I squeezed her hand and nodded.
“I’m thinking I should spirit walk before our meeting. Do you mind if I do that from here?” I asked, glancing at the bedrolls in the corner of the tent we were in.
She shook her head. “Nope, totally fine. Donovan and Annette are at the castle in the kitchen. I’ll stay here with your body while you go spirit-spy if you’d like.”
I nodded.
‘Rage,’ I called through our mental bond. ‘Change of plans for me. I’m going to spirit walk and spy on the blood mages. Then I’ll join you at the castle.’
‘Whoa. Great idea. Be careful,’ he replied. ‘It’ll be a bit before I round everyone up anyway. Way to make those powers work for us.’
After settling on top of the cushioned bedroll, I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. There were no hot spring pools or crystals here to help me, but I’d managed to spirit walk without either in the past. Not to mention I was now a full-fledged freaking high mage of spirit. I could feel the power just under my skin, like a live wire, waiting to be called on.
And thanks to Gramps, I had the bag of soul stones in my pocket, so those were safe.
Thinking of my spirit test and how I’d gone into the school library and spied on the high mages, I smiled. I just needed two things: first, to relax enough to spirit walk, and second, to know where to find the blood mage queen.
With its inaccessible location, I figured High Mage Island would be the likeliest place for the blood mages’ base camp versus Alpha Island. Plus, Kian already had a castle there, and he was clearly in with them. As I inhaled, I visualized all the castles I’d seen when I did my initiation tests…
I could almost hear Grandpa’s voice telling me that when you can raise the dead, they give you the nicest castle.
On my next exhale, I let my spirit slip from my body. I opened my eyes to find that I was now in my grandfather’s study—the room where he’d rummaged through his desk, looking for a crystal to help me get to the spirit realm. The room that’d been Honor’s bachelor pad. The room that was now spotlessly clean and organized, all the way down to the bins clearly marked as spirit crystals.
Crap.
Talk about top priority. The blood mages attacked only a few hours ago, and their first order of business was to organize Gramps’ office? What would Blood mages want with spirit crystals? Could they use them? Or was it Kian who wanted them?
My mind spun.
Too bad I didn’t have Gramps or anyone to ask … I nearly facepalmed myself—again!
“Zia?” I whispered in my ghostly form, wishing she’d appear. Hadn’t Gramps said that one of the perks of being the high mage of spirit was that our ancestors could travel back to the realms of the living and help us? Especially considering I was carrying their soul stones on my person right now.
A blur of movement flashed to my right, and I grinned. Dressed in a retro 1950s dress with fishnet stockings stood Zia.
Wow.
She faced me, her eyes wide and her lips in an O.
“What happened?” she asked in a whisper. “Did you clean up Geoff’s office?”
I shook my head. “Blood mages did … I think. Geoff’s … with my mom now in the Realm of the Dead.”
She nodded. “I can sense the spirit master magic in you. When did he pass?”
“A few hours ago.”
I told her everything, and she listened as her facial expressions ranged from anger to sadness.
“You need to call the rest of your ancestors,” she said. “If the blood mages have spirit crystals, there’s a fairly good chance they’ll see your spirit form. At least, if there are six of us, we can serve as a distraction.”
My blood ran cold at that. I didn’t even have blood in this form, so that was saying a lot.
“Can they harm us?” I asked.
Zia shook her head, but her answer was hardly reassuring. “Probably not.”
“Probably not?” I countered. “What does that mean?”
