by T. S. Bishop
“It’s the only other way that I’ve read about,” Noah said. He didn’t sound too happy about it either, “But I’m sure there are other ways, Sophie, I just haven’t read about them yet. I don’t possess the sum total of the knowledge in the Archive, there could be lots of different methods that in older texts that I don’t have access to, or—or I could contact the San Francisco Sanctum and ask the head of their Archive—“
“Noah, don’t try to walk this back,” I said impatiently, “We both know this is my best chance, and that I’m going to go crazy if I have to last another day without wifi or coffee. So what’s the theory behind this?”
Asking Noah what the theory was behind something was like catnip. I could feel him lighting up on the other end.
“Okay, so the only records of this happening are with witches who were in dangerous situations or under extreme duress, like torture or being chased by wolves or angry villagers—“
“I’m already not liking where this is going. And then?”
“So one of the witches who successfully activated her powers—I think her name was Genuivere, and she had a whole hunting party trying to track her down—decided to jump into a lake rather than give herself up, and she couldn’t swim. But instead of drowning, she activated her powers and her bond with her Bloodsworn, and saved herself. So you could try oxygen deprivation.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, there was Elizabeth Chambers back in 1879 who fell from the top of a tall building and instead of dying, managed to float up to safety after activating her connection with her Bloodsworn.”
“Cool.”
“Yes, actually. And Renata McPhee, who was being attacked by a bear; Gertrude Robinson who was trapped in a burning building and Esther Phillips saved herself from a rampaging werewolf.”
“That sounds—well, it doesn’t sound easy but straightforward at least. So I just need to put myself in mortal danger and something in my brain will go ‘we need to stay alive!’ and save me? And I’ll be able to feel you guys after that?”
“That is the very, very experimental working theory,” Noah said, sighing over the phone line. “You have to make sure it’s a situation where you almost die, you have to have a failsafe to keep you from actually dying, so tell Agatha—“
“Hold on,” I whispered, “I think I hear something.”
The floorboards were creaking, and it sounded like it was coming from upstairs.
“Gotta go,” I told Noah, and hung up.
A few seconds later, Agatha suspiciously peered into the living room, where I was sitting with my legs curled under me, watching an old episode of Idol and eating raw oats.
“Oh crap!” I said, feigning surprise and fumbling to toss away the remote and hide the box of cereal.
Agatha rolled her eyes in disgust and went away, apparently convinced that I was doing nothing other than watching brain-melting tv and binge eating raw oats.
I heaved a sigh of relief when I heard her bedroom door squeak shut, and stopped to congratulate myself mentally.
I was killing it at this espionage thing.
Anyway, back to me in the woods, trying desperately to almost die.
I’d stolen a map of the area from the library, and circled all the most dangerous looking spots. The easiest to access was the top of a ravine that was a mile away from the cottage. It had a pretty steep drop, enough to mortally injure me at the very least.
I walked quietly through the woods, pausing at every crack of a twig and hoot of an owl. I was imagining a serial killer behind every turn, and an angry bear with every rustle of a leaf. I didn’t need to work up fear at this point, I was already shaking with it.
I finally reached the top of the ravine and looked over the edge, flashing my phone back and forth. The light wasn’t weak enough to really tell me what the bottom looked like or how far down it was. I was just going to have to trust my witchy powers to get me through this in one piece.
I dropped my phone and my backpack onto the earth and stood there for a moment indecisively.
Okay, I was having second thoughts. I was almost getting ready to pack it up and call it quits when—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What the f--!” I yelled, wheeling around and meeting Agatha’s face filled with unmistakable anger and wrath.
Then her eyes widened with shock and fear.
My sneakers had slipped on the damp leaves and sent me hurtling backwards. My arms windmilled wildly, trying to gain enough momentum to send me forward, but it was no use. I could feel gravity greedily sucking me down, determined to send me over the edge and crashing down the bottom.
