Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
EMBER
The farthest a Quantum Witch can hope to go is in-realm, and even then, there are limits.
— Dashell Eldridge, Echelon to the
School of Quantum Magic
The floaty aftereffect of being in Leland’s presence was short-lived.
Not long after leaving him, guilt returned to swallow me, along with the reminder of what I now understood about my phantom flu — Helen was making me sick.
I wanted to close my eyes and go somewhere else to escape the weight of it, but slipping into a daydream wasn’t an option with Skye in our room.
I threw off my covers and went to the library. Time for another round of trying to figure out what was so wrong with me that Helen needed to stay awake all night to punish me in my dreams.
Loree, standing behind the circulation desk, had the same earnest look on her face that Dad got after I’d return from a run. I stopped by her desk to say hello, knowing if I didn’t, she’d come up with a reason to reorganize the entire mental magic section the second I started to look at it.
Eventually, we came around to the point of what texts I was looking for, but I couldn’t ask her outright what I was really wondering.
How had Helen gotten in my head in the human realm?
My phantom flu had started eight months ago, after my birthday, while Helen was still in Everden.
I asked Loree if she knew any texts on spells that worked between realms.
“Between realms?” She shook her head. “No, no. Magic only works within the plane you’re standing in.
You can’t be all over the place with it.
” She leaned in, her face animating. “As a matter of fact, I have a story to tell you about that. These Aspirants going missing — they’re supposed to be in Alchemia, you know?
That’s what Farrah wants us to think anyhow.
Well, I did some investigating of my own, and you know what? They’re not there!”
“You’ve been to Alchemia?” I asked, heart racing because how? How did she know where it was and how could I get to my sister?
“Ha!” Loree laughed, then clapped her hands and held them clasped.
“If you can keep a secret,” she whispered, “I sorted it out from here. Finding people. It’s just a little something I can do, truly, that’s inherent to me.
” I understood she meant her gift. “I looked and looked but didn’t see them.
If they’re still alive, that can only mean one thing.
They’re in another realm, too far for me to see. ”
“Are they in the human realm?” I asked, though I suppose if they were, a Mentalist would’ve been sent to find them with a Scrying or Contact spell. Scrying would allow the Mentalist to see their surroundings, and with Contact, they could mentally ask them where they were being held.
“What I think” — Loree paused for emphasis — “is that, for years and years and years, all these legends said the Allwitch temple was the Goddess’s pocket realm. As a matter of fact, they said that was the real reason the Echelons didn’t want us going there.”
“Who said that?” I asked.
“Allwitches — and, by the way, they were banished for saying it. Oooh!” She vigorously rubbed her arms through a shiver.
“It gives me the goosebumps just thinking about it! That would be something, wouldn’t it, if that’s where the Aspirants went.
Trouble is, no one on the mainland knows how to open the place, and who’s going to tell the Echelons that’s where they need to look?
” She eyed my brand to say it certainly shouldn’t come from me.
“Should I show you our new texts? This one — it’s called Mortal Beginnings, set thirty years ago, before they opened the portstops to Gnarlton.
A good, old-fashioned romance I know you would just love! ”
I let her tell me about it but found it hard to listen.
Spells couldn’t reach across realms and neither could gifts.
Which meant, for eight months, Helen had traveled to the human realm daily to make me sick.
Helen, who also frequented the Allwitch temple, where — Loree had just made the convincing case — the missing Aspirants might be hidden.
* * *
Leland awoke from depletion sooner than expected, catching me on my way up the spiral to present me with my options for going to bed.
Either he could cast Shield or Dream Interference, the phantom flu spell.
It should’ve been an automatic no, but Shield required proximity.
For Shield to work, Leland needed to be in the same room as me.
I didn’t want to inconvenience Skye, and I wasn’t about to invite myself to sleep in Leland’s room.
I looked down at his shoes, the same casual white pair he’d fallen asleep in.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly. “If you want to try Dream Interference with me. I know how to be gentle.”
I shuffled the toe of my shoe against the floor, one hand pressed to the stone wall as I stared down and away from the way he was looking at me. 1.5, I decided, the number of times my size 8 shoe would fit inside his.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Then I guess you can interfere.”