This time I do look over at Rogan. I glare at the side of his face, but he doesn’t turn to meet my eyes. I guess we’re back to theneed to knowbullshit I thought we had gotten past.Irritation bubbles up through me, and I start to feel my patience for this whole Q and A session start to wane.
“If we sever the tether today, it will take time. We won’t know the depth of the connections until we tap into your bond. You’ll both need to be prepared for a long and trying ordeal. It’s possible that your magic may fight separation. You could lose certain abilities for a period of time, or all together, depending on what kind of damage, if any, you sustain. You may have issues with loneliness afterward, or struggle to feel complete. There have been times where the breaks are clean and relatively easy, but magic is hard to predict, and we always err on the side of caution,” Harmony explains.
I feel like I just listened to an ad for some prescription medication where they have to list all the fucked up side effects at the end. I mean, I should probably be grateful that anal leakage wasn’t mentioned, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the rest of what could happen scares the shit out of me.
Anger unfurls in my chest and digs into me like talons. I fight the urge to rage at Rogan for putting me in a situation where I have to deal with this crap in the first place. But I doubt his family would take my tantrum well, so instead, I pull in a deep breath and tell myself, either way, it will all be over soon.
“So, what do we need to do to get started?” I ask.
“We need to gather some supplies and some spells, but we can begin in an hour’s time,” Alora states, watching me as though she’s waiting for my cue. I take a moment and then nod my agreement. Her gray eyes move to Rogan, and he must nod too, because she smiles and then pushes up from the table.
Then everything seems to happen in fast-forward. Dave confiscates Rogan to help him get the necessary texts in the library. Harmony tells me to pretty much carb load in preparation for whatever is about to happen. I’m whisked out of the room like I’m Dorothy headed for Oz, and I feel like I was just left alone by the only person I know at a party. I’m now surrounded by a bunch of strangers, feeling awkward as hell and trying to figure out if I should just bop in place to the music until the person I know comes back for me, try to make small talk with random people, or just stare into the abyss and hope it takes mercy on me and swallows me up.
“Can you point me in the direction of the bathroom?” I ask the redheaded witch, whose name I forgot again. Warren, maybe?
He guides me to the closest lavatory, and I immediately shut myself in and try to stave off the myriad of emotions all clamoring for my immediate attention. I suddenly feel as though everything is happening too fast, and yet somehow, at the same time, not fast enough. Time feels like my mortal enemy right now.
I take a moment to get a hold of myself, to breathe through everything that’s hammering at me.I’m making the correct choice...right?
My reflection stares back at me, answerless as I splash water on my face. I sift through my golden brown gaze and dive into my gut and sit with it for a moment. What is it telling me? After several beats of introspection, I focus back on my face and nod.
“I can do this,” I tell the girl in the mirror, and with that shitty pep talk, I step out of the bathroom.
I look for Warren in the hall, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I hesitate for a second, not sure exactly which way we came from to end up here. I step left out of the bathroom and then change my mind and backtrack going right. I jump when a head suddenly pops out around the corner. Brown eyes seem to fill with relief when they spot me, and the woman hurries toward me, her steps oddly loud against the floor.
I watch as she takes a moment to look around as though she’s checking for other people before she settles a now very intense gaze on me.
“You shouldn’t trust him,” she whispers out of nowhere in warning.
My brow furrows in surprised disbelief, not sure how to respond to that. “Trust who?” I finally ask, not sure who exactly she’s referring to.
“The renounced one,” she clarifies, studying my reaction as though she’s expecting me to be surprised by this news. I don’t miss the shiver that seems to crawl up her spine as she delivers what she thinks is shocking information.
“You don’t know his heart, Osteomancer, you should get far away from him, right now! He’s dangerous,” she adds, her tone suddenly scared as she once again checks that no one else is making their way to us down the hallway. “If you follow me, I can get you away, but you’d have to comenow,” she commands, moving past me hurriedly as though there isn’t even time for me to consider or debate what she’s saying.
At first I hurry after her, mostly because that’s what you do when someone tells you to follow and then starts practically running away. But then it dawns on me that this could be a really bad idea. I don’t know who this person is. Taking her word at face value suddenly doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t know exactly who is kidnapping witches, but someone is. And I’m not about to get myself snatched because I was too polite to sayhold the fuck up and answer some questions for me before we go any further.
I stop and the woman looks back at me confused. “Who are you?” I demand firmly, studying her face so I can commit it to memory. Her eyes are the same dark brown as her straight, shoulder-length hair. There is a smattering of freckles dusting her nose and cheeks, and she has a small scar just above her top lip.
“I’m a friend,” she offers vaguely, turning back and continuing her path down the hallway.
Yep. This is a hard pass all around.
I turn and start to run in the other direction. I force my legs to move faster as I try to listen for the telltale sound of pursuing footsteps behind me, but all I can hear is the heavy beat of my own pulse as adrenaline stomps through me like it’s a Clydesdale.
I’m out of the hallway and rounding a corner in no time. I slam full speed right into a large hard body, yelping with alarm as strong arms grab me and keep me from tumbling sideways. Fear and my survival instincts kick in hard, but relief washes through me like a cool balm when I look up to find that it’s Rogan that I’ve just bodychecked.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, taking me in before pulling me into him protectively and searching around us for whatever set off the panic I know is written all over my face. “What happened, Lennox?” he demands as I look to see if the woman came running after me, but there’s no one there.
“Some woman tried to get me to go with her,” I explain, realizing how lame and ridiculous I sound. “I didn’t recognize her, she said you couldn’t be trusted and that if I went with her, she could get me out of the house. I started to follow her and then realized that was a stupid idea, so I ran until I...” I gesture between us, signaling the collision that just happened, panting to collect my breath from the impromptu sprint I just did.
Rogan’s eyes continue to search around us as he pulls me tighter against him. “Okay, let’s go,” he orders, and then we’re both jogging through hallways to who knows where.
“Do you think we’re in danger here?” I ask as we hurry back in the direction of the council room. Or at least I assume that’s where we’re going. I’m seriously turned around in this place.
“I don’t know, but I think all of this is too risky,” he declares adamantly, his focus trained on getting us far away from the potential threat as quickly as possible. “This just cements that even more,” he tells me cryptically.
