16. Experiment
Experiment
“You can’t be serious,” Luc burst out, speaking loudly over the wind.
I stood next to him, our sides brushing. My hand still gripped the iron latch that opened a lower section of one of the tall windows in Bones’s apartment.
I’d discovered the latch a few days earlier, when a drakai appeared outside the glass, making loops in the air and periodically knocking on the glass with its little fist, and occasionally making larger thunks with his bushy-haired head.
Luckily, the drakai must have known Bones.
The creature stubbornly persisted when I tried to motion it around the tower to the kitchen window. It shook its head and motioned back, waving his hands and pointing until I found the handle hidden behind one of the long drapes.
I eventually did manage to wrench it open that first time, whereupon the drakai darted inside, scolded me in a high-pitched voice, and demanded a cup of chocolate and a few minutes by the fire to “collect its wits.”
It had brought me a letter from my brother.
Before Bones got taken, drakai used to find me in Frumpy’s on nights I had letters or packages, or in the main dining areas at Valarian or Grathrock, or sometimes at the coffee cart in the main lobby of Malcroix Mansion, or in one of the other common spaces in either of the dormitories where I’d lived.
Prior to this year, they’d never had any need to hammer at the windows of Bones’s tower until I let them inside.
These days, I’d given them little choice.
Apart from when I was forced to leave to attend classes, I generally didn’t spend my free time anywhere but here. I had my meals delivered here. I revised here, and read here, and Luc, Nyx, Alaric, and Jolie came to see me here or in the lab downstairs.
Even between classes, I generally avoided being seen in common spaces, since it usually only left me open for curses or abuse.
Sometimes, if the gap between periods was long enough, I would go to Bones’s experimental magic shed, or the library, where I’d found a number of out-of-the-way corners.
Mostly though, I’d use Alaric’s Yule present, the talisman that made me invisible for short periods of time, to avoid all of that.
The talisman only worked in five minute bursts, and needed a minute of recharge before it became useable again, but it worked well enough to keep me out of trouble most days. It was far easier and wasted far less of my time to stay out of sight until it was time to reappear inside my next class.
It did mean some extra planning.
The five minute limit meant I couldn’t always use it, but it gave me one more tool, especially if I was in a hurry, or if the corridor or college where I happened to be was packed with royals.
With everything else going on in my life, I wasn’t much in the mood for magical duels.
I also increasingly worried someone might go too far.
I worried that someone might be me.
Given what happened with Quicksilver and the snake, that no longer felt like an unfounded fear.
My not being findable in the usual places clearly frustrated the drakai, though.
Drakai were banned from delivering messages inside lecture halls during classes, except in dire emergencies, or on the orders of a high-ranking school official. Which meant they’d mostly been forced to battle the rough winds outside Bones’s tower, even in the rain.
Still gripping the iron handle, I leaned through the narrow opening in the glass.
I looked down the length of the dizzyingly steep wall to the roof of the northwest wing, which flowed away in a straight line from the angle of the window. I knew how high that ceiling was when I stood beneath it, but from up here, it looked very far away.
It looked a lot further away than I really wanted to think about, frankly.
Despite what I’d said to Luc and the others, I wasn’t overly keen to try this experiment, either. The difference was, the anxiety and panic in my chest screamed louder than my fear of physical death.
I was running out of time. I could feel it tangibly now.
As much as I told myself it was just paranoia, or a side-effect of Bones’s silences and the difficulty of being separated from him, I didn’t believe it.
I could hear the clock ticking over my head much more loudly than the pocket watch attached to my belt loop with a golden chain.
“It’s out of the question,” Luc snapped angrily. “I won’t let you do it, Leda, I don’t care what you think you know. It’s suicide!”
“It’s not really, though, is it?” I said, keeping my voice calm. My eyes never left the arched, stone rooftop below. “You’re being dramatic, Lucifer. I understand your fear, but, as you pointed out yourself, it’s worked twice already. There’s no reason to think it won’t work a third time.”
“We don’t know that,” Alaric remarked. “We don’t actually know that’s why it worked. It’s a theory, dearest, and a theory isn’t certain by its nature.”
