“Pizza.”
She beams. “I like you even more,” she announces, and Rion throws his hands down at his sides in defeat.
“I thought I was your favorite!”
Apparently, all it needed was a speck of magic, and the library looks untouched.
Weird.
I guess there are some things in this world I just can’t wrap my head around. I watched this building burn with my own eyes, and yet here it stands as if nothing happened.
I’m more in tune with the fact that I can siphon someone else’s magic in comparison to this, but I guess that’s just because my life is insane and I’ve faced more trauma since arriving here than the mundane workings of magic.
My stomach aches. Not with nausea this time, but with the amount of pizza I’ve consumed. I should have stopped sooner, but it was just too good.
“Say it again,” Rion calls out from his spot at the desk. His feet are perched on the table as he rocks back on the two legs of his chair, while I lie flat on my back, staring up at the pretty ceiling. Thorne paces back and forth on the other side of the desk, leaving Ocean to sit cross-legged beside me.
We’re in the restricted section of the library, for added privacy, but I’m at the point of no returnnow. I don’t care who listens; I just want someone to solve it.
Taking a deep breath, I do as he asks. “Only those who drink without thirst may find me. Where the water meets the shore, the darkness you shall see. Four elements circle as one. But in your eyes shall they be gone. Look deep inside, and the book shall no longer defy.”
Silence looms around us as my words continue to mean nothing.
“Slower this time,” he murmurs, unable to see my glare as I turn his way, only to find his eyes closed with his head tilted back.
“She’s said it a hundred times already,” Ocean grumbles, and he grunts.
“So, one more won’t hurt,” he insists, and I relent.
“Only those who drink without thirst may find me. Where the water meets the shore, the darkness you shall see. Four elements circle as one. But in your eyes shall they be gone. Look deep inside, and the book shall no longer defy.”
“Could it be the sea or the shoreline or something? Like, no one wants to drink seawater, and it meets the shore. Maybe at nighttime for the darkness to make sense?” Rion thinks out loud.
“That doesn’t explain the rest of it. What do the four elements have to do with that? Besides, they wouldn’t make it so easy to literally say the shore in the riddle,” Thorne answers as I push up to sit cross-legged like Ocean.
My friend’s head is in her hands as she thinks before she snaps her gaze up, blinking at me. “What holds The Vale together?” she asks, and I blink at her.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I mutter, and she offers me a tight smile.
“What is it that powers The Vale? Apart from the magic, I mean. There has to be something,” she insists, bringing Thorne to a halt.
“There would, but I’ve never considered what,” he admits, rubbing at the back of his neck as Rion straightens his chair, more alert like the rest of us.
“What holds the Shadow Realm?” the wolf asks, and I watch as Thorne’s Adam’s apple bobs.
“Nothing, that’s why it’s only accessible in my mind now,” he explains, making my gut clench.
It’s jarring.
I would be sad for him regardless, but knowing there is a part of me that is connected to that world makes the pain weigh even more. Acknowledginganother part of me is more than I can handle right now though, especially with it so out of reach.
“But what did?” Ocean asks, despite Thorne’s discomfort, but if he’s affected, he doesn’t show it.
“The Shadow Well. That’s what was broken. Every shadow fae contributed to the water, securing the entity that was the realm.”
“And where do you project your magic now that you aid The Vale?” I ask, my adrenaline tingling through my veins.
“I don’t know. I’ve just been channeling it into the very ground beneath us,” he explains casually, like that’s not a big deal.
