Cami gives up on pretending not to listen and leans in.
“Then, my father told me the secret most legacies never learn. We’re better together. We can combine our powers to come up with better solutions than we would on our own. Everyone is so used to thinking of what each legacy can do in isolation.”
“They even teach the legacy powers separately at Elmwick Academy,” Cami murmurs.
“Right. So, my father took me to the charmers. Eddie placed a charm on me—one that behaves as a shield, protecting me from anyone who would attack me. It makes me able to anticipate their movements. The other part is the curse I created, bound to that charm. It makes anyone who strikes at me miss, stumble, and ultimately fail.”
“And this charm and curse combo is...” Cami stutters.
“It’s anchored to my own belief that they’ll work.” Sofia shrugs. “Every time I’m out there, I have to believe with absolute certainty that the charm and curse will work. I must have no doubts, no fears, no reservations at all.”
“I don’t believe this...” Cami mumbles in shock.
“I understand.” Sofia’s expression remains blank and unreadable. “But that’s exactly why it will never work for you.”
Chapter 29. Cami
My thigh still tingles like my leg has fallen asleep. I try to stimulate my circulation by rubbing my knuckles up and down my thigh.
Mason raises his eyebrows at me in question. “Are you all right?”
“Fine. It’s a side effect of the tranquilizer.” I make a fist and punch my thigh, hoping it will help.
“What?” Mason’s brandy-colored eyes stare back at me, but despite his worry, I melt into the familiarity.
“Never mind.” My voice is but a whisper.
Despite the hurricane of darkness swirling inside me, everything feels a little better when we are together. As if having read my thoughts, Mason drapes an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to him.
The wait until we get to Elmwick is driving us all crazy. Even the ever-so-smooth Sofia ends up drumming her fingers against the window in a nervous rhythm.
“How long until we get there?” she asks Ren.
“At least another two hours.” His eyes meet hers in the mirror, and he gives Sofia a half smile that feels intimate. “Oggy’s men had a decent head start. We’re moving more than a few hours behind them.”
“At least they haven’t managed to break the circle, right?” Sofia turns to me. “You’d be able to feel it, I’m guessing?”
I shrug in Mason’s embrace. “I suppose so.”
His chest rises as he tries to sit up straighter. “Look, I won’t pretend to understand the whole charm anchor thing, but are you sure it can’t work for you and the circle?”
“It can’t,” I cut him off, sharper than I intended.
“Okay...” He drags out, watching me out of the corner of his eye. “It’s just that we’re running out of both time and options.”
I pull away from him and twist my body so I can face him straight on. “If we use this type of anchoring to get the circle to unbind the joint spell, they’ll all die.”
“How can you be sure?” Mason shakes his head.
I know what he must be thinking—that I just need to cheer up, to believe, to keep my head up, and everything will be all right. It must be easy to see it that way when the darkness doesn’t play with your mind.
“You don’t know the darkness that plagues us now,” I whisper. “Ever since we became a circle of six...it’s been thickening around us—a maddening pressure that only grows, threatening to crush us. You’ve read the old story. I’ve told you that Seff is out of control. And if my latest dreams are any indication, Charity and Vanessa are taking incredible, thoughtless risks as we speak.”
Come to think of it, even my escape into the shared dream with the tranquilizer was unnecessarily bold as well. The middle of a battle is a terrible place for a nap. I stew in the realization without daring to voice it, though.
“We’re a powder keg waiting to blow. We can’t trust the darkness won’t play tricks on our minds. And even when we believe we’re in control, we’re probably wrong.” I realize I’m panting as I speak. “So, don’t tell me to just have faith. Don’t tell me that believing in our strength is the simple solution to all our problems, when, actually, it goes alongside other nonsensical advice, such as “Try not to think about it” and “Just stay positive”.” I swallow to calm myself. “Our fogged minds won’t let us do that. To bet the lives of everyone in my circle on a hopeful platitude is suicide.”
Mason grabs my hands and tries to pull me toward him. “I’m sorry, okay. I get it. But what choice do we have?”
