Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“Found anything yet?” Max asked, sliding me a bottle of green tea.
He’d been gone more and more often. It was almost like he was afraid of the book, or afraid of how much time I spent studying it.
Despite all we’d gone through to get it, he discounted the book at every turn, finding new suspects to chase down instead.
He hunted down Strauss’s students to question them, was trying to get info on Joselyn Hart’s family after trying to use his charm on her and being summarily greeted by a brick wall.
I shook my head. “No, but there’s Magic here. I can feel it.” It wasn’t something I could put into words as much as something I could feel coursing through my veins, its heady buzz drawing me closer, beckoning me over a ledge that stood above a dark chasm.
After looking at the symbols in the book, things had started to shift for me.
I felt as much as saw the symbol for Magic, for the One.
I felt it as S had described it, as if it were its own entity, a presence all its own.
And I felt like I could feel its eyes on me, watching over my shoulder, never far from me.
I could even picture its voice as if I’d heard it before: ancient, and deep as the earth.
These thoughts had started invading my dreams, and Bear had woken me up on more than one occasion, paws on my chest, big eyes full of concern.
Always this was after I’d woken up on the floor, my throat raw as if I’d been screaming.
Max nodded and turned to leave before hesitating, chewing on his lip. “Hey … you okay? It wouldn’t kill you to leave it for a second. I can take over.”
“I’m just a bit tired, is all.”
Max reached for my hand. “Cel, it’s more than that. I can see it all over your face. Maybe we should switch off now, and I could hold the book a while. I don’t like what this book is doing to you. Let me help.”
But how could I tell him that reading this book was the only time that I felt okay?
That it distracted me from the stuff on the walls, from the words written in my shower, the shadows creeping up my dorm wall?
And the gnawing feeling that maybe there really was something there, that I wasn’t just imagining it.
Something that I just kept missing, that stayed just outside my reach.
How could I tell him that losing myself in a centuries-old book was the only thing that made me feel better? If I could just figure out this problem, maybe everything else would be fine, too.