Despite Asher’s assurance that nobody from the village would bother us, I still kept a sharp eye out as we left the lighthouse the next morning. What little sunlight had been present the other day had been soaked up by the swell of dark gray clouds hanging over our heads. Sea wind swept across the waves to bite into me. I’d covered pretty much every exposed layer of skin I could, and I was still cold. I was cold all the time nowadays.
“I don’t think this will work,” I said.
We’d made it through the village without issue, and now stood on the side of the narrow track of road leading to a lonely highway. Asher was sticking his thumb out. Hitchhiking would have been fine and all, if there’d actually been cars we could hitchhike in. Seemed the village was so popular nobody wanted to leave.
“Patience, young one,” Asher said, not sounding discouraged at all. “I’m sure someone will—Ah!”
A car rounded the bend. Asher stepped farther out into its path, thumb angled as though he might hook the rearview mirror. The car simply buzzed by, laying a short blast on the horn as it did. Asher frowned.
I stifled a laugh. “I’ll start walking. See you at the next village.”
“Oh ye of little faith. Maybe if you flash them some leg they’ll be more likely to stop.”
“Maybe if you flash them one of your blinding smiles they’ll careen off the road and we can steal their car.”
“I like your idea better.”
I was seriously considering walking when another car came around the curve. Asher practically threw himself into its path before the car eased to a halt.
“Excellent!” Asher said, right before he cast a translation spell and went to speak to the driver. A moment later he was motioning me over and, a little reluctant, I cast my own translation spell and joined him.
“Skylar, this is Olav,” Asher said. “He’s graciously allowing us to ride with him to the next town over. He says it’s much bigger than this.”
Olav turned out to be a scrunch-faced old man missing more than a few teeth, but with a gummy smile that put me at ease. I didn’t see any of the hostility I had with the Supes the night before. Hopefully, if they were still alive, they were staying well out of anyone’s way.
“Thank you, Olav,” I said.
“Ja, ja,” Olav said. “In you get.”
Asher took the front seat while I shimmied into the back, moving aside some (thankfully clean) fishing smocks and piled jackets to make room before Olav started driving again. I dreaded having to force conversation to pass the time, but my fears were put to rest as Olav and Asher began chattering away as though they were old friends. If Olav cared that we were foreigners, then he didn’t show it.
We drove past fjords swelled with crystalline blue water, around lakes penned by green pastures and flowing with luktegress. Our path took us through other fishing hamlets where the masts of boats tipped back and forth like metronomes in the swells of wind.
I felt my eyes growing heavy, but I forced myself to think about what we still had to do. Asher and I had decided that the best plan was to take things slow and smart. First, we had to reach the biggest village along the coast. That would be progress. There, we’d somehow manage to contact Mia and Colson who, if Asher was right and we were lucky, had made it out of the Academy and were waiting for our signal. I was afraid of how General Zell would react to learning that two more of his prisoners had managed a break out, and yet I figured he had more important things to worry about at the moment than a couple missing students.
Eventually the continuous lolling hills and gentle curves of the road put my mind at ease, and I fell asleep to the sound of Asher and Olav debating the pros and cons of forcing foreigners to try lutefisk.
I blinked awake what felt like minutes later as Olav eased the car to a stop.
“She looks sick, ja?” Olav was saying, his voice low.
“She’s been through a lot,” Asher returned. “We’re going home soon after this.”
“I would say so. You two are a long way from home. If I might ask…”
“You awake, Skylar?” Asher said.
I sat up in answer. “We here?”
Olav took Asher’s interruption in stride and swept his hand out across the dash, indicating to the center of the significantly larger village we’d arrived in. “Trondheim. Biggest city and port you’ll get along the western coast.”
“Perfect,” Asher said. We got out.
“Thank you,” I said, leaning down to look through the passenger window.
Olav made another dismissive gesture with his hand. “Do not worry about it. All I ask is that you stay safe. There is something funny happening. Supes such as yourself should be careful.”
My mouth fell open.
“Ha det!” Olav said as he pulled away. Soon he had turned the corner and was gone.
