Chapter Thirty #2
The silence and waiting was high school graduation all over again.
I hadn’t wanted to go, but Gray said I had to.
He said he’d come. So I went, only because he insisted he’d be there to clap for me.
I sat in a cheap folding chair on a squeaky gym floor, squeezed between two people talking around me, wearing a stifling, polyester gown I’d paid eighty-five dollars for.
The bleachers filled with smiling faces.
Minutes went by. Then a quarter of an hour.
Then a half hour. Every time the gym door swung open, I thought — imagined — it was him.
But when they called my name, no one cheered.
The next time I saw Gray, he had a girlfriend, or so I found out when I ran into him sitting outside with Lion.
Leland? I had twenty days of messages from him.
At the palace. Be back for dinner. Errands in the city.
What do you need? He replied to every message from me as soon as he could.
He didn’t run away. He didn’t disappear.
But now it had been hours, and I still hadn’t heard from him.
It no longer felt like graduation. It felt like he was gone.
* * *
Mid-afternoon, Case messaged.
Case Hammond: Hey. Have you seen Lee?
Ember Blackburn: No. Have you?
Case Hammond: Not recently. We were supposed to do something this morning. Will you message me if you see him?
Ember Blackburn: Sure.
Ember Blackburn: Actually. Wait one second. I think I just thought of a way to find out where he is.
By the time I hit send, I was halfway to the library and striding toward Loree with a full orchestra of hope strumming in my chest. Her gift was finding people. Surely, she should be able to locate him.
I knew hope was bad. Over the years, I’d learned to dull my senses, quash my expectations. But I’d never been good at that when it concerned Leland. So I approached Loree on eager flapping wings, fully unprepared for crashing.
She closed her eyes for a minute to look for him, and when her eyes reopened, she shook her head. I asked her to try again, and she did, but her head was still shaking. Her red lips drooped in a frown.
I looked at my reflection in the glass top of the circulation desk. Deep, black circles marred my under eyes, the result of waking up too early after being violently thrown from the Lucid Dream. And from my reluctance to blink ever since finding Leland’s empty bed.
Loree laid her hand over mine, and I internally recoiled. The gesture wasn’t comforting. It only reminded me her gift for finding people didn’t work.
“I’m sure he’s only in another realm,” she said, gently lifting her hand as my fingers inched out from under hers.
“What if he isn’t?” I asked. “What are . . . ?” I took a steadying breath. “Are there any other reasons you wouldn’t be able to find him?”
Loree’s face, so full of optimism on any other day, currently held no light in it, the answer was written there in her dim and sorrowful eyes.
I couldn’t lie to a corpse, because gifts only worked on the living. Which meant, if Leland wasn’t in another realm, he was dead.
“He’s an Aspirant, dear,” she said. “It would make the most sense, if you really think about alllll that’s been happening lately, for him to be with all the others in the Shadowrealm.”
Leland. In the Shadowrealm.
Some part of me knew it was the reasonable explanation. A louder part of me remembered the blood. It was so much blood, too much blood. Even as strong and tall as he was, if his injuries last night were real, the amount of blood he’d lost wasn’t survivable. It just wasn’t.
“Go be with your friends,” Loree said. “I’ll keep trying.”
She guided me to the edge of the library as my chest was collapsing.
I had no idea what to do. Numbly, I stumbled back to my room and retreated behind my bed curtains.
I stared at the ridges in the ceiling and thought about the time Nova’s tail got crushed in the door, and Skye screamed from a place I didn’t know a body had.
What Skye felt then, it might’ve been gentler than the pain of my lungs caving in.
Pain so overwhelming I couldn’t even scream for him.
My Counterpart was missing, and it was my fault. I caused it.
My transmitter vibrated.
Case Hammond: Been a second. You find him?
Ember Blackburn: No.
Case Hammond: He’s been preparing for this . . .
Ember Blackburn: No.
Case Hammond: So you don’t want to read the letter he left?
No. I didn’t. I wanted Leland, not a letter.
Case was typing something, but unwilling to face what it was, I told him to message me when he heard from Leland and clicked off my transmitter.
Later, Skye had news from her dad. The Shadowrealm was spotted in the city of Creatus at 4:30 a.m.
