hardest part was the voices.
Both of them.
And knowing both of them were dead.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the door leading to the hallway.
A soft orange light seeped in through the crack at the bottom. The light from the bathroom wasn’t bright enough to drown out that light and its temptation.
I’d never had that dream before.
And I wasn’t sure it was a dream.
It hadn’t felt stitched together like dreams usually did, a Frankenstein conglomerate of recent events and secret desires.
No hazy surrealism, no misplaced logic.
It was a wholly logical chain of events with vivid details.
“He knows about you and that man. A Daughter of the Scepter having an affair with a follower of the Dark One!?”
My throat closed up like wet cardboard.
Azazel.
Azazel had ruined my family.
Is he a follower of the Dark One?
Regardless, he deserved death.
Whether dream or memory, the scene reminded me of why I was here. I clenched the hem of my shorts in my fist.
Veda said the Jonathon bow could kill him.
But why would a regular bow not work? Did he have special powers like the Charisms? Was he something not human? If not the Jonathon bow, what else could kill him?
Why the hell was my life just a series of questions now?
A growl pushed through my teeth, low and guttural.
They had lured me to the inn, gotten my citizenship revoked, kidnapped me, taken me out of The Tower (by kidnapping again), and still refused to answer all of my questions!
Enough.
I marched to the door and grabbed the knob. It squeaked under my grip, but turned. At least they hadn’t locked me in this time. The thought had crossed my mind as Veda’d used a key to unlock the door from the outside. She may have been a bit pushy, but she was no Soren.
The hallway outside glowed with soft amber light from sconces along the walls. Pools of shadow stretched between them like swamps waiting to swallow up their prey—swallow me up.
We had come from the right before, so that’s where I headed.
My best bet at finding answers would be in a library or a classroom. Veda had mentioned classes, right? Or even an office would work.
A-Block or C-Block?
I found my way to the center circle, tensing and turning about at every little sound I heard on the way there, just as nervous as the small girl who didn’t want to get caught eavesdropping on her mother and grandmother.
“No sneaking around tonight, Xiao Ying.”
Soren’s words echoed louder than the soft pad of my bare feet against swirling marble, resurfacing like a ripple in my blood.
My heart rate pulled its usual stunt whenever that oaf was involved, kicking up a gear. I swallowed that fear with a spoonful of sugar and an excuse at the ready.
Stupid hormones.
I banked left to circumnavigate the wall of names, where my own would appear sometime soon.
As my eyes traced over Bridgette, my brain recognized that the faint sound of singing had started again. I wasn’t sure whether it was a man or a woman, and I still couldn’t make out any words. It was halfway around the circle when I stopped noticing the singing and instead heard the hissing.
It wasn’t the hissing voice in my head. And I may have been a Tower troll, but I wasn’t an idiot. That hissing wasn’t air leaking from a hose or carbonation in a glass of champagne. It was the hiss of a predator that stalks before it strikes.
My blood ran ice cold, pumping at a dangerous pace.
The hiss came again.
I spun on an inhale, unsure if I would ever have the chance to exhale again.
An enormous black snake with concentric red rings rose from the floor with fangs bared and beady eyes trained on me.
Another hiss.
Then it lunged.
I screamed and turned.
Ran.
My bare feet slapped against the marble.
I veered around the Wall of Calling and dove into the first hallway I saw.
I checked behind me to see how much space I had put between myself and the serpent, but if anything, I’d lost ground. The snake was slithering after me at an impossible speed. Catching up too fast.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
My fight-or-flight response didn’t care.
I whipped around again and smacked straight into something solid.
“Oof,” I breathed, stumbling backwards.
Déjà vu.
This had happened before.
So had the next part.
Strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me against the same surface that was blocking my escape. Someone was about to feed me to that snake.
Someone smelling of black pepper and mint with a trace of something citrus.
“Caught you.”
Of course, it would be Soren. And of course, he would be the one to feed me to a python.
Fuck this dream.