I turned to Asher. “Did he tell you he knew about—”
“He didn’t.” Asher said, looking a bit put out. “Might have been a nice detail to mention.”
I shook my head. “Only fair, I guess. We didn’t tell him everything, either.”
“What do you think he meant about being safe?”
I took a look around the city center. Though much larger than the last village, it was still relatively deserted compared to any other large city we’d visited. I had to believe we’d be safe here. “I’m not entirely sure. But let’s keep our eyes open.”
“Just like we always do,” Asher agreed. He opened his hand. Instead of his normal tracking spell, usually aqua blue and in the shape of various animals, a wisp of blue magic sprouted from the center of his palm like a flower before wafting into the air and vanishing.
“Mia and Colson are probably too far for my seeking spell to find them and lead them here,” he told me. “But I’ll leave a faint trail they should be able to pick up and follow.”
I looked up at the sky where the magic had disappeared. Here the sun peeked just a little bit more around the gray, warming my skin. I felt just a bit more hope than I had only an hour or two before. “So what do we do now?”
“Now?” Asher said. “Now we wait.”
The next three days slipped by, carrying with it a rhythm of life that was probably the most normal I’d had in years, even counting my time at the Academy.
Though my worry about Kasia and how my friends were faring never went away, the fact that we were stuck here and unable to do anything forced us to take things one at a time. To focus only on the important things, like taking care of ourselves and preparing for whenever Mia and Colson arrived.
I’d gotten sick of sleeping so much, even though I still grew far more tired far more quickly than I ever had before. The times we didn’t spend trolling the market for food were times I forced Asher to spar me in the small room we’d convinced an elderly lady to let us rent out for a short time. Asher had protested at first, saying I wasn’t in any shape to keep fighting. He changed his mind pretty quickly when I nearly chopped off the top part of his hair with Valkyrie.
I was still pathetically weak. Not helpless by any means, but the usual power and grace I could (humbly) say I used to possess was gone. Casting spells was ten times more difficult, too. Though the basic attack and defense spells were still available to me, even using those too much tended to leave me out of breath, covered in a layer of sweat. The ache in my chest grew during these practice times, but I refused to give up. Ever since Asher had come back I’d found a new drive within me. He was a solid reminder of what I’d believed, even when I’d been alone: my friends were still alive. There were still those who needed us. And so, until I was dead, I’d keep fighting.
Now I was sitting at the kitchen table, working on my magical endurance. Techniques like this were usually reserved for second years and above, those who had gotten the basic fundamentals of casting spells, but couldn’t maintain them for very long. For spellslingers the training involved holding a contained ball of magic in your palm for as long as possible. For me, I worked on channeling my magic through Valkyrie’s hilt to keep the blade extended. Though I’d managed to fight off those other Supes with her, I knew that’d been mostly due to desperation. A super shiny, sharp, and intimidating magical sword wasn’t much good to me if I couldn’t keep it super shiny and sharp.
After ten minutes of keeping the blade extended, I let it go with a loud exhale. My chest ached like fire, but I’d grown used to the pain. The hollowness was still there, but like the pain, I could learn to live with it if I had to. I certainly wouldn’t let a little something like missing part of my soul stop me.
I heard the locks on the front door turn, then the muttered words to counter the charm one of us always left before we went out. Asher stepped inside and closed the door, but kept his hand on it, head down, eyes closed, as though he was listening for something. Or sensing for any lingering magic.
I stood, senses on alert. “Is there a problem?”
Asher stayed like that for a few seconds more before taking his hand off the door and smiling at me. “I’m just being paranoid. Thought I saw somebody following us.”
I went to the kitchen window and peered out, as though I’d be able to spot a shadowy figure standing guard across the street. The quiet rows of terraced houses along the road across from the wharf were free of any daytime lurkers. A mother pushed a stroller down the sidewalk. I didn’t spot Mia or Colson, but I didn’t spy anyone else, either.
Asher’s gentle hands found my shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “Like I said, I’m just being paranoid.”
