“Understood.” Jayme gave a mock-serious salute.
“I’ll catch up with you two later.”
“Don’t be too long!” Ellene was off the couch, pulling Vi in for a quick squeeze. “If you’re quick, you can join us. But we’ll be happy to go again later, too.”
They were out the door in a blink. Vi wasn’t long behind them. One more set of lessons with Sehra… and then the real work would begin when she summoned Taavin.
Chapter Sixteen
Vi tappedher fingers along her drafting table, debating with herself. Martis’s words about the tomb still lingered in her mind from the morning. Compounding with that was some genuine progress made with Sehra, assuring her that another night of Taavin’s tutelage wasn’t essential for her at this moment.
She had promised him she’d hold up her end of the deal.
“Oh, fine, let’s get this over with then.” Vi threw up her arms and uttered, “Narro hath.”
She felt the connection thrum between them. It came to life with vivid sensations that culminated in an awareness of Taavin’s existence somewhere across the world. But, for this brief moment, that distance didn’t seem so impossibly large.
“You again?”
“Hello to you too.” Vi huffed at the curt introduction.
“Back for more elementary explanations on Lightspinning?”
“No,” she said firmly to the disembodied voice. “I think I know where this tomb of yours is located.”
Silence. Stillness. And then, with a nearly quivering eagerness, “You do?”
“Yes. I think so, at least… How will I know?”
“When you arrive, merely repeat the process of the last apex and receive the vision. If it truly is a place where fate was malleable, that should be all you need.”
“That’s a bit vague, don’t you think?” Vi mumbled.
“I think it’s perfectly clear.”
He would. He wasn’t the one having to conceive a way to get to these apexes. “After I do this for you, we need to discuss how to stabilize these glyphs. I keep losing them too quickly.”
“The fate of our world hangs in the balance and you’re focused on Lightspinning technique?” His voice went low, almost growl-like.
“The fate ofmyworld counts on me learning this,” Vi insisted. She’d keep up her end of the deal, but she needed him to know that she wasn’t going to be distracted from his in the process.
“I think you need to—” Taavin never got the chance to finish.
A knock on the door startled Vi to the point of nearly jumping out of her seat.
“Vi, may I come in?” Ellene called through the door.
Vi looked at her skin. It was back to normal. The startle must’ve jostled whatever connection had been there. Given how he’d begun his final statement, the productive part of the conversation had ended anyway.
“Yes, come in,” Vi called back, lifting her quill in an attempt to look as though she’d been pouring over her maps.
The door of her library cracked open, and Ellene peeked her head in before emerging the rest of the way. “Maps? Is that seriously what’s kept you this whole time?” Vi couldn’t tell if she was frustrated or pleasantly amused.
“Yeah, I realized I hadn’t had a chance to incorporate my sketches from the hunt onto my main maps.” Vi felt bad for lying to Ellene. But she was in so far over her head when it came to this mysterious power that she didn’t even know where to begin.
Ellene crossed over to her desk, looking down. She dragged her fingertip along the winding lines that Vi had sketched weeks ago, the dry ink staying securely in place. “You really do have a knack for this.”
Vi glanced up, her pen stilling from the three strokes it’d made on the page. There was a softness to Ellene’s voice that Vi was unaccustomed to hearing. If she had to attach a label, she’d call it sadness, and that fact wrenched a corner of her, twisting to the point of pain. But the reason for Ellene’s sorrow or her own was unclear until her friend gave it words.
