“That guy at the restaurant last night. He’s a local. He knows these things.”
“Yeah, he knows how to tell stories while trying to pick up girls.” The two of them lean in to each other as giggles overtake them.
“Fine,” the second one says after she’s recovered. “I assume you’ll touch the water then, since you aren’t afraid of the big bad Swamp Monster.”
“Of course I’ll touch the water. I might die of some horrible swampy disease, but it won’t be the Swamp Monster that kills me.”
I suppress a groan, hoping her words haven’t sealed her fate. She won’t die, she won’t die, she won’t die, I chant to myself as the woman leans down and trails her fingers through the dirty water. I picture my bow and arrow—not focusing too hard on the idea—and raise my hands to the space where I imagine them to be. The weapon appears, fitting perfectly into my grip. Chase was right about that: it takes only a brief thought, an expectation that the weapon is already there, rather than a deep focus.
Don’t think of him now.
My weapon is brilliant and sparkling, filling the area with its light. The women won’t be able to see it, though. My weapons and I are both hidden by glamour magic. The wolf creature, however … Well, if he’s anywhere nearby, he won’t miss this brightly lit weapon. Perhaps I should have gone for stealth, rather than revealing myself too soon, but I’m hoping he’ll come for me instead of the humans.
A shriek pierces the air. I jump to my feet, ready to attack. But I realize a second later that it was only one of the women pretending to push the other into the swamp. The two of them dissolve into giggles once more as I release a sigh of relief. I scan the banks, the trees, the clumps of soggy vegetation growing in the water. Where will he come from? Is he watching already? Is he on my side of the bank?
I throw a glance over my shoulder as a shiver crawls up my back despite the smothering warmth of the air. Am I being watched? Or is it simply my imagination, like last night at the old—
Noise erupts behind me. I whip my head back around in time to see a black shape explode from the water. The wolf, his shaggy, dripping fur flinging water everywhere, collides with both women. Their screams chill my blood.
I don’t waste a second. My arrow zooms across the water and finds its mark in the wolf’s side before he’s finished rearing his head back. With a roaring snarl, he leaps off his prey and swings around to face my side of the bank. Wild, gleaming eyes stare hungrily at me through the hazy air. I discard my bow. It disappears, its glow vanishing in an instant. In the near darkness, I can see little more than those fiery eyes on the other side of the swamp.
The moment he jumps, so do I. With a single bound, he’s across the water, but the muddy earth I was standing on is now bare. Those glowing eyes turn upward. He sees me above him, balancing on the branch I launched myself onto. He lets loose a vicious growl. Then his head morphs and shifts and becomes something almost human. “Dinner time,” he snarls.
Fear ripples through me, raising the hairs on my arms. I don’t show it, though. Instead I reach swiftly for my bow and point an arrow directly at his head. “Try it,” I say, hoping he doesn’t.
But he readies himself to spring. He’s an enormous beast, after all, so of course he thinks he can take down the pesky guardian trainee trying to rob him of his dinner. I get ready to flip backwards out of his way the moment he launches at the tree. He tenses. He leaps—
And from a doorway in the air, a man steps out, knocks the wolf back onto the ground with a mere sweep of his hand, and brings slender branches slithering across the ground to bind the wolf’s limbs.
“Who the hell are you?” the wolf demands in rough, grunting tones as he morphs into a shape that looks far more like a hairy man than a four-legged beast. The newcomer sends a stunner spell straight at the wolf’s chest, knocking him unconscious.
Good question, I think to myself. Whoever this is, he’s interfering with my assignment, and I doubt Olive will be pleased with that.
I drop to the ground, bending to absorb the impact before I straighten. “I’d like to know the answer to that,” I say.
The man turns—
—and I feel the air punched from my lungs. “You,” I manage to gasp.
