“Sorry, Ray, time’s up.” Akari doesn’t wisp into the study gently, she bursts in with an overblown flair. “Hi, Mrs Wryvern, I hope we’re not interrupting, but we’ve got a future to save and we need your portal.”
My mother’s jaw practically detaches as Akari’s joined by Saleen and three illegal Hues whose eyes give them away. In the shadows but sporting no spiked rim? That’s proof of a crime right there. Now she knows exactly what kind of treason I’ve been brewing.
“Raya, what have youdone?”
“Everything the future asked of me.” I force my head up and my spine straight, shaking off the bite of her disappointment. “Now, if you don’t mind, we have to go stop a cataclysm that you and your entire guild couldn’t see.”
“You will do no such—”
“Quiet.” Saleen silences her with a flash of Red, clearing the way for me to issue a command of my own.
“If you love me at all—if you’ve ever cared about me as your daughter rather than your legacy—then you’ll pass along this message,” I say, ignoring the indignity paling her to chalk. “Tell the elders that the Divine Meridian means to poison our magics. Tell them that he’s a void and that he’s holding the Church initiates in the castle. Then tell them that I’ve seen what he means to do because I’m fate-touched now and walking a fundamental path. And if they have a problem with any of that, tell them to take it up with Councilman Denata, since he’s the one the Meridian is pissed at. Can you do that?”
Another flick of Saleen’s power compels my mother to answer, though theyesshe grits through her teeth is reluctant and hard won.And noncommittal.I’m perfectly aware that the way I built my questioncould lead to more than one outcome, that I left her a way to weasel out of following through.
If you love me. I have no earthly idea if I’d meant it as a test or if—as always—my phrasing is just bad.
I guess you’ll find out.There are so many unknowns in this moment that I don’t see the point in putting it right. We don’t even know ifI’mright yet, for starters, or if the elders are sitting on enough knowledge to understand my message—it’s possible that too much truth has been lost to the whims of time. Though if I’m being honest, the real reason I don’t want to stay and fix it is that I can’t stand to look at her anymore—to feel the way she’s looking at me, the way she will look at me if Iforceher to take my side.
I need to get the hells out of this tower. Immediately. This second. Right the fuck now. Because I’d much rather portal into a castle and face a madman than watch my mother grapple with the choice of legacy over love. Isn’t that how Adriel became so twisted in the first place? Because a man with color decided not to live with the shame of having a child he thought had none?
So instead of fixing my question, I lead us towards the door to her portal and ignore the throbbing pain in my heart. When Ezzo brushes his hand against mine in offer, I take it.
CHAPTER 30
RAYA
The moment the portal spits us out in the Academy, my leap of logic is confirmed. I instantly sense the change in the shadows, the oppressive nature of a power that’s stifling the magic in the air and sapping it of color.
“Do you feel that?” I ask the others, scanning the entry hall for hostile eyes. It’s not the same hall the public portals lead to, it’s much less extravagant and smaller in size, a sparsely decorated rotunda that hosts a ring of doors labelled only by shade and rank. The private offices of the elders and guild masters, I’d venture, where they conduct their business when they’re called to convene.
“Yeah, I feel it.” Akari looks to Saleen who also nods in reply. “It’s like my magic is.. . heavier, somehow. Sticky.”
Sticky seems a good word for it, as if someone’s gone and added a thickening agent to my blood. Not quite the overwhelming deadness I’d felt in Adriel’s presence, but I can only assume that is soon to come, that we’re not yet in range of his full power.
“What about you?” Though my hand was only briefly clasped in Ezzo’s, he’s still stood close behind me, almost as close as Chase is standing to Cemmy and Akari is to Saleen. “Is it affecting your gifts?”
“Doesn’t seem to be affecting mine.” Cemmy leans against the wall in demonstration, her physicality remaining very much intact. “Could be we’re less sensitive to the effects—though I wouldn’t bank on it lasting. Ez—can you see where Adriel is holed up?”
“I can try.” Ezzo blinks into his gift. “But . . . it’s kind of a mess of trails in here, to be honest; I’m not usually surrounded by so many Shades at once.” His eyes are clouded white and narrowed with the effort, trying to make sense of the picture to which the rest of us are blind. “Okay, so . . . you were right, Raya, he did bring Alara with him, and she’s on the east side of the castle, moving up towards the fourth floor.”
“That would be the dorms,” Akari says. “So maybe she’s gone to fetch the acolytes for him? They would be in bed at this hour.”
“That could explain why the freshest trails seem to be moving from there towards . . . what looks like the court where they held my trial.” Ezzo also validates my theory that Adriel would be drawn to his father’s chamber. “Only three of them so far—a Yellow, an Indigo, and a Violet, so if he’s after the seven colors, she’s still missing a bunch.”
“And are the typics with her, too?” I ask, since he’s not yet mentioned them.
“No, I can’t see the typics—but I also can’t see into that room at all, it’s like the trails around it just . . . stop. Like there’s a void in the shadows.”
“Then that’s got to be where he is, right? In the court chamber?”
“I mean, I would have thought that, except . . . I’m actually seeing his absence of trail towards the top of the castle—but in a really odd place, as though he’s standingonthe tower instead of in it. And there’s an Orange trail there, too, so either someone’s about to jump, or they’re—”
“About to get pushed,” I finish that sentence for him, though I don’t think that’s just anysomeone, I think it’s his father.
“He’s going to kill the councilman—we need to split up.” I snap to a decision the moment I realize what Adriel means to do. “Saleen—take Ezzo, Cemmy, and Chase and see if you can free those acolytes; Akari and I will go after Denata.” Not that he deserves our help, but he’s currently the only one who knows a damn thing about voids. If he dies, we may never learn how to stop his son.
“No, absolutely not.” Saleen steps between us. “Splitting up is a horrible—”
