“What makes her scared?” I ask, crossing my arms. But Nadia shrugs.
“I don’t know the details,” she says. “I can just sense the emotions. Like I did with you, filled with grief.”
My knuckles crack when I clutch my fists. “I’m not —” I tense, and try to regain composure. “I’m not filled with grief,” I say, managing a calmer tone. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, but I can see you still aren’t ready to talk about it. It’s okay. I have an idea you might like to hear.”
“If it has nothing to do with my brother, then I don’t wanna hear it.”
“Actually, it does.” She sits down on my bed, and relaxes. Nadia tucks stray strands of blue hair behind her ear. She crosses her legs and points her foot at me. “Pretend to be him.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
She slowly uncrosses her legs and straightens her posture. “You want to save him, don’t you?” she asks. “Drarkodon’s creatures will trust him before they trust you. You just have to hide the triskelion on your neck.” She stands and comes closer to me, nearly pressing herself up against me. Nadia flips up the collar of my jacket. “That’s better,” she says in a softer tone, whispering into my ear, her hand is pressing against my chest.
I furrow my brows. “What are you doing?”
Nadia pulls back enough so she can look at me, but her hips remain pressing against mine. “You’re not seducible, are you.”
“No, just getting very uncomfortable.”
“Am I not your type? Do you like —”
“I don’t have a type,” I say. I place my hands on her shoulders and force her to back away from me. “I’m not attracted to anyone.”
“At all? Like, ever? You don’t even want to —”
“No,” I say as I start shaking my head. “No. No sex, no kissing. No — no. Aromantic. Asexual. Sex-repulsed. Me.” I point to myself. I have never said those words out loud before, but it was nice to hear. Aromantic and asexual.
That was as much a part of me as my freckles.
“So when you look at your friends, you aren’t envious? You don’t want what they have?” She crosses her arms.
“Relationships aren’t more important than friendships,” I say. “And what good is a relationship anyway? Did you not hear yourself earlier? ‘It’s weird, they’re enemies.’ People are always telling each other who to love and how to love them. Relationships scare people. At least as friends, they’ll know they’ll always have each other — and I’ll always have both of them. So why should I be envious?”
“Makes sense why the Empusae had no control over you,” she says simply, sitting back down on the bed. “You’re a good friend to have.”
“I mean, you’re very pretty —”
“But it’s out of your control.” She shrugs. “It’s apart of who you are, and I like the way you are. I wouldn’t expect you to change for me, Arthur. You don’t owe me anything.”
I sit down beside her, chuckling at the mention of my nickname. “So what do you mean, about pretending to be Apollo? How do I do that?”
“You just have to make your Norhurst blood stronger.”
“And — how do I do that?”
Using the sharp pendant hanging from around her neck, she slices her wrist and offers it to me, the pendant drops back against her chest.
I stand up, shaking my head as I back up toward the door.
I’m not drinking blood.
“You need darker blood in your veins,” she says. “You have it in you, I saw it. Your eyes were black after those ghouls turned to nothing. You could hardly hear me as you led me to Zoirin’s house, while I watched you nearly die on her kitchen floor. You clearly can’t control it, so it controls you.”
Still, I shake my head. “I can’t — I can’t dr — I can’t drink blood.”
“Do you want to see your brother again or not?”
I continue to shake my head as I back out of the room and into the hallway.
I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Apollo. I can’t do it.
‘Can’t do what?’
Rhiannon must have woken up. I don’t look at Jace’s door again. Instead, I try to clear my head and crawl back through the blocked hallway to get to where everyone else is. Maybe I need to be around everyone. I’m trying to think of something else, anything. Anything to stop Rhiannon from knowing. She can’t know what Nadia just asked me to do. No one can.
I have to figure out something else.
I go outside instead, which ends up being a mistake. The destruction of Newacre greets me. Rocks fall, there’s sliding against the rubble. I don’t turn around.
“You know, if I wanted to kill you,” Jace says as he stands beside me, “it would’ve been too easy. You didn’t even move. I know you heard me.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have minded,” I say. “I mean, I seem to die and come back to life anyway.”
“Doesn’t mean you should chance it. You might not always be so lucky.”
“Lucky.” I laugh. Lucky. “It’s not luck.”
It’s my fate, just like Mother Nature told me. Regardless of what I do, I will be led to the same conclusion.
Regardless, I won’t do it.
“Well, whatever it is. It doesn’t mean you should be reckless.”
“You’re telling me this? You?” I turn to him. “What happened to, and I quote, ‘I have nothing to lose’? Jace, you’re nothing but reckless.”
“Turns out I do have something to lose. Turns out, I was wrong.” He crosses his arms and cocks an eyebrow. “I’m learning, Mae. Are you?”
I tap my finger against my pants. There’s something in my pocket. I reach in, my fingers grasp what feels like a sundial. It’s the Heliosi. I glance at Jace.
“Where were you?” I ask. “When you were with your family, I mean. Where are they staying?”
He inhales deeply. “Harnsey.”
“The rainforest in the south?”