“Calla?” He seems as startled to see me here as I am to see him. He can’t be feeling what I’m feeling, though. Never in a million years could he understand the way my heart just split. “Calla, what are you—”
“Stay back!” I say as Chase moves toward me. I hold a hand up between us, as though that might keep him away. As though I might possibly stand a chance against the most powerful being our world has ever known. The heavy air seems hard to breathe. The sheen of sweat coating my skin turns icy. “Is it true?” I manage to whisper. I already know it is, but I want to hear him say it. I want him to admit it.
Chase’s expression is indefinable as he says, “It is.”
I’m shaking, partly in anger and partly in fear. After all, it is Draven standing before me. Powerful, dangerous, a killer. What’s wrong with me that I couldn’t see that in him? How did I miss it? “You lied,” I whisper.
Stupid, stupid. Why are you still here? Why aren’t you running?
“I didn’t,” he says.
“I trusted you,” I yell. “I told you things I’ve never told anyone else.”
“I know, and I—”
“And then you made a fool of me!”
“No! That was never my intention. I was going to tell you everything.”
I choke out a laugh. “Everything? You were going to tell me everything?” I shake my head. “You were never going to tell me who you really are. Why would you do that? This is the only reaction you could possibly have expected.”
“I was going to start at the beginning.” He takes a step closer. “Tell you about the person I used to be. The guy I was before I discovered this world and its magic.”
“Is that guy supposed to be different from the guy who caused The Destruction? The guy who killed so many people?”
“Yes.”
“How? That guy is you!”
“No! Not anymore.”
I find myself shaking my head again. “I don’t believe you. I can never believe you again after all the lies you—”
“I did not lie to you.” His voice is fierce as he takes another step closer. “I kept things from you, but you knew that. You knew all along that I wasn’t telling you everything, and you agreed with me that it was better to say nothing than to lie.”
I know I said that, but this … who he really is … it’s so much more than any normal secret. “You led me to believe that you were someone else,” I say, trying to keep the tremble from my voice, “and that’s just as bad as lying.”
He looks as though he may want to say something else, but he turns his head away instead, looking out across the murky water.
Leave, that voice inside my head tells me. Leave now.
So I do. I ignore that tiny, stupid part of me that still thinks of him as Chase—that still misses him—and focus on what my brain tells me: He’s a killer. Get. Away. Now.
He doesn’t come after me, but I run into the faerie paths anyway. My breath catches, my hands shake, and I stumble out the other side onto the old Guild ruins. A cool breeze curls along my bare arms, sending another shiver through me. I wrap my arms around my body as I pace the ruins. Why, why, why did he show up tonight? Why is he still entangled in my life? Why can’t I rewind time and pick a different house to break into and never find myself involved with him in the first place?
I press my hands against my face—and then I remember the assignment race. “Shoot,” I mutter out loud, dropping my hands to my sides. I’m supposed to be back at the Guild now. I’m supposed to have successfully completed my assignment. And while I did manage to keep the women from become the wolf-man’s dinner, I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do when Olive puts my tracker band into the replay device and sees another person arriving at the scene, ca
pturing the wolf-man, and then having a tense conversation with me. Replay devices haven’t yet advanced to the level where sound can be replayed, but the scene is suspicious enough without our exact words. Olive will want to know who the man is. And I can’t tell her that.
Some tiny part of my wonders why. Why can’t I tell her? Why can’t I tell everyone at the Guild what I know? Then they can hunt Draven down, capture him, and hand out whatever sentence he deserves for all the terrible things he’s done.
He isn’t just Draven. He’s Chase. You care for him. You don’t want that kind of fate for him.
“Shut up,” I whisper to myself. I should want him to be captured, but I don’t, and that disturbs me. So I push the thought aside, refusing to examine it more closely. With shaking fingers, I remove my tracker band. I place it on the ground. I pick up a rock and bring it down again and again until the strip of leather is battered and perforated. Then I light a fire with a snap of my fingers and watch it burn. It takes a while—probably because of protective enchantments embedded in the leather—but the flames are magical too, and eventually the tracker band disintegrates.
