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“Our wise and hallowed goddess would prefer you stop removing her from your wrist,” a deep voice hissed in my ear. “This is so you don’t need to be told a third time.”
Something shoved roughly over my hand, bending back a finger. I was flung away to crash onto the bed.
Whipping around, I shouted, “Hmphf! Hhmphf!”
I tried and pulled at my lips, but they wouldn’t budge. Rapid footfalls beat it for the door, leaving me in silence of another kind.
“Calm yourself, girl. The effect on your mouth will wear off. More’s the pity. But the effect on the bracelet will always remain.
“I will never leave. I will never stop. I will never release your mother,” she barked, “until you release me. Get to work.”
I STOPPED GOING TOclasses.
It was the only thing that made sense. The answer to how to dissolve a witch’s barrier wasn’t in self-mastery or hidden in Hondros’s humorless lectures. The answer was written somewhere in the library section dedicated to children of Hecate. All fifty shelves.
The only thing waiting for me in my lessons was Alex’s beseeching looks and desperate attempts to talk to me. I survived one hour of it, and ran out crying halfway through a lecture on how to kill a hydra.
I already knew how. Break the damn creature’s heart, and she’ll find a corner to curl up and die all on her own.
I threwBarriers and Wards: A Historyacross the alcove, stifling a scream. Three days. Three days I’d been at it, burying my head in books, and they all dared to say the same thing. Only the witch who erected the barrier can give you the means to either bring it down, or pass through it unharmed.
That’s what made them so damn effective. No point in locking a gate if everyone has a key.
Rubbing my eyes, I swallowed through sandpaper. When was the last time I had something to drink? To eat?
No time.I shook myself, reaching for another book.Mom only has four days left.
Daciana stuck her head in. “Aella?”
I grunted something in her direction.
“Aella, are you ready? It’s almost time for class.”
“I’m not going.”
Silence.
“Is this...?” She hesitated, stepping inside. “Did something happen between you and you know who? You don’t smell like him anymore.”
I strangled the book spine. “It’s none of your business, Daciana. No offense, but could you take yourself and your super nose out of here? I’m busy.”
My voice sounded harsh to my own ears, but it was for the best. It wasn’t just Alex that I was living in a fantasy world with. I got so caught up in having friends again, I ignored the fact that none of this would last past me rescuing Mom and getting us back home.
Tycho, Theron, Nitsa, and Ionna weren’t allowed to leave Olympia, and Daciana had her own business to take care of when she left this place—like becoming leader of all the packs in North America.
All the time I wasted with them—studying for tests that didn’t matter, laughing while we wrote scrolls I had no use for, looking forward to a future side by side in an army that would never have me.
All of it was pointless. Meaningless. Sisyphean.
It wasn’t like we were even real friends. How could we be when I was lying to them about almost everything? Sure, Daciana knew I was half mortal, but she didn’t know I was here to spring an ancient, deadly being out of the trap lurking beneath all of our shoes. None of them did, and what were the odds that these duty-bound future soldiers, and a werewolf who believes in duty to the pack above duty to yourself, wouldn’t kick me over to the council the minute they found out?
Zero. In the end, no one risks everything for the crazy, desperate loser.
Kylie and Dina were becoming cool and popular. They weren’t about to let their insane best friend who wouldn’t shut up about impossible monsters bring them down. Half the novice class was wearing Daciana’s clothes, and the nasty comments about her were drying up.
Theron discovered girls outside the palace were mightily impressed by him being the son of a councilwoman, no matter that he wasn’t an heir. He was drowning under the attention.
Tycho was training with Calix almost every night. Ionna met other asexual children of Athena and sat with them during lunch. Nitsa was on the hunt for a hookup she didn’t have to share with literally everyone, so we didn’t see her most evenings.
