I take a moment to get a hold of myself, to breathe through everything that’s hammering at me. I’m making the correct choice...right?
My reflection stares back at me, answerless as I splash water on my face. I sift through my golden brown gaze and dive into my gut and sit with it for a moment. What is it telling me? After several beats of introspection, I focus back on my face and nod.
“I can do this,” I tell the girl in the mirror, and with that shitty pep talk, I step out of the bathroom.
I look for Warren in the hall, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I hesitate for a second, not sure exactly which way we came from to end up here. I step left out of the bathroom and then change my mind and backtrack going right. I jump when a head suddenly pops out around the corner. Brown eyes seem to fill with relief when they spot me, and the woman hurries toward me, her steps oddly loud against the floor.
I watch as she takes a moment to look around as though she’s checking for other people before she settles a now very intense gaze on me.
“You shouldn’t trust him,” she whispers out of nowhere in warning.
My brow furrows in surprised disbelief, not sure how to respond to that. “Trust who?” I finally ask, not sure who exactly she’s referring to.
“The renounced one,” she clarifies, studying my reaction as though she’s expecting me to be surprised by this news. I don’t miss the shiver that seems to crawl up her spine as she delivers what she thinks is shocking information.
“You don’t know his heart, Osteomancer, you should get far away from him, right now! He’s dangerous,” she adds, her tone suddenly scared as she once again checks that no one else is making their way to us down the hallway. “If you follow me, I can get you away, but you’d have to come now,” she commands, moving past me hurriedly as though there isn’t even time for me to consider or debate what she’s saying.
At first I hurry after her, mostly because that’s what you do when someone tells you to follow and then starts practically running away. But then it dawns on me that this could be a really bad idea. I don’t know who this person is. Taking her word at face value suddenly doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t know exactly who is kidnapping witches, but someone is. And I’m not about to get myself snatched because I was too polite to say hold the fuck up and answer some questions for me before we go any further.
I stop and the woman looks back at me confused. “Who are you?” I demand firmly, studying her face so I can commit it to memory. Her eyes are the same dark brown as her straight, shoulder-length hair. There is a smattering of freckles dusting her nose and cheeks, and she has a small scar just above her top lip.
“I’m a friend,” she offers vaguely, turning back and continuing her path down the hallway.
Yep. This is a hard pass all around.
I turn and start to run in the other direction. I force my legs to move faster as I try to listen for the telltale sound of pursuing footsteps behind me, but all I can hear is the heavy beat of my own pulse as adrenaline stomps through me like it’s a Clydesdale.
I’m out of the hallway and rounding a corner in no time. I slam full speed right into a large hard body, yelping with alarm as strong arms grab me and keep me from tumbling sideways. Fear and my survival instincts kick in hard, but relief washes through me like a cool balm when I look up to find that it’s Rogan that I’ve just bodychecked.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, taking me in before pulling me into him protectively and searching around us for whatever set off the panic I know is written all over my face. “What happened, Lennox?” he demands as I look to see if the woman came running after me, but there’s no one there.
“Some woman tried to get me to go with her,” I explain, realizing how lame and ridiculous I sound. “I didn’t recognize her, she said you couldn’t be trusted and that if I went with her, she could get me out of the house. I started to follow her and then realized that was a stupid idea, so I ran until I...” I gesture between us, signaling the collision that just happened, panting to collect my breath from the impromptu sprint I just did.
Rogan’s eyes continue to search around us as he pulls me tighter against him. “Okay, let’s go,” he orders, and then we’re both jogging through hallways to who knows where.
“Do you think we’re in danger here?” I ask as we hurry back in the direction of the council room. Or at least I assume that’s where we’re going. I’m seriously turned around in this place.
“I don’t know, but I think all of this is too risky,” he declares adamantly, his focus trained on getting us far away from the potential threat as quickly as possible. “This just cements that even more,” he tells me cryptically.
“What do you mean?” I press as I follow him through a door that has us suddenly spilling outside into the gardens. Rogan keeps going, but I stop, completely confused. “Rogan, what are you doing?” I demand, bewildered by why we would be in the garden and not holding up in the house where it would be safer.
“Lennox, we need to go,” he barks at me, closing the distance between us like he’s prepared to carry me away if he needs to.
“You’re not making any sense,” I snap at him. “We need to sever the tether. We can only do that in there,” I point out, gesturing back toward the house.
“No, we need to use it,” Rogan states matter-of-factly, his eyes hard and filled with determination that all at once makes me feel uneasy. “My aunt was right; things happen the way they are supposed to. This bond could be the thing that saves Elon,” he declares, and my stomach sinks as panic floods me.
Rogan must see in my eyes the moment I decide to run. I don’t take more than a step away from him before he’s pulling me against him and locking himself around me. My magic flares angrily, but before I can do anything, Rogan marks me with blood and calls out, “Seno.”
Betrayal shatters through me, the treacherous shards ripping me open from the inside out. I fight the blackness that tries to take root in my mind, refusing to let it take over. I pull on my magic as hard as I can, desperately trying to stave off unconsciousness by wrapping power protectively around me. And that’s when I see the tether, the bastard connection that started all of this shit in the first place.
I know I’m not supposed to mess with it, but if it’s the difference between me passing out or fighting, I’m going to fucking fight. I pull the tether closer, suddenly siphoning Rogan’s blood magic into me. Immediately the blackout spell fizzles into nothing, and I pull on both magical reserves, ready to fuck Rogan up.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad and hurt in my life. Not even after reading my dad’s note, and I thought nothing would scar me the way that did. Sorrow moves through me, tainting things that I thought were good and happy. I feel so completely stupid that I let Rogan in, that I even tried to trust him, and now here he is, once again deciding what’s best with not a care or concern about how I feel, or a thought to ask me.
Well, I just hit my limit with Rogan fucking Kendrick. I throw my elbow back hard, nailing him in the side of the face. I shove magic into him, trying to overload him enough that he’s forced to loosen his hold on me. I snarl and growl as I push and kick to get away, and just as I feel Rogan’s arms loosen, a familiar face steps into view in front of me.