My heart dropped from my chest right down to the bottom of my stomach. I was steadily and inexorably falling to my death.
Chapter 16
“Sophia!” I heard Agatha scream, and I saw her hand reaching out for my. My hand scrabbled in the air fruitlessly as I fell backward, feeling the air give way under my weight and gravity did its job.
I closed my eyes and felt the earth rushing up to meet me. I imagined my soft, frail body meeting the hard ground at a speed no human could survive. I thought of Noah, and Dominic and Adrian, probably peacefully asleep in their beds right now, and felt a moment of regret. I wish I’d had time to say goodbye.
For a moment.
And then I was airborne. I was light as a feather, I was like a cloud aloft on a light breeze. The air tickled my cheeks gently and playfully as I climbed up, up, up to meet the moon. I caught a glimpse of Agatha’s stunned face as I shot upwards like a rocket.
The night surrounded me, it blinded me. The stars sparked like fiery diamonds in the velvety blanket of the sky.
I whooped with joy and somersaulted. Something inside me was fizzing and bubbling and dancing, like electricity, like champagne.
It frothed down to my fingertips and I felt an answering joy from somewhere else. Somewhere far away, a sleepy voice said ‘What’s happening?’, and then another voice registered confusion. A third met me with bewildered silence.
‘Hello’, I whispered back to them in my mind. I reached for their minds and gave them a sharp poke, ‘Hello, it’s me!’
‘Sophie!’ the three of them said with relief and joy. I could feel Dominic’s prickly, uneasy happiness and Noah’s uncomplicated pleasure, and Adrian’s white-hot pride. They filled me like honey slow dripping into a jar, and I was swimming through their thoughts and memories.
Too much, I realized after a moment, too much.
I could feel their dismay when I severed the connection, it felt like the mental equivalent of getting lightly tazered to me and I was sure they felt something similar. Sorry, I thought helplessly, I’m not good enough yet to do this any longer.
They disappeared from my head like a radio being abruptly switched off. It was disorienting to be the only one inside my head. I shook my head vigorously like a dog trying to shake water out of its ears. I could still feel them at the edge of my consciousness, lurking there comforting and warm.
I would never be truly alone again, I realized.
And I was losing altitude. I descended with far less grace and control than when I’d gone up, and my newfound connection with the boys did nothing to help slow me down.
“Shitfuckfuckfuckfuck,” I chanted like a spell, raising my arms up protectively in front of my face as I crashed through some trees shockingly fast. I landed on the ground with a muffled thump, and groaned.
Every part of my body hurt. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that I’d broken several bones. My ribs felt tender and I could feel blood oozing down my hands and forearms from getting scraped by tree branches and landing hard on rocks.
“I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” said a tart voice.
Great. Just what I needed.
I rolled over with a groan and cracked my eyes open to the unwelcome sight of Agatha’s pinched, frowning face.
“It worked,” I said rustily. I didn’t
add, ‘so there’, but I was sure she heard it anyway.
Her eyes narrowed. I was sure she was going to start yelling at me, but to my surprise she just rolled them and put her hand out to help pull me up.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“Don’t mention it,” she said. We were never going to be friends, I could tell, but in activating my connection with the boys I had gotten a measure of respect from her.
“Let’s get back to the cottage,” she said briskly, walking ahead of me. I limped sorely behind her. I had half-hoped that she would let me lean on her, but apparently I was supposed to face the consequences of my poor planning. Which, fair enough.
“Does this mean I can eat regular food again?” I asked hopefully.
“Yes, thank god. I was getting tired of you stealing my stash of candy. Oh yeah, I noticed,” she added, seeing the guilt on my face, “It’s all right, that was just a decoy stash. I bet you didn’t find the real one.”
“You mean the bag you hid in the bowl of decorative gravel? I found it.”
“Damn.”
I smirked to myself.
Chapter 17
Nathan Ingram was an unassuming man.