The unsaid bit hangs in the air between us. What choice is there but to break the circle the same way Mom did?
“No.” I shake my head as soon as the thought enters my mind. “This moment has been building for years. Mom, my grandma, my aunt, even Zach’s mother... They’ve all taken actions that brought us here. They pulled threads in the fabric of the universe so we could get to this moment. We must be at the precipice of change. I can’t walk away from this and break the circle by abandoning them.”
“It won’t move things forward, but backward,” Sofia says in a hollow voice.
“We’ve come too far to bend to the hunters’ will again and let their atrocities continue.” Even though my insides seem to tremble from nerves, I square my jaw and pull my shoulders back. “We’ll talk it through with the others once we find them, but we must figure out a way. This is our only chance to finally bring about real change for all legacies.”
My body deflates from the heavy realization, darkness flooding my mind once more after the brief moment of clarity. Mason reads my body language, beckons me to him again, and we spend the rest of the drive to Elmwick huddled together.
We’re still on the outskirts when the car slows down.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, not questioning the bit of warning from my banshee intuition.
“The road’s blocked,” Ren says as he brings the car to a halt.
“Can’t you get us around through a dirt road or something?” Sofia sounds almost bored.
That’s when the bullets start raining on us. Mason pushes me and Sofia down as sparks fly when the storm of bullets hits us.
I press my hands over my ears to cope with the sound—guns shooting, bullets whistling through the air and screeching against metal, and the background noise of my heart beating wildly.
“Well, that won’t do,” Sofia growls.
“You can’t be serious!” I squeak, then duck lower as the next round of bullets ricochets off the car. “No matter your magical anchor, going out there is suicide.”
“Perhaps that will convince you it works.”
I peek up to check if she’s joking, but Sofia pulls herself up and reaches for the door. Without having thought this through, I climb over Mason, who’s been sitting between us.
“Cami!” He grabs my elbow to pull me back, but I slip out of his grip at the same time as the door clicks open.
Sofia steps out of the car with all the bravado she possesses, graceful and glamorous, like we’ve arrived at the red carpet. Bullets sizzle around her, but she doesn’t flinch.
I’m not about to let her winning streak end tonight. Concentrated on the air about to tear out of my lungs, I scream, dispersing it slowly, thickening it like a noise-canceling charm. Then I whip it out with my hands and hold it—an invisible barrier between us and the hunters. As soon as the next wave of bullets hits it, I make the air pulse. The bullets bounce off it.
The hunters duck behind their barricade as their own weapons shoot back at them.
Sofia laughs behind me. “Look at you go. That sounded awesome.”
Apparently, a pack of wolves in the forest agrees with her. One by one, distant howls pierce the night. Even though the moon isn’t full, every pack must have wolfed out since Seff summoned them with a howl. They sound ready for a fight.
>
“Let’s go!” I shout at Mason and Ren. “We’re not getting into Elmwick through here, but we can join the wolves.”
The sound of reloading guns draws my attention back to the barricade. I scream just in time to repeat the maneuver and give the hunters a second taste of their own medicine.
Mason grabs our bags while Ren guides Sofia into the forest. I repeat the scream and hold the sound wave as a shield behind us for as long as I can while Mason drags me away by the hand.
We dash into the dark forest as fast as possible, given the uneven terrain. All the while, I pull on the link between me and Seff, frantically whispering, “Where are you?”
Chapter 30. Mason
We don’t even slow until we hear a wolf howl so close to us that we should be able to spot it, even in the gloomy morning. Ren pulls out a gun. I doubt he’s just Sofia’s driver, judging by the way he seems more than ready to fight for her.
But Cami places a hand on his gun and pushes it down slowly. “Don’t. Our people are out here.”
The guy growls deep in his throat, but Sofia says, “Easy, Ren.” That gets him to relax his grip around the gun.
Cami presses her finger to her lips but doesn’t make a shushing sound. She’s listening for every twig snapping around us and every breath of the predator circling us. “Seff?” her voice rings clear.
