“Like…” I trailed off, my mental list of safe havens coming up empty. No matter where I went, Talon would find me.
“Perhaps this is where you belong, Nova Tershetta.”
Get out of my head!
“Things are only just getting interesting, we’d never leave now.”
Desperate for answers Altair seemed unwilling to provide, I thought back to the moments just before I had ended up there. Talon had attacked me with a burst of pure magic. I had pleaded with the stars for help, and they had sent a beam of white-hot magic out of my chest. Talon had begged me to stay. Then…
Then what?
I shadow walked despite the excruciating pain and foggy mind. And I had somehow found Altair? Had the stars brought me here?
“Not us. You.”
Me? How?
They merely giggled, the echoing hiss of their voices fading, as if they were never there at all.
“Where did you go, Tershetta?”
Blinking, I shook my head, attempting to free myself of the prison that was my mind. Altair was staring at me, the smell of burning pancakes thick in the smoke-soaked air.
“You’re ruining your breakfast.”
“Shit!” Whipping around, he quickly grabbed the pan and tipped it upside down over two plain white plates, the pancake steaming as it slammed onto the empty plate on the left. “You’ll have to eat that one. I don’t like burnt food.”
“Oh, and you assume I do?”
“No, I assume you have known hunger long enough to not care about a bit of char.”
“You’re such an entitled prick, did you know that?”
“Yet, here you are.” Altair grabbed both plates, lifting one corner of his mouth as he set them down on a small, pale wooden table. While I knew he wouldn’t pull out my chair like he had at my house those many months ago, I was still surprised when he plopped down in his own chair and started drenching the pancakes in butter and syrup from tiny ceramic bowls.
“I didn’t mean to come here.”
“Odd, because you had a map of my island. Seemed intentional to me.”
The map!
That was why I had shadow walked to him. Of course. How fucking stupid could I get?
“Why are you even on this island? Why run if you didn’t kill anyone?” Altair’s head flung up, his eyes widening as he stared me down. Shit, I shouldn’t have said that. I should’ve at least tried to pretend I still thought he did it. If only for the slim probability that I’d have any bit of leverage.
“How do you know that?”
“Know what?”
“That I didn’t kill your parents.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Who did it? You must know if you’re so sure it wasn’t me.”
My bag felt heavier than normal, digging into my shoulders, though there was no way the nearly endless charm had faded after only a day. Death twirled around Altair’s ankles where theypoked out from beneath the table. Why did she have to be so cozy with him? Why did I have to be holding that map when I shadow walked? Why was everything sobroken?
“I’m going outside.”