His features weren’t particularly memorable or striking, and he seemed to kind of vanish into the background of every room he was in. He was thin and tall, with mousey brown hair and glasses that he adjusted nervously whenever someone spoke to him.
Even his grand Pathfinder robes, made of rich dark blue velvet and threaded with gold and diamonds that winked like stars when he moved, did nothing to dispel the feeling that he was fundamentally quite a boring person.
“That’s him?” I asked Hannah, “That’s the great Nathan Ingram?”
“Yes!” she replied, face slightly flushed. “Oh, don’t judge him by how he looks! He’s really quite brilliant. He’s the first male Pathfinder we’ve had in a hundred years.”
“Someone has a crush,” I said, low and amused.
“Shut up!” she said, looking around quickly and furtively, “I don’t want anyone to find out.”
“I get it, top secret stuff,” I said, miming zipping my mouth closed. “So have you ever actually talked to him or are you just mooning over him from afar?”
“I could never talk to him, are you crazy?!”
“What, why not? I thought the point of having a crush on someone was to…do something about it?”
“You are the wrongest person to ever wrong,” Hannah hissed, “The only thing I’m going to do is keep this a secret to the literal grave and die without telling him! It would be best if he died without knowing as well!”
“Smooth plan,” I said, munching on a bit of smoked cheese.
“That’s a bit rich coming from you,” Hannah hissed. She quickly abandoned her moody expression when Lady Carver looked our way, curtsying deeply and adopting a look of soppy deference.
“Oh my god, stop,” I said, through a mouthful of food. Lady Carver noticed me standing there with a plate of food in each hand and wrinkled her nose.
Just then, a flaming dragon glided into the room and exploded, releasing seven very confused looking peacocks.
I’d say this for witches: they sure knew how to throw a party.
“And what d’you mean ‘coming from me’?”
“I mean, what are you going to do about Adrian?”
“What would I need to do about Adrian?” I asked, heart sinking.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Hannah snorted, “The lingering glances and the accidental touches and the pining—you’re both incredibly obvious.”
“I wouldn’t call myself obvious—wait, what do you mean ‘both’? Are you saying Adrian--? Not that I’m admitting to…anything.”
“Good, then you won’t mind that he’s coming over to ask you to dance,” Hannah said sweetly, looking across the hall.
To where Adrian was, indeed, walking over and looking heart-stoppingly handsome in a funereal black tux that managed to bring out the deep blue of his eyes. The crisp white undershirt contrasted with the golden tan of his sleek throat and highlighted the chiseled straight line of his jaw.
I was very, very screwed.
“Adrian!” Hannah said cheerfully, giving him her hand to kiss. They looked comfortable with each other, like brother and sister, and I felt a pang of jealousy. It was all very well for them, to be attending balls and to mingle with fancy witches and heads of state.
Everything around me this evening seemed determine to remind me that I was an orphaned former street rat who had no business being in high society.
“You look nice,” I told Adrian, and winced internally at my tone.
I was trying to go for ‘kind but indifferent’ and had instead landed on ‘frosty and stern’.
“Thanks,” he said, smile turning uncertain at the edges. “What happened to Noah and Dominic?”
“Couldn’t make it,” he said, shrugging. “Dominic hates these things. His parents’ friends always come to them and talk about the good old days. I think he just doesn’t want to hear about his dead parents. And Noah’s family is having dinner tonight, I think.”
His eyes slipped down almost involuntarily and I cleared my throat.
“Eyes up here, buddy,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said, snapping back up to my face. “You look really nice.”
“Thanks,” I said, staring really hard at his lapel and then dropping down to his shoes. He tilted his head down, mirroring my movements, so when I brought my face up again I bumped against his chin.
We both laughed, which made me feel less awkward.
“I’m a disaster,” I said, still smiling as I clutched at him to steady myself.