Out of the darkness springs a giant white wolf. Sharp canines bared, it lands in front of her. Seff’s electric-blue eyes meet Cami’s gaze.
“Hey, hey...” she soothes. “It’s all right. I’m here now.”
But whatever hold she has over him through the link doesn’t seem to be enough. The wolf is tense, spit drooling from the maw that promises a quick, poisonous death to anyone who approaches him.
Through the thick branches of the trees, I can barely see the night sky above us—clear in the early summer air. The gibbous moon shines bright—a small relief. Since it’s not full, we shouldn’t be expecting other wolves in animal form tonight.
I wonder if the wolf temper gets worse the closer we get to the full moon. What else could explain the white wolf’s defensive stance and low growl? I suck in a sharp breath when Cami reaches a hand, her fingers hovering an inch from the wolf’s wet nose, which wiggles as he takes in her scent.
“It’s me,” Cami whispers. “I’ve come to help.”
The wolf twitches as if in disbelief, its electric eyes trained on Cami, who touches the bridge of his nose. Slowly, Seff relaxes his stance, and the throaty sound dies off.
Encouraged by his reaction to her, Cami is brave enough to stroke his fluffy head. “It’s all right. I’m here now. Can you take us to the others?”
Seff indulges her touch another second, then leads us through the dense forest.
“Why is he not shifting back?” I ask Cami as we hurry after Seff.
“Perhaps being human is more than he can handle right now.” The answer comes from Sofia, who walks behind us with a hand on Ren’s shoulder.
We continue our trek through the darkness. Thanks to Father’s hunting trips, I’ve spent plenty of weekends in these woods. That experience gives me a solid idea of where we’re headed.
“He’s taking us to the caves,” I tell Cami.
“The caves where Jester’s cold ones attacked you when Bryar went after Jean?”
“Near there.”
Cami purses her lips, considering that information. “Maybe that’s where the others are hiding now.”
It takes us another fifteen minutes to reach the caves. To my surprise, they aren’t dark, gloomy, and abandoned as I’ve always seen them. Fires cast dancing light inside the caves, and the blurred sound of chatter suggests there are a lot more people here than expected.
Seff lets out a low howl to announce our arrival. Out of the opening of the cave comes his twin, Fillan, and their sister, Willa. Fillan manages a sly smile when he sees us, but Willa is wary.
“Were you followed?”
“I don’t think the hunters would abandon the blockade,” I tell her. “Their mission is to keep us out of Elmwick, not to go after us, I’m guessing.”
Willa gestures for us to follow them inside the cave where groups of wolves have gathered around a few small fires. Lacking Seff’s extended powers, they’re all in their human form without the full moon.
Cami studies their faces. “What happened here?”
I know exactly what she means. They all look like refugees that made it out of the war zone.
“Your circle helped us get Seff out of Elmwick, but his attack on Fiona Davis was enough to throw this town into an outright war.”
Cami’s throat bobs as she seems to guess the part Fillan left unsaid. “Where are they? Charity, Vanessa, Awan and Jean?”
“Jester sent word that Charity created an impenetrable bubble around Elmwick Academy to keep the legacies there safe—students, their families, and the rest of the circle.” Fillan watches Cami’s expression fall, then adds quieter, “It won’t be long before the hunters figure out how to break through. Or Charity might run out of herbs. And it gets worse. Her use of another wide charm like that has them convinced that they need to get rid of all protections the charmers have created for the legacies.”
Cami gasps, cupping her face in her hands. “The haze!”
“They’re scouring the forest as we speak, looking for the anchor points. They won’t hesitate to take it all down.”
“And that would make it so much easier for them to turn unsuspecting humans into hunters.” Cami drags her palms up her face until they reach her temples. With her head in her hands, she stares at the ground in denial. “Without the haze to direct people’s attention away from the legacies, they’ll see our supernatural abilities all at once, especially if we’re under attack from the hunters and have to fight back. There will never be peace after that.”
