Great Falls Cadet by Alex Lidell

Author:Alex Lidell [Lidell, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Danger Bearing Press
Published: 2020-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

14

Lera

Coal and I don’t speak as we make our way back to the Academy, the earlier storm having calmed to a chill wet evening wind. Coal walks a step behind me, as if afraid I might fall or bolt or else melt to the ground in a pile of injured regret. The male’s misplaced guilt over what we did grows more palpable with each step closer to the school’s high stone wall, just as the wet, slippery earth confirms what I already knew about the state of Sprite’s and my tracks.

My cold, numb body is a match to my equally numb mind. The litany of hard facts marches through my thoughts, interspersed with the memory of Coal’s scream when he touched his ear, making me flinch each time. I can’t stay at the Academy, where I am creating more problems than I’m solving—wreaking havoc with the males instead of helping them, threatening their disguises, confusing their senses. My tracks have washed away, and even if they hadn’t—even if I could find my way back to that clearing in the woods and that shattered tablet—the clay was already well on its way to disintegrating even before the rain. The veil’s hold is overwhelmingly complete.

I kick a stone, watching it plop along the mud. Not even a satisfying thud at the end.

We came here to discover the nature of magic leaking into the mortal world and instead became victims of it. Centuries of vital information and reports are now locked deep in River’s mind, which means I’m no closer to saving the mortal realm here than I would be anywhere else. Without River’s direction and knowledge, I’ve no notion of how to even start looking for the rip, and I certainly can’t do it while working against my males.

Autumn may be able to guide me through seeking out the rip—she may even have a way of reversing the veil—but that comes down to crossing Mystwood.

Without River’s passage key, which he announced stolen from him only yesterday, doing so would be suicidal. Maybe I’ll go find the Sentinel Guild, see if they’ve a key squirreled away somewhere, or else brave Mystwood without it. With the magic acting the way it shouldn’t, maybe I’ll survive the passage—and at least dying in Mystwood forest would be swift, whereas watching my males not know me—not need me—hurts all the time.

So Guild or Autumn? Roam the mortal realm in relative safety to reach a possibly useless destination, or risk Mystwood to get to a more likely solution? I click my tongue, the proverbial dice spinning inside my mind to land with my friend’s face up. Autumn it is. The four males at the Academy, whether they know who they are or not, don’t need me to hold up the walls against whatever rodents come their way. They need me to help them regain themselves. And at present, I’m only making things worse.

It seems Gavriel had one thing right—the prophecy mentions no companions for the human turned fae, and here I am with none.

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