Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DEMONS BEING FARSIGHTED IS MORE ENTERTAINING THAN IT SHOULD BE
Emrys leaves me with only a slight headache and a room full of his swirling energy. I think I’m slowly getting more immune to his moods and his cynicism.
Lunch comes and goes without me having a bite to eat.
A lot of that has to do with being in this house, surrounded by men I don’t trust. While eating shouldn’t be an emotional response, it’s hard gathering the mental strength to walk up the stairs when it means facing them again.
Taking a nap sounds like a much better way to spend the precious few minutes allotted for our break.
Bugby moves from roosting on the windowsill to the top of the chair as I climb under the blankets.
The last thing I see before I close my eyes is him watching over me. I drop straight into a vivid scene, one I’m familiar with. This time, I’m visiting the huge fir tree without a demon latched on like dead weight.
The deep forest looks the same as it did, both the time I actually was here, and when I saw it in a vision.
It’s almost like a photograph; the details are extraordinary, and the pulsing light near the fir tree remains.
Where my dream differs is that there’s no smell to reminisce over, and no sounds to be distracted by.
This dream is nothing more than a message.
As quickly as I fall asleep, I wake, and I’m shocked to see an hour has passed.
Bugby caws urgently, moving from my chair back to the window, and I scramble out of bed and log onto my computer in record time.
Elder Augustus is as intimidating as all the other faculty, but he prefers the route of silent judgment as opposed to spoken hostility.
I practice my apology and have it half ready as I click on the link that he emailed earlier for his class. My request to join is immediately accepted, and when my camera connects I nearly die. I’m the only one in the virtual space, and Arlan is staring through the screen at me.
His face is a mask of indifference, and he acts like we’ve never met. “Elder Augustus has been called to a faculty meeting. I’ve shared today’s task in the comments. You’ll have to find the link yourself.”
I get a double dose of his chagrin because Arlan’s voice floats out of my laptop speakers while also echoing down from where he’s sitting upstairs. He exits the call before I have the chance to explain or apologize for being late.
I feel bad about oversleeping, and the sinking feeling is made worse as I wait for Arlan to appear at my door, demanding to know the reason I was late. But it’s not him who eventually walks into my room, it’s Bael.
He looks as pissed as Arlan did, not that he makes eye contact as he stands at the door. I never realized how tall he was, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that he was lying under me, the last time we saw each other.
Like me, he’s wearing his Thales uniform.
The black jacket designates him as a demon and does good things for him, highlighting his height and how broad he is across the shoulders.
The standard white shirt he wears underneath his blazer is anything but average on him, only amplifying how injured he must have been the first time I saw him.
Today he looks tanned, and it gives him a healthy glow, drawing my attention to the intricate tattoos circling up his throat and ending under his jaw.
Bael is strikingly beautiful and menacingly scary. And by god, it works for him.
The speed at which he suddenly appears at my desk is inhuman and stops my perving in its tracks. Perhaps he was watching me more than I knew, and the reminder of how supernatural he can be is a warning. My survival instincts kick into gear, and my attention diverts to my screen.
Bael’s style of teaching assistant is different to Emrys’, he doesn’t partake in the lesson at all.
His camera and mic stay off, and he doesn’t respond to the endless requests for assistance in the comments.
Kind of rude in my opinion. As is the way he stares.
I don’t need to look up to check; I feel his attention as clearly as if he were pushing his nose on mine, glaring into my eyes.
I don’t have the time to ask him what the hell he’s doing because as soon as all the students are in the virtual classroom, the timer for an exam starts.
I lock in on the task, blocking him out by drawing my shields so tight that the world around me disappears.
Then I fly through the multiple-choice questions, surprising myself.
Next, I flit between both the short-answer questions and the longer essay-style ones, focusing on where I think I know the answers.
It feels like no time has passed when I get locked out of the test. I look up and am surprised to find an empty seat in front of me. Surprised that I didn’t hear him go, not by him leaving. I’m starting to see a pattern of behavior that involves a lot of intimidation and avoidance.
