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Training was a great excuse to forget the graveness of our situation while motivating us to be totally prepared for whatever we were about to face.
We spent a good amount of time on the couch reading the spellbook and diary, strengthening knowledge before our bodies. Every so often, we would share interesting tidbits, such as a spell that could make someone fall asleep—mortals only—and that there was a quite useless vampire ability to be able to grow their hair a few inches.
“I didn’t think dumb ones like that could exist,” Tess remarked, moving her fingers in elegant circles to make a short log from the fireplace float. It seemed like an innocent enough spell, but it was the one Gideon used to throw knives through the air and almost injure her and Emalyn. This was making sure she was evenly matched with older, wiser opponents. I could only hope she wouldn’t take revenge on Ciel’s witch if they ever faced off. “Coven leaders and their partners of their pureblood offspring are always ones with notably powerful abilities. Cirillo’s was freezing bodies, Ciel’s is hallucinations, Agana’s is frost—”
Oh, so that’s what the smoke stuff was coming off her fingers. Living in warm climates never exposed me to cold-related things.
“—Aeros’s is something to do with light, I believe. According to what I’ve been told, he doesn’t flaunt his power, contrary to his personality. Lastly, Tanith Taran’s is manipulating plants. She never uses it, either.”
“Do you think Aspen has one?” I asked as I brushed up on each of the coven leader’s abilities’ descriptions in the diary.
“I don’t believe so.” Tess made the log drift back to the pile in the fireplace. “He would have told or shown us. It’s rare for half-bloods to have gifts.” She smirked at me. “Rarity Bastian.”
Matching her grin, I teased, “Heiress Tessia.”
She knocked my knee with hers. “Not officially.”
“Yet,” told her with a pointed look. “You’ll get to Dawnhaven one day and be able to make a difference for the better. I know it.”
Tess’s brows knitted, her confidence waning. “You think so?”
“I know so.” My smile wanted to fade, too, but I kept it up. “Even if it means having to distance myself. The future of Dawnhaven and the hope and protection it gives are way more important than a half-blood with an evil dad.”
“You’re more than that, Bas.” Her voice cracked into a whisper.
I shrugged. “I mean, it’s a fact. I’m sure I have a destiny, too.”
Tess leaned forward, her blue eyes intense. “I know so.”
I felt the onset of another silence, but Night’s loud meow interrupted it. She jumped up to sit on my lap—right on top of the diary.
“Hey!” I protested, trying to pull it out from under her. She curled into a ball, pressing her weight down. I sighed. “I’m guessing that’s a sign to start physical training.”
Tess set the spellbook aside and stretched her arms up. “I could do with a little stretching—and kicking your butt.”
Night hopped off my lap so I could jog after Tess as she ran outside. “Not gonna happen!” I called after her.
She scooped up a small twig, transfigured it into her favorite double-headed axe, and hefted it in both hands, taking a defensive position. I did the same. We squared off, grinning, and then launched into a mock battle. It was fun at first, with halfhearted swings and blocks, but then competitiveness crept in, and soon, we weren’t holding back. Well, I was, but only a little.
By the time Tess yielded, we had sustained a few cuts and bruises. But we didn’t take offense and only came out stronger.
After we had healed ourselves up, Tess decided it was time to teach me the spells she had picked up from the spellbook. Night came out to watch, her tail curled around her paws, and her pupils wide with interest.
“This one floats things.” She spoke the one-word spell, then made me repeat it. Speaking it again, Tess moved her fingers—some spells required hand movements while most didn’t—to levitate a stick. Then, without warning, she said another spell that sent it hurtling toward my head.
I ducked as the stick impaled itself into a tree behind me. I gaped at it, awed, but when I turned back to compliment her, I found six more sharp-ended sticks two inches away from my face. “Um. I kind of like not having wood go through my body.”
“Are you just going to stand there and gape like an idiot?” she challenged.
Accepting the challenge, I used my vampire speed to dip out of the way.
“Try ‘deflet,’” she ordered over the whistling arrows as they followed me through the maze of trees, “as you throw out your arm like you’re going to swat them away.”
I skidded to a halt and did as she asked. The six arrows hit an invisible wall and bounced off it, scattering. I let out a laugh as the power from my fingertips faded. “Wow!”
Tess jogged over, beaming with excitement. “Almost all of the spells are offensive for fast-paced attacks.”
“Why don’t any of the witches of Kairos know these? They could have come in handy all these years.”
Tess’s shrug dampened the mood. “Plenty of them could know. They just didn’t teach us.”
“Why?” The fact that none of us were taught advanced spells didn’t sit well with my trust in the adults who raised me.
“I’m sure they have legitimate reasons,” Tess said, but I didn’t fail to notice the hint of bitterness in her tone. She believed the best in the same adults and knew they did have the best intentions, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting. “That’s a problem for later. We can teach ourselves. Before I tell you the next one, we have to work on your teleporting.”
I groaned and slouched. “If you can figure out the mental block that stops me from doing it even a little bit well, I’m all ears.”
Tess picked up a broken stock piece and transfigured it into a small knife, which she used to cut off a scrap of her shirt. She handed the fabric to me. “There is my token. Run away until you can’t hear or see me, then use this to come right back. You know how the spell works. It’s easy.”