“They went there to mask their scent. There are more werewolf packs there than just mine. From all over the world.”
“There are others?”
He nods. “Dozens, hundreds maybe.”
I clutch the Heliosi in my pocket. “I have a plan,” I say.
Jace glances around, probably to make sure there’s no sign of Miko. But it’s still early in the morning. Not even close to sunrise. She shouldn’t be awake. “To save your brother?” he asks, his voice is low.
I shake my head. “To fix this. We have to fix this.”
“I thought chronomancers weren’t supposed to meddle with time? You don’t know what your interference could do.”
“It didn’t happen that long ago. It was still on fire when I got here. I don’t see why I can’t try. I have to at least try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll let it go.”
“What about Rhiannon?” He crosses his arm over his body and subtly points behind us.
I turn my head, she’s standing right there. Her pale face is bright and easily seen in the darkness of the early morning.
“You weren’t planning on leaving me behind again, were you?” she asks.
I face forward again. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say.
“So what’s the plan?” Jace asks, Rhiannon walks to stand in front of us.
I pull the Heliosi out of my pocket.
“I can time travel,” I say. “I’m not sure about manifesting yet, but I can do this. I went back to the Whispering Woods,” I glance at Rhiannon, before turning to Jace. “I went to the cabin too.” He stiffens, averting his eyes. “I don’t know how it’s going to work. Especially with others, I only went alone.” I hold it out in my palm. “Maybe if we’re all touching it, it’ll work for all three of us.”
Jace puts his finger on the edge. Rhiannon looks at him, then at me.
<
br /> I nod. She places hers across from his.
I turn the center piece, cranking it back. When I let go, it spins. Rhiannon looks at me again, then at the Heliosi in my hand. Like she’s waiting for something. She frowns, and presses her finger down against the center tip. Light emits from the sundial, and the three of us are thrown backward in all different directions.
Chapter ELEVEN
feels like a dream
I land back against my bed, in my room of the cabin. I’m still holding onto the Heliosi.
I get up.
The cuts around my wrists still sting. As does my back.
I get out of bed and there’s a knock at the door. It’s Rhiannon.
“I had the strangest dream,” she tells me, furrowing her brows as she runs her fingers through her blonde hair. She doesn’t look at me. “We went back to Newacre, and it was completely destroyed. Jubilation and his sister — they found us —”
“That wasn’t a dream, Rhiannon.”
Her eyes meet mine. “What? What do you mean?”
“We time traveled. We have to go get Jace.”
I turn around to start packing my things, but she grabs my wrist.
“Artemis, I can’t. Dozens of werewolves — and you want me to just walk in there?”
Right, she’s a vampire.
“I see your point,” I say, and sit back down on my bed. “What day is it?” I ask her.
“It’s the middle of January,” she says, leaning against the door.
“They probably found him by now.”
“It’s okay,” she says suddenly, changing her mind. “We can go.”
“I don’t want to put you in danger,” I say. “We’ll figure something else out.”
“No, if I had that dream, he probably did too. If things go badly, I’ll stay in the trees.” She walks over to my desk and opens the drawer, pulling out the prism. “Thanks to you, I don’t have to hide from the sun.” She dangles the cord in front of my face before putting it on. “Too bad it can’t turn me invisible.”
“Can you use that shield thing? Wouldn’t that help?”
“Not against that many of them. I could possibly generate a force field but I don’t want to hurt you or Jace, in case either of you are too close.”
“Okay, so in the trees it is.”
“I could go ahead — meet you two in —”
“No,” I say, interrupting her. “We don’t know what set those fires, we don’t know what happened. You should stay with us.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I can take care of myself, Artemis.”
“I know, so take care of yourself in the trees while I find him. That’ll be complicated enough. You wanna see him, don’t you?”
She takes a moment before nodding. “He still feels like a dream.”
“I think that kiss you gave him will make him think it was a dream.”
She laughed, raking her fingers through her hair, she swept it over the front of her shoulder.
“You like him, don’t you?”
Rhiannon fumbles with the sleeve of her nightgown. She shrugs. “I don’t know how I feel. It’s complicated. He was a twelve-year-old boy the last time I saw him before Edgewick. Even then, even though I recognized him laying in that bed, I don’t know him, Artemis. I knew the boy he was, not that man he is now. I knew Jubilation. I don't really know Jace.”
I get up. “He is who he is because of you, you know.” I walk to the hole in our wall and run my finger along it. “He did this when he thought he killed you in the Whispering Woods. I watched him break down, right here. Of course he won’t admit it —”
A laugh escaped her lips. “I’ve missed you.”
I forgot that she’s living in the present, not the future. Though she knows what happens, it’s not reality for her like it is for me. Jace wasn’t here for her physically, and I wasn’t here for her mentally. What was worse?
“I shouldn’t have shut you out,” I say. “Especially after what happened.”
“I’m sure it hasn’t been as hard for me as it was for you,” she says, rubbing her arm. “Like I said, the last time we really spent much time together, it was when he was a child. It was weird and awkward anyway. I just wanted you to be okay.”