I turned to glare at him. “We do know it, Alec. And most of human science is built on theories that have been in use for years, if not centuries. Fear of death triggers the phasing, whether the threat is real or not. It’s the only explanation for what happened to me.”
“Bones could have done it,” Alaric pointed out. “Both times.”
“But he didn’t,” I snapped. “And there’s no reason to think he could do that long distance, even if he wanted to, and certainly not collared––”
“The point is, we don’t know anything!” Luc growled.
He gripped my bicep in his fingers, as if to yank me back, or maybe just to keep me from jumping.
“You said you felt Bones right before you went through last time, didn’t you?
” he demanded. “So who’s to say Alaric isn’t right?
Why’re you so sure it wasn’t Bones, thinking he was saving you? ”
When I looked back at him, biting my lip, Luc raised his voice.
“How do you know he isn’t the only one who can phase, Leda?
” he demanded. “He might’ve pushed you into that crypt under the Black Tower.
He might’ve been the one who pulled you out, when it looked like you’d been caught.
Maybe he pulled you to him. Maybe he pushed you back out.
Your magic mightn’t have had anything to do with it!
Which means you could jump now, and if he’s not paying attention, or if he can’t feel you for some reason, you’ll crash into the roof and break every bone in your body… including your bloody neck!”
“Leda, he’s right.” Jolie gripped my other arm, the one attached to the hand that held the iron latch.
She didn’t hold me as tightly as Luc, but her fingers felt strong.
“You said yourself you can’t feel Bones right now.
Which means he probably can’t feel you. So how would he possibly be able to help you, even if he wanted to? ”
I frowned at both of them.
I could hear the logic of their words and still know everything they said was wrong.
How could they not feel we were running out of time?
Something bad was coming. I felt it so strongly, I struggled to think around the anxiety it caused, much less articulate any of my reasoning to them. I needed to find him, now, before something happened that couldn’t be reversed.
When Nyx spoke, I turned my head.
“Are you sure that’s not what this is about?” she asked, calmer than the others, but just as loud over the wind. “You not being able to feel Caelum? You said you panic when you can’t feel him. Is that what this is? You panicking?”
Luc, Alaric, and Jolie looked at her, their expressions taut once they understood her words. When she saw me listening to her, Nyx maneuvered her small body so that she’d be nearer to me, squeezing between me and Luc.
“You said it makes you sick,” she said, still speaking louder in the wind. “You said you feel dread, like you might die, when you can’t feel him. Right? So you’re not yourself at the moment, Leda. It’s making you anxious. He’s making you less rational.”
Nyx glanced at Alaric, who nodded to her words. Understanding had reached Luc and Jolie’s faces, as well.
Before either of them could speak, Nyx leaned up to my ear.
Her pangolin primal wrapped its tail around my neck from where it perched on her shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but felt more like she was trying to reach me, or maybe even give me some comfort without grabbing hold of me like Luc and Jolie.
“He’s not going to die if you don’t do this, Leda,” Nyx said, quieter.
“We can find another way. I promise you. Trust your own words on this… you said that you’re not yourself when you can’t feel him.
You shouldn’t be experimenting with phasing right now, for that reason alone.
You have no idea where you’ll end up, given your mental state.
Wait until you can assess the danger more logically.
When you’re more sure of your own motives.
Then we can talk about designing some kind of experiment––”
“We’re not ‘experimenting’ like this at all!” Luc burst out angrily.
Nyx glared at him.
So did Alaric and Jolie.
They obviously thought Nyx was right, and moreover, that I’d been listening to her, when none of them had been able to reach me.
I had been listening to her, but, as much as everything she said made logical sense, it didn’t change what I felt.
That clock still ticked louder and more convincingly than Nyx’s calm words.
I agreed with her reasoning in its entirety.
I also knew she was wrong.
Luc must have seen some hint of that in my face.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He glared at me, then at Nyx, like he thought she was encouraging my madness. “Are you as suicidal as Alaric says Bones is? Who jumps off a two hundred meter tower just to see what the fuck might happen?”