Then I pull my knife from my boot—the knife from Dad, the one Saber stabbed me with—grit my teeth, and cut a shallow wound into my arm. I spread the blood around a bit, wipe some of it onto my clothes, then wait for the wound to heal.
When I get back to Olive’s office—not in last position, she tells me, but close enough—I explain that the wolf bit my arm and tore the tracker band off. She crosses her arms, her expression telling me she doesn’t quite believe me. “How fortunate the wolf didn’t rip your entire hand off along with the tracker band.”
“Yes. It was definitely fortunate that he didn’t get his teeth right around my wrist.”
“How do you expect me to award you any points if I can’t see how you performed on this assignment?”
“I don’t know. The two women got away safely, if that counts for anything. But I suppose you’ll have to take my word for it.”
“Your word,” Olive says with a humorless laugh. She shakes her head. “Zero,” she snaps. “And be grateful I’m not giving you negative points.”
Grateful? I’m grateful I didn’t have to kill the wolf-man. I’m grateful Olive didn’t see my tracker band. And I’m grateful she knows nothing about Chase. Because despite the fact that it makes me no better than a traitor, I can’t escape the feeling that I don’t ever want him to wind up in the clutches of the Guild.
CHAPTER
SIX
I lower myself onto the mat on my hands and knees, stretch my legs out behind me, and start my set of push-ups. “Not much,” I say to Gemma in answer to her question about what I’m doing later. “Probably just homework and any extra training Olive decides to give me.”
“Well, if you don’t have extra training, do you want to come over later? We can just chill and chat about girl stuff.”
“Okay. Sure.” My eyes remain fixed on the section of floor in front of my face as I push against it repeatedly. “I don’t think I’ll have much to add to the conversation, but we can chat about you.”
She laughs. “Okay. I’m hanging out with Rick for a little while after we’re done with training, so we can dissect that.”
“Cool.”
It’s our last session for the day and Gemma and I have been assigned to the strength training area. I started with weights and now I’m onto push-ups. Beside me, Gemma is doing lunges while holding a bar across her shoulders. The idea of spending the evening rehashing every word the guy she’s crushing on said to her doesn’t fill me with a great deal of excitement, but if I were in her shoes—and if the guy I liked hadn’t turned out to be an evil, brainwashing, Destruction master—I’d want to do the same thing. Besides, Rick is a Seer, so talking about him might not be that boring after all. There are so many things I’ve wanted to know since I discovered Mom was a Seer trainee before she fled the Guild years ago.
“How much do you know about Seer life?” I ask Gemma. My arms are beginning to burn and my breaths are coming faster now, but I can keep going for a while. “Has Rick told you lots? Like, what their training is about and … what the process is from the time a vision is Seen … to when it makes its way … downstairs for guardians to take care of?”
“Yeah, some of it. They use special mirrors.” She stops her lunges and pulls one leg up into a stretch. “Why don’t you ask him? You can come upstairs with me after this session.”
“Okay. But won’t that be … a bit weird? Just the three of us … hanging out?” It’s getting harder to carry on a conversation, but I manage to get my words out at the top of each push-up.
“No, we’ll be in the Seer common room. Other trainees hang out there, so it won’t be—Freaking heck, will you stop already? How many push-ups are you planning to do?”
“I don’t know,” I say breathlessly, still going. “I don’t count anymore. Olive tells me to … keep going until it hurts … and then to keep going some more after that.”
“Okay, your mentor seriously needs to chill out.”
“Do I, Miss Alcourt?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Gemma step back quickly. Olive’s boots appear in my line of vision. “Um … oops,” Gemma says. “I’m sorry.”
I get to my feet, rolling my shoulders and swinging my arms as I look from Olive’s crossed arms to Gemma’s guilty expression. “Hi,” I say to Olive, hoping to break the glare she’s currently directing at Gemma.
“I’m just gonna go use those weights over there,” Gemma says. She turns and hurries to the other end of the strength training area.