“But—”
“Your mental block,” she interrupted pointedly, fixing me with fierce blue eyes, “is that you don’t have enough incentive. Usually whenever anyone transports, it’s to get out of immediate danger. You haven’t seen or experienced casual traveling.” Tess took my hand and put the shirt scrap on my palm, curling my fingers around it. “Accept the fact that we don’t need to be in a rush for the ability to work. Go, and then return to me. Okay?”
Her fingers lingered, and then Tess dropped her arms to her side. I cataloged her features as if I hadn’t already memorized them years ago. Then I nodded—and took off. I ran and ran and ran, zipping around trees and jumping over fallen logs. It was late morning; sunlight filtered through the canopy, slats of it panting the forest floor in pretty yellows.
Tomorrow was the eclipse.
When I was sure my vampire hearing couldn’t detect any of Tess’s vitals, I clenched her shirt in my fist and closed my eyes to envision her, as if I was about to jump into her memories. But that wasn’t the task. I needed to travel to her location.
I felt the imbricatis on my wrist start to tingle as I focused. When it started to feel like a dagger tip digging into my skin, I knew something was about to happen. Tess! I shouted in the depths of my mind. Go to Tessia Akeso!
The wind whooshed, and I stumbled. My eyes flew open.
Tess was standing in front of me, looking pleased and very smug. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Ha! I did it! I—Please don’t tell Koen.”
“Tell him what? That I’m a better teacher than him?” she mused innocently.
“Yeah, that.”
“I won’t as long as you do that successfully three more times.”
Eager to prove myself to her as well as for my own sake, I obeyed—and succeeded all three times without fault.
“Good student,” Tess praised. “Now. I’m going to try another spell. All you need to do is run away again.”
“Um. Okay. Are you going to transport to me this time? I can give you—”
She shook her head when I tried to hand her a ripped piece of my shirt. “No. I’m going to do it without a token.”
“What? But—”
Tess’s voice turned grave. “This isn’t in the spellbook. I’m making it up.”
“That’s possible?”
“We’ll see.”
“But how—”
“Run, Bastian.”
Her glare was enough incentive. I bolted away, knowing she would rip my head off if I kept trying to ask questions.
Sixty counts in, I slowed to a stop in a clearing. I startled a few four-legged brown creatures, one with a giant rack of stick-looking horns on its head, and they leapt into the trees.
It was midday now. Sunlight glared down into the grassy space, but it was nowhere near as hot as the desert heat. How was that possible? There was certainly some explanation, but there was no way I would know anything about—
“Augh!”
I whipped around just as Tess appeared out of thin air a few feet away and tripped face-first into the grass. The scent of blood hit my nose before I even joined her side.
She accepted my offered hand to pull her to her feet. Her pantleg had ripped at the knee, blood welling from a cut from the rock she landed on. But she didn’t seem to notice.
“Ha! I did it!” she exclaimed, giving me an excited shove. “I traveled without a token! This is revolutionary!”
I didn’t mention that it had probably been done before. It would have stolen her sense of accomplishment. “Congratulations.”
Kneeling down to heal her wound, Tess explained how she did it. I was beyond impressed with her—and then myself after I quickly learned the skill, too.
“You know what this means, right?” she asked casually on our walk back to the cabin. Our energy reserves to cast spells were depleted; we decided walking instead of transporting would bring them back up.
“No, what?”
Tess fixed me with a glare. “Seriously?”
“What?”
She stepped in front of me to block my path, setting her hands on her hips impetuously. “Bastian. What have we been after this whole time?”
“Uh...”
“Galen’s spellbook? Remember that?”
My eyes widened when it clicked. “Oh! We can find it now! What are we waiting for?”
Forgetting that we decided to walk, I grabbed Tess’s hand and transported us back to the cabin. Our appearance in the middle of it sent Night leaping into the air with a yowl. She ran under the couch, spitting mad again.
“Sorry,” I told the cat hastily as I raided the provisions basket. I knocked back two vials of blood. “Eat something. We need our strength.”
Tess laughed under her breath but, indeed, ate her fill.
Minutes later, we were ready to teleport to Galen’s book. The spell Tess made up didn’t require visualizing anything or even knowing a location. All we needed was pure willpower.
With the mysteriously-appeared books hidden and Night well-fed on leftovers, Tess and I joined hands. We were both so focused that we didn’t have time to overthink it.
Tess inhaled deeply. “Let’s do this.”
“Let’s do this,” I agreed. “No planning.”
“No planning,” she repeated in a reinforced whisper.
I felt the ground tilt beneath our feet. I closed my eyes to sense the solid forest floor. It began to sway, growing soft, and then—
I opened my eyes. The ground had turned to sand. The endless trees became an endless desert.
“More desert,” I growled. “Tess—”
She had already released my hand to run drunkenly toward a patch of cacti. “It’s buried somewhere, likely with a token. Dig, Bas, dig.”
“How do you know?” I asked, ungracefully crossing the shifting sands.
Just before I dropped to my knees to claw at the grains, a shadow loomed behind me. A second one was behind Tess. I opened my mouth to warn her, but the shadows grabbed our collars—
The desert scene became a dark, small room with a desk on which sat a single candle. Its flickering dance illuminated an unfortunately familiar face.
“Excellent work on the tripwire spell,” Piroska purred, interlocking her fingers together and setting them in front of her on the desk. She smiled as the two witches who captured us vanished. “Sick of me yet?”