“I’m doing a lot better,” I say. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she says and smiles sweetly.
“Okay, well, you should go get dressed. We should go before anyone else wakes up. I need to find the map Coin gave me. I’m sure Harnsey is on there. I think I remember seeing it.”
She starts for her room, but then stops and turns to me again. “How exactly are we getting there?” she asks. “I mean — I’m sure I could but — I don’t think you’d want me to carry you the whole way there.”
Thinking about the last time a vampire grabbed me, when Faustine attacked, I shake my head. I didn’t want that to happen again any time soon.
“We — will cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“Artemis! We need a plan.”
“Well, can we figure out a plan once we’re away from here?” I ask, digging through my drawer for the map.
She purses her lips together and raises her eyebrows.
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to find our way back here.”
“Who says we’re coming back?”
“But your dad —”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t need him. I’m figuring this out on my own,” I insist. “And I’m doing okay, really. I mean, so far so good.” I rub the back of my neck. The ouroboros shouldn’t be there anymore. My eyes never turned black. Everything in Newacre hasn’t happened. I don’t have to drink anyone’s blood.
I subtly glance at Rhiannon.
She can’t read my mind anymore.
“Do you know how to open my mind?” I ask before Rhiannon can leave.
She leans her shoulder against the frame of the door again. “Is that how I was able to hear your thoughts again when we were in Newacre?” I nod. I cross my arms and lean against my desk.
“Nadia said she opened my mind. I don’t know how to do that.”
“I didn’t know that was an option,” she says. “But I think not shutting me out would be a good place to start. What about those?” Rhiannon asks, spotting the bag of Thirondel charms open in the drawer. “We could use those to get there?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how to end up in a specific place,” I say. “We could end up right in the middle of all the werewolves. Bad idea.”
“Well, maybe we could get somewhere near it? Just so we’re closer in comparison to where we are now.” She pats my doorframe. “I’ll meet you outside in ten minutes?”
I nod and turn back to my desk as she leaves.
Stuffed in the bottom drawer is my old bag from Newacre. Torn, tattered, the strap completely ripped off of it. We’ve been gone for nearly a year. I didn’t want to return to it up in flames. With everyone dead.
I close my eyes. I try not to think about it. It hasn’t happened yet. I put everything back into the dragon book and tear the front page out, slipping it into my pocket. The Thirondel charms are on the desk too, along with my dagger and my grandfather’s journal.
I can’t find the map though. I look back at the drawer with my old bag stuffed at the bottom and I pull it out. The map is still in there. It’s worn, some of the ink is smudged, while some had just faded. I sit on the floor and stare at the map. Edgewick, Ashen Hills. There are many towns and villages on here, even a few kingdoms scattered across the parchment. Coin even drew a lightbulb near the ones with electricity.
I scan over the map, looking at each cluster of trees, searching for Harnsey. At first I don’t think it’s on here, but then I spot it. I look at the surrounding towns, wondering which exactly we should appear in, but I’m not familiar with an
y of them. I fold the map back up and tuck it into my back pocket as I get to my feet.
The closet has a new satchel, well a newer satchel than my old one. As much as I want to bring it, it’s probably not going to carry everything very far.
I changed my clothes and put my jacket on before throwing everything into my bag. I attach my sheath to my pants and sling my bag over my shoulder. I creep out of my room and down the stairs. Peering into the kitchen, I see a jar of coins my dad usually keeps hidden. I take a pouch out from my bag and grab a few handfuls as quietly as I can manage. I slip out of the cabin.
Rhiannon’s already waiting outside with nothing but a small pouch attached to her belt. She has a black ribbon tied in her hair that matches the black one around her waist. She’s wearing a short pale blue dress with black stockings and boots. She seems to have a thing for dresses.
“Is that all you’re bringing?” I ask.
She looks down at her pouch. “It’s all I need,” she says. “It’s bigger than you think. I got it from a witch.” She reaches her arm out to me. “I can put your satchel in here if you want.”
I slide it off of my shoulder and take a Thirondel charm out before handing the bag to her. At least now I won’t ruin this one. She unties the pouch from her belt and stuffs my bag right into it. I raise my eyebrows. I guess it is bigger than I thought it was.
“So where are we going?” she asks as she reties it.
I slip the map out of my pocket and hand it to her.
“I don’t know which one is the better one to show up in,” I say as she opens it up. Rhiannon frowns as she scans the parchment. She doesn’t take long before pointing to a small village.
“This one,” she says. “Gillamoor. This is the one closest to the sun. We’ll be safest there.”
“Will you?” I ask. “Mother Nature’s creations thrive off of the sun.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, folding the map back up. She hands it to me and I stick it back into my pocket. “Trust me.” I roll the charm between my fingers, making sure to touch two of them to make sure no one will follow us. Rhiannon nods toward the woods. “We should move further in.”
I look back up at the cabin, it’s completely dark. I inhale deeply. This is the right thing to do. I return the Thirondel charm to my front pocket and follow her further into the forest.
The Midnight Strider (The Chronomancer Chronicles Book 2) Page 11