After she told us the news, everyone in the academy went to search the desert for him.
Everyone but me, that is. I stayed behind and removed my magic suppressants, dressed in nice, palace clothes, and swapped what I needed from my hefting satchel into a non-magical tote bag.
I was going to Odessa Hall. I was going to confront Helen about the Shadowrealm.
And I was going to find out exactly what she did with Leland.
* * *
I walked to the portstop, wanting to pitch a fistful of sand at the sky, which was far too empty without a scrying orb floating above me.
I trekked across the marble bridge to the palace wanting to rip my hair out.
People stared. That was normal. What wasn’t normal was how long it took to get across the bridge without the armor of Leland’s intimidating persona, his skill for sending everyone scattering out of our way.
By the time I made it to the palace, I was hot from the effort of weaving and dodging and squeezing myself up against the bridge rail.
Despite the moonale I’d chugged, I barged through the palace’s arched door with my blood overheating, ready to mow down anyone standing in my way.
The fire pumping through my legs demanded sprinting, but I slowed.
I could’ve burned holes through the shining marble floor, but I forced myself to walk. Because Leland had said to be docile.
Slow and harmless, I went, blinking with innocence as I padded down the long hall, ignoring the onslaught of questioning faces. Clerks, who, upon spying me, turned abruptly in the opposite direction, racing to report my presence — intrusion — to an Echelon. I turned down the office corridor.
There were eight offices, each one behind an individual, stately, arched door with an engraved and gold-painted lintel. I read the nameplates in my head — Jaxan, Ambrosia, Starvos — continuing on and on until at last, Helen.
Her office would open for me — Blackburn wards. But I had no confidence she would be in there. Or, if she was, that she wouldn’t have me detained on the spot for unlawfully entering.
Sweating, I held my breath and turned the knob.
But despite my resolve, despite there being nothing more important in that moment than finding Leland, my senses bowed to my festering insides. Staring into her office, I couldn’t see or hear or remember where I was. Everything blurred. A wave of lightheadedness had me clutching for the door jamb.
Then a small voice chirped. It’s fine. Who cares.
You’re fine. You’ve always been fine without her.
And with that voice close-at-hand, I fought off the inclination to tune out, to go to my imagination — the one place I didn’t have to feel the skin-crawling sensation every time I remembered her absence.
The skin-crawling sensation that was exponentially worse as I stood where she showed up every day for work.
Once my vision cleared enough for me to look around, I let out a breath of relief.
Dozens of desks were set with shallow glass bowls filled with mirrorlike water for Scrying.
A single shelf was reserved for silvery blue bottles of mental magic.
But Helen wasn’t there. The sense of relief at not seeing her was short-lived.
Haunting, measured footsteps tolled from down the hall, and I froze.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Jaxan.
I opened my mouth to give an answer, but he apparently didn’t want one.
“Don’t speak,” he said, and my mouth snapped shut at the command. “You will address me in my office. Come.”
A chill ran up my spine as the door closed and Jaxan put a clawed hand on my arm to convey me to the center of the room, where he planted himself in his desk chair and commanded me to sit across from him.
“Why are you in my palace?” he asked.
Under his glare, I forgot I’d already been dishonest. I forgot I’d made up the rule to answer every question, that I didn’t have to answer anyone, especially when what mattered more than punishing myself was finding Leland. I forgot all of that. Answering everything, it was muscle memory.
“I came to ask Helen where Leland is,” I blurted. The second the words left my lips, I remembered Leland saying, We don’t like each other, and amended, “The Truth-Teller. I came to ask her where the Truth-Teller is.”
“Oh? What makes you think she knows?” He folded his hands, his head tilting like a mad scientist eager to dissect more thoughts from my brain.
“The Shadowrealm,” I confessed in a hurry. Arguing with Jaxan was the last thing I had time for. “It’s taking the fourth-year Aspirants. No one’s heard from Leland in fifteen hours. Shadows were spotted in Creatus this morning, and . . .”
It was Leland who had told me the Shadowrealm could be a Mentalist. A good Mentalist could convince you you’re seeing things you aren’t with a Mind Trick. I didn’t think it would go over well if I brought Leland into it, however, so I kept it vague.
