Chapter 13 #2
“Holy shit, that woman is badass,” Asher says.
“Yeah, and Poppy just got her bad ass handed to her,” Mica adds.
I let out a long breath. “Honestly, I don’t care. Violet’s been through enough. I told her she’d be safe here, and I’m not going to let anything bad happen to her. Well, anything worse than this.”
Asher grins. “So our rescue plans are still on?”
“Damn straight. Lily, go back to your room in case Briar or anyone comes with an update. And if anyone asks about us, lie and cover for us.”
“Got it. Oh, and take these…” She drops her backpack and pulls out the witch starter kit Mom made for her. Its contents are identical to the one she made for Violet and me, but each selection is tailored specifically to us. “Take my pendulum to find her.”
I pick up the silver chain and run my thumb over the spiral aquamarine crystal. Mine is black obsidian, and Violet’s is Labradorite.
“And this.” She hands me a shiny silver orb. “All of us were given a conduit to channel excess magic if we get overwhelmed.”
I frown. “Not that it worked.”
“You’re right. Violet burned right through hers.” Lily rushes over to the guy with the auburn hair. “Give me your conduit, Henry.”
“What? Why?”
“Because we’re going to save my sister.”
“What if I need it?”
“Stay with Aubrey until my sisters are back and use hers. Your numbers haven’t even started moving. You’ll be fine.”
It’s almost comical how Lily, at least five years his junior, totally dominates him to her own end. And a moment later, she sets a second conduit in my hand. “Maybe two will be enough.”
I slide the orbs into my jacket pocket and give Lily a hug. “Text me if you hear anything from Briar.”
She rolls her eyes. “As if. Find her, Poppy. Find her and save her.”
“Yeah. That’s the plan.”
With a scrying tool and two silver conduits in hand, I turn toward the mountain peaks in the distance. “Asher, get us as close as you can. We’re going to bring Violet home.”
The trees materialize around us, silver bark and luminescent moss that turns the air into something ambient and dreamlike. I nearly slam face first into a trunk the width of a car. "Nice one, Ash."
"You're welcome." He steadies himself on a root that pulses faintly with a blue-green light beneath the bark.
“You’re improving, angel man.” Mica studies our surroundings and blinks. “This place is crazy.”
It is. The forest around us is breathing. There's no other word for it. The canopy moves in long, slow exhales, bioluminescent spores drifting down through the dark in lazy spirals, each one trailing a thread of pale gold light before it dissolves against the moss.
Something the size of a housecat moves between two roots nearby, except it has six legs and a tail that glows a deep violet at the tip.
A cluster of sprites dart overhead, leaving short-lived trails of copper sparks that fade before I can track where they went.
It's extraordinary. But now is not the time.
I hold Lily’s pendulum out and let gravity and the weight of the crystal steady the chain. Easing up on my two-finger hold, I focus my will. “Find Violet.”
The string remains slack between my fingers, and I pour my intention into it.
Still nothing.
It's supposed to pull taut and angle toward Violet like a compass needle. But instead, it hangs limp, swaying without direction.
Panic sets in with a thunder of adrenaline. "Why isn't it working? What does that mean?"
Mica steps close and cups both hands around it without touching it. "It hasn't found a connection."
"But why can’t it find her? Does that mean she’s…"
"It doesn’t mean anything. She’s probably just too far away, or the mountain range is dampening the spell, or the guardians have their territory warded. It could be a dozen things.”
Okay, yeah. It could be any one of those things. “So, what do we do?”
Mica points through the trees. “We keep trying. Come on, let’s get out of these trees.”
We push through the forest at a jog, the ground uneven beneath our feet. Roots surface at odd angles, the moss thick enough to swallow sound.
Sprites scatter and chitter at us overhead.
Arcana Academy's pocket dimension has its own ecosystem and its own logic. It’s a world where magic is baked into the soil, the water, and the air, and everything within its borders is fueled by it.
Under other circumstances, I could spend weeks in here just looking at things.
Under these circumstances, I nearly snap an ankle on an exposed root and choose to watch where I'm putting my feet.
We break through the treeline, and I get my first full view of the foothills.
Okay, wow. “They’re farther than they looked.”
“Not a problem.” Asher takes my hand and Mica’s. “We’ll hop along the foothills until your crystal picks up Violet’s signal and we know where to go.”
And so we do.
Asher portals us along the edge of the foothills, and at each stop, I funnel my intention into the pendulum and wait to see if it gives us a direction to follow.
On the fifth try, it does.
When the chain tightens and the tip of the crystal pulls off to the left, my heart almost beats right out of my ribcage.
"There." Mica nods at the cliff face.
It looks impassable. Sheer rock, no breaks, nothing but a vertical face, thin trees clinging to ledges they have no business on, and high above… a sky churning with stormclouds.
“It’s Violet.” I point to the swirling dark mass. “And if she’s still freaking out, she’s still alive.”
“Yeah, she is,” Asher agrees.
“So, how do we get up there?” Mica asks. “It’s really far and, no offense, Asher, but I don’t trust you to land us on a plateau five-thousand feet in the air.”
“No offense taken. I don’t want to be responsible for that, either.”
“There's a trail. See? It goes up to the left." I point at the narrow switchback trail, barely a foot wide in places, cutting into the mountain face in tight zigzags.
"Ash, do you think you can jump us up that?"
He looks at it. Looks at me. Looks at it again. "Pops, I can't see where half those ledges go. If I mis-jump us into the rock face—"
"Yeah, no," Mica says flatly. "We’re definitely better off making the climb."
I look up at the mountain and sigh.
"This is going to suck."