Okay, I guess I’ll be winning the tribunal.
I had no idea what they did here, but from the looks of these hallways and some of the bars in the distance, I was in some type of jail. There was no way I was staying here for eternity or being thrown into the Bottomless Pit.
Since she now had my Maven healer magic, Fallon was literally the only person I knew of who could cross over into this world.
Everyone had wanted her to avoid using her magic before. Now, I would need to harness it to stay alive. And she’d need to figure out mine to get me back home.
THREE
FALLON
I couldn’t figure out if Master Hart was reclusive and odd or just scared of me. He barely made eye contact. His hands shook when he was too close to me, and he stuttered when I asked him a question. Our elective hour was basically him fumbling over what to teach me, knowing I’d accidentally swapped powers with Ariyon and didn’t know how to use his magic.
“In your energy-sensing classes, you will learn to see a person’s energy field. This can clue you in to any maladies they may suffer from to better help you heal them,” he said, not making eye contact.
I stared at him as if willing myself to see his energy, and a slice of terror ripped through me, causing chills to race up my arms.
What the Nightling was that? Was I picking up these feelings from him? Like Ariyon said he did when around someone.
‘He’s definitely afraid of you. Reclusive and odd, yes, but also terrified,’Yanric informed me, and my heart pinched with guilt.
There were only a few minutes of class left, and I didn’t want every encounter with him to be like this.
“Master Hart, can I ask you something personal?”
For the first time, his gaze flicked up to meet mine. There was so much panic in his deep-brown eyes, it knocked the breath out of me. He looked like he wanted to run.
“Wh-wh-what?” he stuttered.
I folded my gloved hands over my lap and gave him the most timid-looking smile I could muster. “Did you know or ever meet my birth mother, Marissa, by any chance?”
His eyes grew wide as he took two steps backward, swallowing hard. He was the same age as Master Clarke, and for all I knew, they went to school together. “I—I, yes, I did.” He kept walking backward, the distance between us growing, and a lump formed in my throat.
“Okay, well, I just wanted you to know that I’m not like her. I didn’t know her. My father raised me in Isariah and—”
He held up a hand, taking in a deep breath, and then his face contorted into a painful wince. “I—I’m an empath. I feel things very deeply. When I’m near you, it brings memories b-back about M-Marissa. You look just like her. I’m sorry.” Then he turned and bolted from the room, the door slamming behind him.
My hand went to cover my mouth as guilt and horror rushed through me. What had Marissa done to him? He could barely stand to be around me. It dawned on me: I looked so much like her, he must feel and remember so much when he was around me. It explained why on the first night I’d met him, the night of the school dance, he’d been so cagey around me.
‘Poor thing,’Yanric said.
Anger suddenly flushed through me, fast and hot. Marissa had left a whole host of problems in her wake, and I was the one having to deal with them.
‘Grr. Marissa and her mistakes are really starting to annoy me,’I told Yanric.
‘You’re going to be late for your library meetup with Ayden and Eden,’he counseled.
With a sigh, I picked up my bag and sulked the entire way to the library.
I staredat the folded piece of paper with absolute trepidation.
“Are you going to open it?” Eden asked, peering at me from across the table in the school library.
It was the piece of paper Marissa had tried to hand me right before she’d buried an axe in Ariyon’s chest. Eden had grabbed it before the building went down and waited until now to give it to me.
Come find me. There is much you need to learn, Marissa had said.
Was it a map to find her? Was it a list of things I didn’t know that she felt I needed to?
