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Pulled from a dream, I wake up, and my heavy eyelids hardly open. Nonetheless, I make out some of my friends and head of dorm, all wearing concerned expressions, filling the room. Memories trickle back.
Even Bree flits overhead as though flustered and tinkles, “We could try cold water or ice under the sheets.”
“Why won’t she wake? Was it a sleeping spell?”
“I thought she stopped breathing for a second.”
“Asleep for nineteen hours,” another voice says.
“I wonder what she was saying.”
Someone else whispers, “I think she’s awake now, look.”
I rub my eyes and push onto my elbows. “What are you all doing here?” My voice is rusty.
“You weren’t at breakfast, lunch, or dinner yesterday. Dewey said you missed classes. At daybreak, we were going to form a search party, but then we found you tucked snuggly into your bed,” Yassi says.
The window reflects the night sky. I sit up and several of my friends say that they’re relieved, but have to get back to their homework.
Yassi sits down by my feet. “You slept for nineteen hours and had what sounded like an ongoing conversation with someone for the last thirty minutes.”
Winnie takes the chair at my desk. Audra, Reese, and Bree sit on her bed.
Miss Mayweather says, “We’re glad you’re okay. I’ll go get you something to eat. West informed me about your trial.” She sweeps from the room, leaving my friends asking questions all at once.
“But what I want to know is why I saw JJ Thorne leaving the dorm at dawn.” Yassi’s eyebrow pitches toward disapproval. “Miss Mayweather said trial, but were you sneaking around with JJ?”
After the battle with the demon snatchers, he guided me up the stairs as I willed myself to stay awake. Winnie shifts in the chair. I recall him tucking me in and then sitting there until I drifted off.
I tell them everything that happened, answering their many questions until Miss Mayweather brings me soup, bread, and a plate of cookies. Greedy fingers reach for them, but the head of my dorm says, “Ah, ah, ah. Those are for Maija. Let her eat and you girls come down to the common room. I made a double batch.”
Everyone except Yassi leaves. I share my cookies with her. “I was joking about that thing with JJ. Sort of.” She winks as if she knows the hatred between us morphed into something else. “I’m so glad you’re safe, but through that horrible experience it sounds like you accessed your wish witchery.”
I try to grasp the threads of what I did to perform such powerful magic, but I collapse back on the pillow, exhausted all over again.
“It’s common for magicals new to their talent to be depleted afterward.”
“That on top of being hunted by a demon snatcher.” I shiver at the memory.
“Yeah, you weren’t yourself the last few days. Was it Honey?” she asks.
I nod. “And several others.”
“Was she extinguished?”
“If that’s a fancy way of saying killed...” I frown. “Well, actually, since she’s already dead, I don’t know. Yeah, I think she and the others are gone. When I made my wish, they were forced too far away to know for sure, but I believe so. But I think the Coven extinguished them, as you said.” I describe the blue sparks of light. “JJ’s magic was blue too.”
“Only the most powerful spells cast by powerful witches and wizards have pigmented magic.”
“Mine was the color of fire. I didn’t even use my wand,” I say, still stunned.
“You made a wish in a life-threatening circumstance. You summoned more power than you probably would have if making an ordinary wish.”
I exhale the air I’ve been holding. “I don’t think any wishes are ordinary.”
Yassi laughs. “No, I suppose not.”
“Unless you’re throwing a coin in a fountain or making a wish on birthday candles.”
Yassi raises an eyebrow, having seen my memory of the birthday wish about falling in love. “You sure about that?”
She leaves the question in the air long enough for JJ’s image of ferocity as he protected me blazes into my mind.
And the kisses.
And his hand in mine.
I keep these to myself, now adept at blocking Yassi from my mind.
She says, “He didn’t leave your side until the sun came up.
“You were talking in your sleep a ton. Gibberish mostly. I didn’t know you could speak Gibberish.”
“I didn’t know I could speak Gibberish,” I counter.
“It’s the oldest language in the magical world. Our school song is in Gibberish.”
“I thought that was Latin.”
She laughs. “We’re supposed to learn it so it doesn’t die out. I only know a few basic words: please taluk. You’re welcome talsmeed. Yeah, that’s about it.”
“Are you teasing? Because if you are, spare me. I’ve had a long few days and nights.”
“I’m not joking. I think West is fluent in Gibberish, ask him about it. So what was your dream about?”
I try to get it back, but only glimpse a guy around my age who looks remarkably like JJ but with different eyes and his lips are thinner. Unbelievably, he’s more serious than the moody and mysterious guy who prefers top hats as he leads me through the orchard on a sunny day before pushing me over the edge of the world and plunging me into the night sky. “Dreams are strange. It wasn’t JJ. It must’ve been his brother,” I whisper.
“Remember, dreams and visions can be meaningless, wrong, or misguided. You have homework to do.” She points to a pile twice as big as before on my desk. “And I should finish an essay for alchemy.”
“Thank you, Yassi,” I say as she exits.
“Of course,” she says with a smile.
I roll over, not at all interested in the mountain of homework waiting for me. My thoughts filter through the close call on the lawn outside Nightingale. It’s hard to believe I missed the entire day. I want to talk to JJ, but it’s past curfew. Do I dare sneak out? Probably not in this state.
I wonder about my dream, JJ’s brother, and the strange sensation of falling into the sky.
More importantly, there’s still the issue of the Marauders and the very big concern that there were so many demon snatchers on campus. It must mean they’re multiplying. If there are magical enchantments to keep us in, presumably it also keeps others out. Then how were the demons here?
If it’s true that Imogen Hawkes used the essence of young magicals to maintain her youthfulness, which the Hive then plans to use after they’ve been turned into ghosts to create an undead army, I have to stop her. It’s a prophecy for goodness sakes. But what can I do?
Now that I know I’m actually capable of using my magic in this powerful way, I’m more desperate than ever to do something.
My hand lands on Imogen’s journal at my bedside. I wonder if JJ was reading it last night. My heart aches for the suffering he’s endured—his mother cursed him, his father disappeared or died or both, and he’s stuck in between and in the in-between. My heart also aches because I wouldn’t mind kissing him again. Hey, he’s likely also had a long time to practice his smooching skills. I’m not complaining.
I read a couple of passages in the journal, but don’t find anything else that might be helpful related to how she used her last wish for immortality.
I sigh, about to close it when I spot what looks like the edge of a compass rose poking out from the pocket in the back. I’d forgotten about seeing it when I’d dropped the diary in the infirmary.
I unfold the paper, recalling JJ’s parents are both immortalized on campus in a way, making them present for JJ and of course, very, very absent. It must be strange knowing they were here, young, and in love once. I recall Dewey mentioning Trehan Thorne was a pirate. I smooth the crisp, old sheet of paper. Sure enough, it’s a map.
I bolt upright, never so desperate for dawn to come.