“And with the rumors the Shadowrealm’s a Mind Trick,” I resumed, “I thought — yes, okay? I think Helen knows exactly where Leland is.”
“First the Shadowrealm was me.” He tapped his desk. “Now it’s Helen? Do you understand what you’re saying when you make these accusations? The implications. Did you forget what happened the last time? That you have one. Strike. Left.”
My brand pulsed as he looked through my bangs at it, and docile went out the window. “The Truth-Teller is your godson,” I said, heatedly. “Why aren’t you worried about him?”
“I am, but his spelltracks were scented in the catacombs,” he said breezily.
“So was a trail of his blood, along with his bloodied footprints. There is no evidence of him being taken to the Shadowrealm. It wouldn’t be the first time he needed to go off-grid.
Leland has ways of Healing himself. And I have faith in my Dark Witches’ abilities to locate him. ”
“When?” I demanded. “When were his spelltracks scented?”
Ordinarily, I would’ve been more suspicious of any new information Jaxan was offering, having learned my lesson after he’d sent me to look for the Sword of Shifting.
But at the mention of Leland’s bloodied footprints, which matched the description of the last time I saw him, I couldn’t disregard the information.
Even at that point, I already knew I was going to the catacombs.
They weren’t a place anyone would advise me to go.
I had no idea if it was truth or legend, the saying that most light witches who enter the catacombs didn’t come out, but . . .
It wouldn’t take long. Leland and I were magnets. One foot in the tunnels, and if he was down there, I would feel him.
“What I’m hearing,” Jaxan said humorlessly, “is that you think the witches I employ are incompetent. That my efforts to locate the Truth-Teller are not to your standards.” He opened his desk drawer and removed the Everblade, the knife that cuts through everything, and slapped it down in front of me. “Then you do it.”
My stomach lurched. “I — what?”
“Find the Truth-Teller,” Jaxan said, utterly blasé about it. “Take the Everblade. You will need it.”
I was stunned, blinking dumbly at Jaxan’s knife, easily the most valuable artifact in all of Everden. Jaxan wouldn’t lend it to me. It was a trick. It had to be.
I pushed the Everblade away. “Weapons are illegal in Everden,” I stated.
“This is an artifact.”
“And I still don’t want it.” I wasn’t going to use a knife on someone.
“Take it,” Jaxan said. “Aim for the stomach.”
“No.”
“What part of this sounded like a discussion?” he asked before issuing a command at me. “Take it.”
My hands folded to his bidding, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a malicious grin.
“Satchel,” he directed.
I tucked the Everblade in my bag, zipping it.
I couldn’t resist his gift. But I could still ask questions.
“Why?” I asked. “Why does it have to be me? You have Dark Witches. They have magic, capabilities. I have . . .” feelings.
Jaxan sat back casually. “You know why. The Truth-Teller is important. The Echelons like him. You — they’re not sold yet.
Half of us want you sent home. Half are hoping you do something special.
This is your opportunity. Prove to us you are capable of making a difference in our realm.
Prove a human can be altruistic. Convince us you deserve to stay here. ”
“And you want me to stay because . . . ?”
“Powerful witches belong in Everden. Embrace dark magic, and you will be one of them.”
“I’m going to need a better reason.”
“Fine,” Jaxan concluded. “I will tell you. There is a prophecy that says you can end the Witch’s Limit. Not a single Dark Witch has been able to cast a Curse since the Witch’s Limit fell over Everden, and I want Curses back.”
How badly I wanted to say that the Goddess probably took Curses away for a reason . . .
He flicked his hand in dismissal. “I’m ready for you to leave my office. You’ve wasted enough of my time, and yours, which would be better spent in the catacombs, finding the Truth-Teller.”
I didn’t want to think about what Jaxan could command me to do with a weapon like the Everblade, but I imagined great and terrible things, and considering how deeply Leland didn’t trust him, I knew I needed to get out of range of Jaxan’s gift before he commanded me again.
I pushed out of the chair with no further questions.
Five steps from the door.
Four.
Three.
“Oh, Ember?” he said icily. “Find the Truth-Teller for me. That’s a — ”
I left his office without acknowledging the rest. It made no difference. I was going to find Leland with or without Jaxan’s command.