Page 49 of Echoes of the Banshee

The day passes, and my neck starts to ache from sitting hunched over, I need to pee and have taken to chewing gum to avoid leaving the nook in search of food. I push it all away, telling myself I can deal with it when I make some progress.

My notebook grows cluttered with everything relevant from Temporal Shards, its pages filled with lines about time fractures and the consequences of tampering with fate. I make meticulous notes of every instance where time has bent or cracked, but nothing I read seems to align with what I’ve been through. My resurrection. There’s nothing here to explain how I ended up in the past.

“How long have you been here?” Zair’s voice makes me jump.

I mark my place with my finger before looking up. “Not sure… Since around seven. What time is it?”

“Seven this morning?” His eyes widen. “You’ve been here for twelve hours? Have you eaten anything?”

“No, but I still have a few books to get through.” He glances over my pile. “Don’t ask,” I tell him before he can question why I have A Study of Celtic Spirits, Rituals of Restoration, and The Art of Soul Binding piled on the table.

“Just some light reading?” he teases. “Come on, I’ll take you out for dinner.”

“Was that an offer or a statement?”

“Both.” He gives me a disarming smile that meets his eyes. Dammit. I’m done for.

“Fine, but I’m not cheap!” I grab my notebook, look at the pile of books, and decide to leave them for tomorrow.

“Want to walk to the Mass Ave Diner or drive somewhere?” he asks.

“Diner’s fine.” I reach for my bookbag, but he beats me to it. My hand doesn’t stop in time and I brush my fingers over his.

“Sorry!” I tell him, jerking my hand back.

“For what?” he asks, then slings the bookbag over his shoulder. He starts walking, either not waiting for an answer, or not wanting one. Once we’re outside Otherfell, we head down the hill.

“So, Thea, tell me something no one knows about you,” he says, breaking the comfortable silence of our walk.

“Could’ve started with my favorite color, but okay,” I joke. I’ve told Lazlo everything about me, so it’d have to be something recent. I came back from the dead? A bit much for a game like this.

“It’s that green-blue color,” Zair says.

I turn to him. “How do you know that?”

“You have a water bottle, a binder and a shirt in that color,” he says, like it’s obvious. And when he spells it out like that, it kind of is.

“Guess that earns you a hard question,” I concede. “Something no one knows… I hate things on my wrists.”

“Really?” He glances over, brow lifting. “Then why do you wear that bracelet?”

I tilt my head, letting a slow smile rise. “Who said I’m wearing a bracelet?”

That gives him pause. He studies me more closely this time, something flickering in his eyes. Confusion, maybe curiosity.

“Then what is it?” he asks.

“Sorry, you already used your follow-up question,” I say, saccharine sweet. “What’s your big dark secret?” I ask, not expecting anything good.

“Damn, I forgot how these games work,” he laughs, then hesitates. “I don’t want to follow in my family’s footsteps.”

“And what footsteps are those?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

“Tradition,” he says simply. And I fall for it.

“What tradition?”

“Sorry, you already used your follow-up,” he counters smoothly, that warm grin making it hard to be annoyed.