The last lesson is gym with Coach, a truly awful end to another crappy day at Thales. After waiting at my screen for fifteen minutes for any kind of online instruction or email communication, I throw caution to the wind and make a hasty escape to follow my dream.
Bugby takes flight as soon as I step outside of their house, and I take what feels like the first breath of air for days.
“The sooner I get back to Nomina, the better,” I say softly as I cower in the shadows, trying to figure out how to get to the tree line from here. Admittedly, I don’t rush off, in case one of them is lying in wait, ready to imprison me again.
After a few long, drawn-out minutes of watching the house, I drop the concept of being a prisoner on the run and focus on my destination.
If I were starting at Nomina House, I wouldn’t be so directionally challenged.
I also wouldn’t stress so much about taking a few wrong turns, but I worry if I’m away too long, my housemates will send out a Thales-wide search party.
Bugby takes over the decision-making process. He lands in a nearby tree, then waits for me to catch up. He’s giving me a path to follow, or is going to get me lost, but at least we’re on the move.
Away from Cane’s house and everyone that lives inside it, the sun is brighter and the air fresher; the distance is good for my soul. By the time Bugby and I reach the clearing, life feels lighter.
Exactly as my dreamscape showed, there’s a light pulsating like a strobe from the base of the tree.
I sit right next to it, and a gentle hum floods my body, coming from the earth itself, confirming I’m where I need to be.
There are certainly signs that someone, presumably Bael, has already checked the spot, but his failure to find what is clearly hidden doesn’t stop my digging.
As soon as my fingers sink into the soil where the light is brightest, warmth spreads up my arm.
Bugby swoops down and perches himself atop a small dirt pile. He hops up with each new scoop I deposit, croaking encouragingly. I’ve barely made a hole when I touch the hidden object.
“Bael needs his eyes checked,” I tell Bugby as I shake the dirt off the small, wrapped bundle.
The material looks and feels old, and it’s held together by more of the delicate spun-gold threads.
By touch alone, I know what it’s going to be—another part of the arrow.
With a small tug on the gold threads, the cloth opens unveiling exactly what I thought.
There’s also no doubt in my mind that this part matches what I found in the kitchen.
Before I get the chance to do anything, the earth starts to right itself. An unseen force drags the pile of soil back into the hole and returns the ground to how it always was.
Given my poor grasp on magikal infinities, I’m not sure if it’s druid earth magik at play or an ancient spell cast into the ground itself, but it’s both mind-blowing and impressive to see in action.
As soon as the earth stills, a gentle breeze picks up leaves from close by and scatters them over the area. If you walked past, you’d have no idea of what occurred. When the noises and the smells of the forest return, I read it as my cue to leave.
Tucking my latest find inside my bra for safekeeping, I spend the time walking back, readying myself for my next run-in while also reliving the amazing phenomenon that I just experienced.
A cynical voice in my mind wonders if any of the beings in the Quin-state would see the wonder for what it is—incredible.
Given how egocentric most of them are, I’d put money on them not being able to see past their own noses.
Which is a real shame. For everything I’ve been through since my arrival, I’m still in awe of their abilities and existence, and humbled at being able to witness the mystical beauty of the others firsthand.
An eerie feeling pulls me to a stop at the edge of the trees behind Cane’s house. Something has changed in the short time I have been gone. There’s a stillness inside their house and a buzz outside. I check my watch and see not even an hour has passed.
“Stay there,” I murmur to Bugby. He sits above me, perched on one of the high branches of the tree I’m hiding behind.
He ignores me, swooping down close enough to make my hair flutter, before he soars out of the shadows and toward the door.
I take off right after him, but before we’ve made it to the front stairs, someone shouts behind me. “Did you hear? We’re out of lockdown!”
I spin around, wondering who’s talking to me, but the person was calling out to her friend who’s way off in the distance.