Page 199 of Keldori By Daybreak

The air was thick with salt and Skal. I had never noticed it before, how heavy our atmosphere was and the way it buzzed it against my skin as it brimmed with magick. It collected in my cells with every breath I drew in, just a little bit at a time, but enough for me to feel it burn in my stomach.

If I held the magick in, my ulcers would eventually return, but if I let the magick out, I wasn’t sure the volcanoes surrounding Gams could take it.

“Does your father live in one of these buildings?” Ciarán murmured, taking in a particularly lavish oceanside mansion with stone columns and sweeping windows.

“Not with a researcher’s salary, he doesn’t. But he works there.” I pointed another mile or two ahead of us. A white observatory sat on a bit of cliff that jutted out over the sand. The massive lens of a telescope protruded from the domed roof. “It’s a research facility operated by a nearby university. It’s where his main office is.”

“And you’ve spent a lot of time looking at it on maps?”

Embarrassed heat rose in my face. “Why would you think that?”

“You’ve looked at it enough to recognize the shape of its coast on Lyria’s doorway. But I remember your father, Wren. He wasn’t exactly kind to you. Why do you think he’ll help us?”

“Because he won’t have a choice.” I took Ciarán by the hand and hastened us down the beach. “Besides, after eighteen years of pretending I don’t exist, he owes me.”

Between two more modest beach homes, a sandy path led to a set of concrete steps that climbed the bluff to the campus. When we stepped aside to let a couple of surfers pass, one gave us and our dirty clothes a double-take, but he followed his friend to the beach without saying anything.

I held my breath as we climbed the stairs. I’d imagined visiting my father’s research center so many times, but had long since accepted that I would probably never get to because of Mom’s animosity for her ex. Meeting my father for myself had only solidified that.

Yet here I was, walking onto the empty campus with my Grimguard in tow. We wandered over well-maintained footpaths that wove between wooden buildings that had probably been built decades ago. Fresh paint helped hide just how outdated the labs were, but funding was usually tight for research.

It was still a nice campus, all things considered. The long shadows of palm trees offered intermittent splashes of shade, and bright flowers of varying shapes lined the walkway.

I read each sign posted outside the buildings with feverish anticipation. There was a building dedicated just to sea lion studies, and another to ocean cartography. Ecology, biology, astronomy, and then—

The Brenton Building.

Dedicated to the study of continental drift, it was even named after my father.

It was smaller than the others, but had the best view of the ocean, second only to the observatory. I stepped up the wooden steps and jiggled the doorknob.

“Locked.” I swore under my breath, but Ciarán took my place and grabbed the doorknob for himself.

Orange light filtered between his knuckles, then faded. He twisted the handle, and the door swung outward at his bidding. He slipped a metal key, freshly forged from Skal, out of the keyhole.

The hall smelled like salt and dust, but in a cozy way that reminded me of warm summers and worn-out sandals. The lopsided floor creaked underfoot, and I walked slow and careful—a habit borne out of being in Skalterra too long and fearing that monsters could be hiding anywhere.

The door at the end of the hall had a mottled window that blurred the office beyond it, but a bronze plaque hung on the wall.

Maxwell Brenton, PhD.

“You’re okay,” Ciarán murmured.

I hadn’t realized I’d stopped walking.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” My voice was too casual. Even without the aid of our tether, Ciarán knew it was a front.

“I’ll get the door.”

He unlocked the office with the same trick he’d used on the front door, then stood to the side to let me enter my father’s office first.

A dusty window looked over the ocean swells, and a cluttered desk boasted sticky notes laden with illegible scribbles. The computer was at least new, and I wiggled the mouse to wake up the screen.

The date and time winked at me from the corner of the screensaver, and my heart plummeted.

“Dammit!” I fell back in the desk chair, pulling at my hair.

“What is it?”