“It really does seem like an incredibly reckless and premature test,” Alaric said, his voice only mild on the surface.
His fingers hesitantly touched my back. “Perhaps we should try a few less extreme experiments first, dearest? Something less likely to end up with you splattered all over the stone?”
I looked between their faces.
I wished I had a more rational explanation for them, something they would accept.
But it wouldn’t make any difference.
Nothing I said would change their minds, so arguing with them, or even just stating my case, would accomplish nothing.
In the end, I just told them the truth.
“You can either stand here and watch me do it,” I said. “Or eventually you’ll need to leave, and I’ll do it anyway.”
“We’ll tell Forsooth,” Luc threatened. “He’ll put you on suicide watch. He’ll assign a guard. They’ll bolt the windows––”
I didn’t wait for him to finish.
Without changing expression, or tensing any of my muscles enough that they’d notice, I geared into the blue and white sun over my head. I flicked my fingers in a quick series of mudras, and murmured a cast in Latin.
A thick shield erupted around my magical aura.
Another of Bones’s little tricks.
It shoved off Luc’s hand, and Alaric’s fingers, and Jolie’s hold on my arm.
It even forced Nyx out from between me and Luc, so that she stumbled back a few paces, just enough to give me room.
I didn’t wait.
I couldn’t wait.
All four of them were too good with magic, too quick-witted, too afraid.
Stepping up onto the window sill, I leapt out as far as I could.
Once free of the glass and stone, I opened my arms.
It was a strange sensation, when gravity caught me at the top of that arc.
I’d fallen from high places before, of course.
I’d panicked even, especially when I’d first been learning to fly.
Even in those panics, I’d known, deep in my mind, I had the ability to catch myself, if only I could figure out how. I had a tool at my disposal, even if I was terrified I’d be unable to figure out how to use it in time.
Moreover, I also knew, even if it was tough to remember in those first few seconds, that Quicksilver was watching, that his student teachers were watching, and he wouldn’t let me die, whether he liked me or not.
He’d make sure someone caught me before I got too close to the ground.
None of that was true here.
I had a few cushioning spells, but they’d be worthless in this.
I didn’t know anything strong enough to stop me landing hard after plummeting straight down from two hundred plus meters.
Not only that, it was all happening too fast.
The Eyrie, where I’d learned to fly, was so much taller.
It also stood perched on a rise overlooking a deep valley, so the height of the mountain’s base got added to the height of the Eyrie itself, lengthening the distance to the ground.
For both of those reasons, it took so much longer to fall before you could see the ground rushing towards you in a way that blanked out your mind.
Falling from the Eyrie was closer to jumping out the door of an aeroplane.
This fall felt much, much shorter.
I had my arms outstretched, but it didn’t seem to be slowing me at all.
The roof went from far away to expanding rapidly in size, until all I could see were the stone slabs that made up its upper arches.
A warm wind blinded me.
When I first jumped out the window, panicked yells and shrieks erupted behind me, but I couldn’t hear anything now. Only air rushed in my ears. The shouts and screams of Jolie, Nyx, Alaric, and Luc faded abruptly as I dropped.
It took all of my strength to pull my arms in front of me, but that survival thing told me I had to put something, anything, between my head and face and that stone arch.
I managed to choke out a terrified, wailing scream.
I was going to die.
Luc was right. Nyx was right. Jolie was right. Alaric was right.
I hadn’t been in my right mind. Why else would I have done this?
I hadn’t given myself a single failsafe, a single ripcord or crash cushion, a single friend hovering nearby as backup, wearing a fully-functioning set of wings. There were so many ways I could have done this that would have been better than the one I chose.
If I was dead, there was a good chance he was dead, too.
The roof rushed nearer, so close it blotted out everything else.
I squeezed my arms in front of my face, closed my eyes, gasping too much air into my lungs. So much oxygen filled my chest, I felt light-headed.
There was a jerking, disjointed pull, somewhere in the area of my navel––
––and everything went white for the third time that day.