He nods. “Seems so.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
We pass countless students, but no one so much as looks at us. It’s strange, being invisible. For so long, it felt like that’s what I wanted to be, to make myself small and silent and insignificant. Now that I’ve accepted who I am, I know it’s not.
Amund gives my hand a gentle squeeze.
We can dothisonly because we’re invisible. Even if we wanted to hold hands like this, we wouldn’t be able to. A hunter and a berserkr could never be together. Could they? I think of Maeve and her husband. Maybe being together isn’t as impossible as it seems.
Not like it matters.
Ican’t be in a relationship. I won’t.
Even so, I find myself squeezing Amund’s hand a little bit tighter.
We slip inside Freyja Hall, following a witch as she heads into the dorm.
“Shoot, I don’t remember which room was Irina’s.”
Amund laughs. “I do. I followed you and Nils there.”
“Wait,” I say, stopping abruptly. “So that’s how you knew about the séance?”
“I heard the whole thing.” He tugs my hand, leading me back to Irina’s room, where he tries the door with his free hand—locked.
“Brjóta dyrr,” Amund says.
His voice sends a shiver through me.
The words sound ancient. Powerful.
He tries the handle again. This time it opens.
We slip inside, quickly locking the door behind us.
“There isn’t much lignite left,” Amund says. “We should try to be quick.”
I slip my hand free of his, and Amund vanishes before my eyes again. Shaking my head, I start looking through Irina’s books. She has a ton of textbooks—things likeThe Art of StavesandDeciphering Dreams—and various sagas. But none of the books look out of the ordinary.
Frowning, I keep searching. “It has to be here somewhere.”
I look around the room, forgetting I can’t see Amund.
Or hear him, for that matter.
If only I could remember where Irina got the notebook from the last time I was here. I was too focused on Emilía’s side of the room, looking for clues about who her boyfriend was. Now I know I should have been focused onIrinaall along.
I start rifling through the drawers of her desk, searching piles of papers and pens and highlighters. “I wonder if that’s why Irina was going to the seer school? To visit her aunt’s ghost?”
Amund appears before me. “She could also be trying to get in touch with her powers there,” he muses to himself.
I nearly jump. “Shit, you scared me.”
Amund checks his palm. “Looks like the lignite ran out.”
I pull my hand back, only to brush against a weathered book. “Wait, here it is.”
The old notebook is tucked in the back of one of her desk drawers.
