Max eyed me warily for a moment, then nodded.
I closed my eyes, back once again in that strange house. In my mind’s eye, I imagined the telescope in the room across from me.
“Got it,” Max said.
Gently, we eased the Magic to the telescope. Water dripped from the pipe. “It’s working,” I said. “Keep going.”
The cord of power circled the base of the telescope, creating a gentle spiral that wrapped around it, waiting to be let in.
But the stopper I’d weaved around the pipe went shooting out. Water rushed out faster than ever. In seconds, it was at my waist. Then my chest.
Tendrils of power reached out to the telescope, ready to pierce through. I held my breath as the water rose past my head and steadily inched toward the ceiling.
It was then I realized that I had been in this house before.
This was where Dani had been in my nightmares. In all my visions with her, she was always here.
A flicker of movement happened in the next room. A strand of blond hair next to the telescope.
“Dani?” I whispered, though the water went streaming into my throat.
This was it. She was here.
“Push, Max!”
The water plunged down my throat, stars burst in my eyes, but there she was. A hand, running a slender finger down the telescope, the Magic encircling it like a viper.
“Cella,” came a choked warning, though it was far away. Too far away and—
I was submerged in darkness.
I could feel Dani here. Even if I couldn’t see the pale strands of hair or the shadow over the floorboards, I knew it, felt it in that same inexplicable draw I had to her ever since I first saw her in Maritza’s cottage. And somewhere, in the haze inside my mind, I realized I wasn’t drawn to her because she reminded me of my brother, or because she was lost and needed my help.
I was drawn to her because she reminded me of … me.
The same thread of Magic that had its grip around her tightened its coils around me.
As if something had been knocked loose, memories flashed through me more quickly than I could keep up.
In my mind’s eye, a weak, hollow-eyed Cella standing in the bathroom. Bear, barking at me to wake up, to snap out of it. And my eyes, unfocused, running over the 1’s all over the shower door. The 1’s that my fingers were still tracing over the door.
In another—black paint stained my hands as I fled flashlights scouring the dry campus grounds, sending a panicked glance back at my work on the skulls without truly seeing. Without realizing what I’d done at all.
And memories of a voice that sounded like Basile’s, but wasn’t. A soft smile, an outstretched hand. “Join us.”
I opened my eyes, gasping for breath.
Max was on his back. He stared at the sky, breathing hard. “Jesus, do you have a death wish?!” He slammed upright. “When we’re tied together, we feel the same things.And I like breathing.”
But I could barely hear him.
FIVE YEARS AGO
Jamie had found me in the library again and asked if I wanted to tag along to one of their lectures.
“What do you even see in those guys?” Max asked.
“They’re nice.” But it was more than that. They were … different than most people on campus. They took walks together every morning; they practiced group meditation on Tuesdays and ate a (vegetarian) lunch together most days of the week. They valued silence over saying the first thing that came to mind. They were some of the most thoughtful, disciplined group of people I’d ever met. “They’re philosophical. Sort of like an academic club. They prize their minds more than anything. It’s refreshing. Really, you should come to a meeting. Get to know them. Aaron introduced me. He says they’re pretty cool.”