Willa steps closer to her with a dauntless expression. “We’ve sent a few sentinels to keep track of the hunters’ movements in the forest, but with the hunter reinforcements that arrived to Elmwick, we don’t have enough manpower to attack. Maybe if the moon were full, but not in this form.”
“Speaking of form...” Cami turns to Seff, who stares at her with more understanding than one would expect from an animal. “I really need to talk to you, Seff. I know keeping the darkness out of our minds is hard. It’s blurring everything around me too.”
The wolf only whimpers in response. Cami lets out a soft sigh and crouches to stroke his big, furry head as if he’s her pet.
“You feel terrible about attacking Fiona, huh?” she whispers, still trying to soothe him with gentle strokes. “I saw the whole thing, did you know that? It’s one of the banshee abilities I use the least—dream sharing—but I guess you needed me to see that. I think it was your soul’s cry for help. You might have behaved out of control, but somewhere deep inside, under the thick blanket of this maddening darkness that plagues us, your soul was asking for help.”
She sits on the ground with her legs folded under her, eyes never wavering from Seff’s. The wolf comes closer, leaving only an inch between them.
“You’re good, Seff. Your heart is good. And if you can’t believe that right now, then I’ll believe it for you.”
I watch Cami in awe. As far as girls go, she’s remarkable. Everyone knows that. But it isn’t her screams, her visions, and her premonitions that make her the most exceptional person I’ve ever met. It’s her heart.
The gears turn inside my head. My chest heaves with a hot, sticky breath, which, for the first time ever, makes me think of actual fire forming in my lungs and bursting out.
“Cami?” I wait for her to look up and over her shoulder at me. “I think you just figured it out.”
She blinks at me, retracing her words. Her lips part—in surprise and awe—but she turns right back to Seff.
“We’re so close, Seff,” Cami says. “One more fight. We have just one chance to protect the circle, each other, and the rest of the legacies
. I need you by my side.” She pauses, shrugging. “Vanessa needs you.”
Seff whimpers again, lowering his head between his front paws.
“I’ve known for a while now.” Cami’s voice is so melodic that I wonder if she’s infusing her powers into it. She chuckles. “Guess our efforts to serve as a distraction for each other weren’t what you’d call successful.” She ruffles the fur on his head as if it were hair on his human head. “What do you say? Shall we go find her, find our friends, and end this?”
Seff’s wet nose grazes her chin, making Cami smile. Then, he takes off into the caves, presumably in search of clothes. A few minutes later, Seff rejoins us in his human form, complete with dark purple circles under his eyes and the same crestfallen expression the wolf had. Despite that, Cami grins at the sight of him and throws herself into his arms for a tight hug. Oddly enough, the sight of them entangled like this doesn’t bother me like it would have a few weeks ago. They aren’t just friends—the circle runs much deeper than that—but this isn’t romantic. That’s enough for me.
“We need to get to the circle now,” I say.
Smug as usual, Sofia lifts her chin. “You’ve come a long way from the lost hidden legacy that washed up on my doorstep. Let’s go now, fire drake. Time to set you free.”
Chapter 31. Cami
Hope stirs inside my chest when Seff squeezes me into a tight hug. I clench my jaw, afraid to trust this new feeling and terrified of the darkness that wants to smother it. So, I tuck the ray of hope away, pull out of Seff’s embrace, and focus on the present.
“How are we getting into Elmwick?” I ask Seff.
“The only way the hunters don’t control.” His nose scrunches in overplayed disgust. “Through the tunnel in Jester’s castle. That’s how I got out.”
“And Jester?” I can’t believe the thought of him escaped my mind for so long. How much had a whimsically chaotic vampire like him escalated the conflict already?
“He’s reinforcing the castle in case the hunters attack his cold ones, but he’s been sneaking in and out of Elmwick Academy to give us updates on what’s happening there. The castle is about an hour’s trip from here, and then we’d be walking into a war zone.” Seff eyes Sofia. “It will be safer for you here with the wolves.”
Heritage: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Elmwick Academy Book 3) Page 21
