Atrillion-cutgemstone was what Evira said it was.
The moment Evira and me had arrived back here at our special new home, we’d tried to contact Win through it.
Over and over and fucking over.
With not even one goddamn iota of success.
Everything we’d tried had failed.
I’d even sliced my palm and dripped my blood over it in case it had been blood-locked or something. It hadn’t.
And then it had occurred to us that because it’d been created with Necromancy, maybe Sylas would know what to do. Maybe it could only be unlocked by him—like some way of Win trying to get a message to Sylas through us by having him be the one to open up the communication channel first. If he tried to contactSylas directly through their blood link or necromantic father-son thingy, maybe that would be noticed by Ruxnoth or something.
The problem was we didn’t fucking know. We didn’t. And Win could only convey so much and do so much while he was trapped down there and obviously dealing with constraints.
But it was the worst time to take something to Sylas, because after that Light Fae attempted attack and it then risking a war with the Dark Fae Realm too in defense of Velra and the family, Ryker had convinced Sylas, Cassius, Velra, and Lazriel to go underground. Ketheron not so much because he was sleeping over at one of Ambrose’s many weird-ass black magic planes or cave thingies. The Guardian Movement was taxed with everything else going on, so they couldn’t be running that sort of high-level round-the-clock protection for them, when going to ground temporarily was the easier option, especially with their familial link to The Shadowed through Remnant being its Commander.
I’d asked Charlie to try to get a message to Sylas via Requital channels open to The Shadowed.
But so far I’d heard squat.
Fuck, maybe this was just a case of waiting on Win. And maybe he needed to be the one initiating contact and currently couldn’t because he was dealing with Ruxnoth. And after what he’d done stopping him, maybe Ruxnoth had punished him. Maybe Win was hurting, being tortured and—stop. Stop it.
I let go of Nuvri and punched the sheets beneath me to let out a little… agitation. It wasn’t good for me to let it build up. We all knew that.
“Sorry,” I told Nuvri as I stroked his face.
Back to Requital… focusing on that… focusing. I couldn’t wait to head back there and resume my induction stuff, more missions under Charlie’s mentorship. Once all this was over.Charlie had even told me that he could work around my class schedule at Loxley Academy.
Speaking of that, I was supposed to be studying right now and catching up on what I’d missed. I’d promised Evira that I would be doing that while she was out.
Jolting as the urgency took me, I fumbled around to grab my supplies.
I snatched up my notebook and pen, then placed them on my lap and grabbed the textbook I needed, hovering that in front of me, while I looked at the instructions I had laid out on the bed just to my left. River had brought over all our missed coursework and readings when he’d come here to watch Vax that day. Evira hadn’t even asked him to do that, he’d just been thoughtful enough to think of it on his own.
“Look at this fucking tangled spell,” I spoke softly to Nuvri, as I frowned at the mess I needed to unravel for the first assignment I had to get through. “This is right up Win’s alley, not mine. Right Nuvri?” I pulled my legs up and shifted all my stuff onto my knees.
So, yeah, despite being in my final year, not all classes were a breeze. As if Loxley Academy would let its students get away with that. Still, I loved it. And I was gonna miss it.
But now I wasn’t gonna be walking out just with the loss of being there, with fucking nothing.
Now I had my Requital career path.
And I hadthem.My loves.
I shifted my weight again, the thought of that making me feel a little better and countering the nightmarish shit a bit.
“You’re like a mini-earthquake whenever you’re in bed,” a voice croaked.
My breath caught in my throat.
Holy shit!
I swung my head toward Vax to see that the scales covering his face had retreated.
His deep gray eyes were on me.
And he was smiling softly.