“I have a new tracker band for you,” Olive says. “We need to test that it’s working.”
I take the tracker band and put it on. “Okay. Is there anything in particular you want me to do?”
After a long exhale of breath that suggests it’s the bane of her existence to come up with an exercise for me, she says, “Yes. Do that aerobics routine from the other day. Bring the tracker band to my office when you’re done.”
I manage to nod instead of groan. I’m one hundred percent certain Olive came up with that stupid routine specifically to embarrass me. With a combination of stepping, jumping, running on the spot, punching the air, and kicking imaginary opponents—all in a repeating pattern—it’s easily the silliest thing I’ve ever done. No doubt Olive’s sole purpose was to get me to finally say no to something. I’m pleased to say I managed to resist.
I head to the far corner of the training center where the obstacle course items are stored and attempt to hide myself between some of them. Then I imagine the beat Olive told me to count in my head and get started on the silly side-to-side stepping while pulling one knee up in between each step. I ignore anyone who walks past. I keep going through all the various moves, recognizing that this might actually be fun if I were on my own with some music playing. I’m not, though, and when I feel I’ve embarrassed myself sufficiently, I bring my little routine to an end.
I slip the tracker band off and walk across the training center. “Come up to the Seer trainee level when you’re done,” Gemma calls to me as I pass her.
“Okay.”
Olive doesn’t waste time when I get up to her office. She opens the cupboard where all her trainees’ past assignments, recorded onto tiny marbles, are stored in rows. She takes a blank marble from a box and returns to her desk where the replay device is waiting. The replay device—which Ryn told me is new technology; they didn’t exist in his day—is a sphere with a flat base on which to sit and a small hollow at the top in which to place the marble. She picks up the sphere, puts it down on top of the tracker band, and places the marble in the top. With her stylus, she quickly draws a symbol onto the side of the sphere. Then she stands back, crosses her arms, and watches. A small three dimensional image of me doing my aerobics routine appears in the air above the device, proving that I did, in fact, look as stupid as I felt.
“Good. The tracker band’s work
ing.” She removes the marble and adds, “We definitely don’t need to keep that recording.” She returns it to the box of blank marbles, presumably so she can record over it next time.
“Thanks.” I wait for a moment, in case she’s about to give me some extra training for tonight, but when she says nothing further, I turn around and leave her office.
I’ve never been as high up as the Seer trainee level, but I know where it is. When I reach it, I ask a young girl for directions to the common room. She takes me to the end of a corridor and points to the room on the left. I step into a large round space with a rich blue carpet covering the floor and pairs of blue curtains hanging at regular intervals around the room. In between each set of curtains, an oval mirror is attached to the wall, each with a pretty, decorative frame. Couches, tables and chairs are arranged into various different sitting areas.
I walk down a few steps into the room, searching the groups of people until I see Gemma. She’s talking with a guy I presume is Rick. As I move toward the two of them, I can’t help comparing him to Perry. Rick is almost as tall, but he isn’t as lean and muscular—obviously, given that his training doesn’t involve anything physical. His face is handsome, but there’s something about Perry’s smile and that mischievous glint in his eyes that makes him cute. Perhaps I should ask Gemma if she’s noticed it. Then I can at least tell Perry if he stands any kind of chance with her.
Gemma sees me approaching and stands. Rick gets to his feet and Gemma introduces the two of us. “Calla’s curious about the life of a Seer,” Gemma tells him. “I said she should come and ask you herself.”
“Oh, sure,” Rick says with a good-natured laugh as we sit. “As long as you’re not about to ask me why the Seers didn’t see The Destruction coming.”
“Oh no, don’t worry,” I assure him. “Gemma explained that one to me already.” I rub my hands along my legs, not sure what to ask now that I finally have the opportunity. “So … I was thinking that I don’t know all that much about how it works. As guardian trainees, we receive assignment details on scrolls, and that’s pretty much all I know about your end of the process. I don’t even know what it’s like when you actually have a vision.”
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