“You’re not,” he said, leaning down, with his hands at my waist to hold me in place. I could feel the heat of his fingers through the cloth of my dress. His touch was firm with a touch of possessiveness, or so I thought.
We both realized the positions we were in at virtually the same moment. I licked my lip out of nervousness, and his eyes were drawn to the movement. They darkened to a midnight blue.
My lips parted.
So did his.
“Hate to interrupt,” Adele said in tones that were cold as the arctic, “But Nathan Ingram is waiting to be introduced to you, Sophie. I’d hate to tell him that you were too busy canoodling with your Bloodsworn to make it.”
Adrian and I shot apart like we’d been electrocuted. I caught sight of Hannah, who couldn’t seem to decide if she was sympathetic that we were being yelled at or smug that someone else had caught Adrian and me almost kissing.
Because we had. Almost kissed, I mean.
I was sure that if we’d had another uninterrupted moment, we would have been climbing each other like sex-crazed monkeys.
“I can explain,” I stammered, as I hurried to follow Adele to where a knot of important looking witches were gathered.
“I don’t need to hear it,” Adele said, shooting me an amused look, “If there’s one thing that doesn’t need to be explained, it’s teenage hormones. You can do whatever you want with whoever you want—just don’t let it be your Bloodsworn.”
“Okay,” I said meekly.
“There you are, Adele!” Nathan Ingram called, as he saw us approaching.
The group of witches surrounding him like starstruck groupies scattered like leaves in the wind in the face of Adele’s determined stride.
“Sophie, this is Nathan Ingram. Nathan, I’d like you to meet our newest recruit.”
“Sophia Landry,” he said warmly, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Up close, he was even more unremarkable, barely a few inches taller than I was. He had a slight hunch to his shoulders that you saw in people who worked at their desks all day. Next to Adele, who looked every inch a warrior, and Adrian who looked like a Renaissance painting of a Knight Templar, he was barely noticeable. It was hard to believe that the fate of the entire Sanctum rested on his shoulders.
�
��It’s a pleasure to meet you as well, Sir. I believe I have you to thank for my retrieval.”
He gently detached us from Adrian and Adele, and we started walking towards the balcony. A few people gave us curious looks as we walked, probably wondering why the Pathfinder of the Sanctum was giving a random junior level witch his attention.
“You give me far too much credit. I would have made myself extremely unpopular if I let the famous missing witch be kidnapped against her will when we only just found her.”
I tilted my head, confused at his phrasing. Was he implying that he’d only ordered my retrieval because it was politically expedient? Nah. Maybe he just wasn’t the best at saying what he meant.
“Well, please accept my gratitude anyway. I owe you a debt. Did anyone ever find the men who took me?”
“I’m afraid not. Even our agents have their limits, especially when tracking men as good at hiding as your kidnappers were.”
“I wonder if they’re even alive. One of them said their boss wouldn’t be happy that they lost me.”
“Did he? That’s very interesting.”
“It must have been difficult.”
“What?”
“Becoming Pathfinder, despite not being a witch.”
“I’m sure some people were less than happy,” he said, chuckling gently. “But I forget how much more you have to learn about our history. Do you see that far wall?”
“Yes, with the paintings?”
“Yes. Each portrait is of a previous Pathfinder. I have something similar in my office. One day I suppose my portrait will be up there as well. What a strange thought. One of my predecessors—the seventeenth Pathfinder of the Sanctum, actually, was a close friend of mine. She had faith in me, and trusted me to carry on the legacy of the Sanctum. That’s why I do it.”
“Really?”
“You’re surprised?”
“I thought you might have a more noble reason. Like protecting our history and traditions and all that.”
“I can see why you’d think that,” he said, his face wiped of the expression of ordinary pleasantness. Now he looked blank, like he was trying to figure out what expression to wear. “But in my experience, traditions often act as chains, keeping us from progress. A community that follows traditions mindlessly, disregarding their original purpose and failing to adapt to the challenges of the present, is doomed to extinction.”
