Chapter 22 #2
I had my feet on dry ground now, but my body shook so hard my knees threatened to buckle. “Why? Why didn’t it work?”
Her smile was a little sad. “Because you knew deep down that I wasn’t going to let you drown.
That takes the true fear out of the situation.
Which meant you weren’t forced to dig into your reserves.
It wasn’t real, not as it was for me in the rapids.
” She stepped out of the boat, flicking a finger at it, and I watched as it folded up on itself like origami, small enough to let her tuck it into one of the pockets of her voluminous skirt.
“Tomorrow, we meet back at my office. We will try again. If we aren’t successful, there is the Fae ritual. Incredibly difficult and a last resort, to be sure, but . . .” She broke off and sent me a tight smile. “That’s all for now.”
I turned my back on her and hobbled away. Maybe it was rude, but I was in a mood. All that near drowning, and what did I get for it? Prune fingers and a foul temper.
I was nearly back to my cabin when an unexpected voice stopped me in my tracks.
It was easy to forget that my place was not far from several of the professors – including Bryony.
“When are we meeting again?”
The edge of the building close to me beckoned, and I pinned my back to it and began a slow slide that brought me closer to the pair.
“That would be up to Thalienne, only. You are knowing this.”
I frowned, trying to place the second voice.
Not one of the professors – at least not that I’d met thus far, but it was a second woman, with an accent that I would place in Pakistan if I were a guessing woman.
One of the few friends that I’d made when I’d first been on the streets had been from Pakistan.
Zara was her name, and the way this woman said ‘you are knowing this’ was identical to how Zara had regularly reminded me that I did indeed know things that I asked questions about, even though she was a year younger than me.
“I do know, but I’m itching to find out –” Bryony stepped around the building.
Alone.
Her eyes went to my face and widened. “Child, what are you doing? And why are you soaking wet?”
I looked around but saw no one else. To say I was confused was an understatement. Did the trauma of what I’d just been through have me hallucinating, or were my ears so waterlogged that I was hearing things?
Bryony hustled me back to my cabin like a mother hen fussing over a wayward chick, drawing me a hot bath which she sprinkled full of herbs, then even went so far as laying out clothes for me.
“Maybe you should stay at your cabin today? Would be a shame to get sick so soon in the semester. I can write a note for you,” she called to me from the other room.
Even through the closed bathroom door I could easily hear her.
I was neck deep in the bath, pieces of lavender and thyme sticking to any piece of skin that dared breach the surface. “I’ll be okay, thank you, Bryony,” I called back. “Honest!”
“I’ve made a pot of tea, for you, Hannah. I’ve put a warming spell on your clothes; it will help with the chill.”
I smiled, there was no doubt that she knew I’d been in the loch with the Sage. In only the one full day of being here, I’d heard multiple students claim she was their favorite teacher – not only because she was relaxed in her style, but because she was kind.
Just as she was being kind to me, a brand-new student. When she probably should have been prepping her lesson.
“Doyenne McCabe, you know you’re the favorite teacher?” I bellowed from the bathroom. Her laugh was immediate.
“Hush, Doyenne Andrews will have a fit if you say that!”
I laughed to myself and sank a little deeper in the water.
“Breakfast is in thirty minutes, Hannah. If you are late, I will tell them to hold you something.” Her heels clicked across the floor, the door banged shut and then she was gone.
As kind as she was, as much as I appreciated her looking out for me, my mind still swirled back to how I’d found her. Who the hell had she been talking to, and where had the other woman gone? It was like she’d vanished into thin air.
Phones didn’t work here anymore than they worked in Neverthorn.
Maybe she had something like what I had with Calypso.
Some magically imbued item that could be used for communication.
The meetings she and Thalienne had spoken of, the women gathering at the bar, now this mystery woman .
. . all the things they could mean tugged at me. A mystery I did not need to dig into.
But like a Snatchling, I apparently liked the shiny new thing that drew my mind in a fresh direction.
Between the curse, finding my magic, and the mission to find the kraken coin all looming over me, I had enough problems to deal with, without adding whatever Thalienne and her friends were up to.
The locket rested on the edge of the tub, and Calypso was quiet.
Flipping it open, I set it so I could have an eye-to-eye chat with her.
We really hadn’t said much since I’d tried to pawn her off to the Jinn and while she was willing to kill me, she also .
. . weirdly . . . had attached herself to me.
Who needed enemies when you had friends that might kill you, given the right circumstances?
I took a slow breath and sank a little lower in the tub.
“Calypso?” I called softly. “Thank you for trying to help me back there.”
A whoosh of water sounded through the locket, and she floated so that I could see her upper body, arms crossed, hair floating around her head.
“Well. As I said, your death does me no good.” The roll of her shoulders was a tad too casual. Her pushing me had been more than just keeping me alive for her own ends – she’d been panicked, and I’d heard it in her voice.
“I want you to know . . . Once we’ve defeated Nocta and this is all over, I’m going to do everything I can to get you out. Even without the deal we made.”
Her blazing eyes went suspiciously bright and she turned away.
Who would’ve ever thought the two of us would be here having a serious heart to heart?
But here we were, and my heart was aching. If it had truly been her friends who’d put her in that well . . . I couldn’t imagine any of my friends doing that to me. Nikita? Sure.