I’d had little choice but to reveal it, because shortly after I’d managed to calm Zayn down when Winter had failed to respond to any of our outgoing communications, I’d told him I’d needed privacy to report in to my parents—my mandated monthly check-in. When in truth, I’d been trying to pull on the tether, to locate Winter. That had proven impossible from my dorm suite, meaning Winter had ventured further afield than Meforian Forest after all. So, I’d headed outside. And shortly thereafter, Evira had flown in with Zayn, locating me on the outskirts of campus, where they’d found me failing at my attempt to track Winter through the tether.
I’d had to explain the entire thing and the fact that I’d felt a disruption that I couldn’t quite explain beyond the fact that somethingwasactually wrong. Winter being incommunicado for two hours had been much more than him merely needing time to discuss complex magical matters with Ketheron.
And now, here we were.
Not actually in Meforian Forest at all, as I’d determined Winter had never actually touched down there.
He’d never made it.
Instead, we were on a dark sands beach that I knew functioned as an entrance to Ambrose Wisteryn’s magical plane—one of them.
Yet, there had been no sign of him.
No remnants of his magic either.
I was currently on my hands and knees, my palms flat to the ground as I pushed into the earth carefully with my vibrational hum. It was a special frequency latched onto Winter and following his trail through the tether’s transmitted movement.
It was proving much more strenuous than I’d imagined, though.
Not just due to the fact that Zayn and Evira were pacing back and forth a few feet behind me as I worked, Zayn panicking and Evira working to soothe the volatility threatening to escalate to dangerous heights with him.
It was strenuous and so very far from being a straightforward track because Winter had been teleported several times over. Each time teleportation occurred, it broke the link in the vibrational chain, which I had to pick up anew and push through harder each time to lock onto again.
Eight instances that had occurred now. It was no coincidence. Not with it happening that often in such a short span. It very likely meant the culprit Winter was with had accounted for this ability of mine. Also, given that knowledge and the timing, this was clearly the thing responsible for infecting Winter with that awful substance that had impacted his necromantic magic.
I grimaced as the conversation between Zayn and Evira reached me, the panic bleeding out threatening to impact me also.
“Why did Win even fucking end up here? He was headed to Ketheron, icicle.”
“I know.”
“This is Ambrose’s zone, but he was supposed to be off the grid somewhere, so why would Win even come here? Especially instead of going to Ketheron, which was where he said he’d be. He wouldn’t take off like this again. He promised us, right? He promised.”
“He did. He absolutely did.”
“It’s a kidnapping, then? Right? You no longer think I’m overreacting?”
“More time has gone by now and Winter still hasn’t checked in. He’s still unreachable. And here things have been wiped—scents, magic. Someone was covering their tracks. So, yeah, it points toward that.”
“To come at somebody with his powers, we’re talking… what… massive Celestial-level force? Maybe somebody—or a whole group of assholes—got the jump on him?”
“Either way, we’ll find him. We have the means through Vaxan’s ability, his tether on Winter. Between the three of us, there’s a fuck of a lot we can do. No matter who we’re up against.”
“You know, people think Win being unkillable makes him safe, but it doesn’t. Largely because of how he is. So fucking gentle and peaceable. It puts him in danger in these sorts of scenarios, which is why he’s been so intensely protected by his family. He calls it overprotection and, yeah, I get it was suffocating, but this… is this always gonna be the result without that?”
“Zayn, we don’t yet know all—”
“I need to contact Sylas. Now. No more fucking waiting.”
I blew out a breath and pulled my hand from the sand.
I did so in my tense state a little too harshly and a blast of particles burst into the air from the disturbance my vibrational magic had briefly caused. I choked as I inhaled some of it, then I spun to Evira and Zayn.
I rubbed my crown, feeling its charge waning. I’d been out under direct sunlight for nearly an hour. Even fully charged, while I was pulling deeply on my power, it required more power to be drawn from it to shield me.
“I can’t.”
I hated the taste of the words on my tongue.