“When it comes to us, being paranoid is equivalent to being right.”
Asher let out a deep chuckle. “True, true. Come on, let’s eat, and then head back to the library for a bit.”
I couldn’t help letting out a groan, even as I glanced over the street one last time before pulling away. “I thought you said you’d exhausted all the magical texts there.”
“I found a new section. It’s unlikely to hold anything, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”
He picked up Valkyrie’s hilt and twirled it between his fingers. “Have you been practicing?”
I crossed my arms. “Forcing me to go to the library and checking up on my practice. Who are you, my new professor?”
He flashed me a grin. “Don’t lie, you’d be much more interested in classes if I was.”
I couldn’t deny that.
After eating we walked back through the center of the city to the library, set on the cusp of another residential section of the neighborhood. I gripped Asher’s hand the entire time. Not just because I liked holding it, but because I was being serious about his paranoia. Hopefully what he’d seen had just been an overly curious citizen, but with our luck, we’d get another Fae assassin. Or ten.
I tightened my grip.
I wasn’t sure how Asher had managed to find another section to go through at the library. It was in a single small room, with gray walls and only five metal shelves bending beneath the weight of books. Most of the spines were so faded you couldn’t read the titles without pulling them out, and most of them were in Norwegian so we couldn’t read them at all without a translation spell.
I pulled a few promising volumes from the shelves and set to work at the nearby table, running my fingers across the lines of text to translate them and looking for something, anything, that might have to do with gods, severing threads of power, or whether restoring a missing part of one’s soul was even possible.
Basically, reading them was kind of a downer.
I set the fourth book aside and lay my head down. Another wave of fatigue was coming over me, as much as I tried fighting it. I’d just close my eyes for a bit and then…
I jerked up to sitting. I blinked, trying to reorient myself, aware that a chunk of time had passed since I’d closed my eyes, but not sure how much. The light in the library had switched from sunlight to florescent, casting everything in a milky glow. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. A different blue light was strobing across the tables, bouncing from one end of the bookshelves to the other.
I stood. I knew that light…
I came around the corner to find a blue rabbit made of magic bounding circles around Asher. He saw me and smiled. “Looks like they’re here.”
“Come on!” I said to Asher, running after the blue rabbit as it scurried out of the library and into the night. It cut right at the next street, one I knew was a straight shot out of town and I picked up the speed. Perfect. Mia and Colson knew better than to meet where a bunch of people could see us.
“Looks like you’re feeling better!” Asher called after me as we ran.
That was the truth. Though physically I still felt lousy, just the thought of seeing two of my best friends again was enough to give me an extra burst of energy. Add to that the fact that we might finally get to do something, and yeah, I was feeling a bit more hyperactive than I had been lately.
We followed the tracking spell to the outskirts of town, to a small lane obscured by trees. An unkempt cemetery lay on the other side of the road, cordoned off by a chain link fence. I slowed as the tracking spell vanished. I eyed the cemetery. I really hoped Norwegian ghouls didn’t like hanging out in these as much as they did in America, but still, this was a pretty good spot for them to pick. Secluded. Dark. Atmospheric. Perfect.
Asher looked around, as though expecting Mia and Colson to step out from behind a tree. “Well…”
“Maybe they haven’t gotten here yet. Maybe they’re…”
I squinted down the road, looking for the twin beams of a headlight, then just beyond the cemetery to the tangle of brush. I wasn’t sure how they were going to arrive. Via car? Cross country? Farcast portal? Unlikely, but hey, I was keeping my hopes up.
I turned again and nearly screamed. Mia and Colson were standing right outside the cemetery, as though they’d been there the entire time.
Asher gave a little yelp, then laughed and pounded Colson on the arm. “Dragon spit! You know how to make an entrance!”
Colson smiled. I squeezed Mia in a hug. She was cold, as though they’d been stuck sleeping outside for too many nights. “I’m so happy to see you!”
“Happy to see you too, Skylar,” Mia said, the corners of her mouth tilting up. I waited for her to go on, but she just stood there, smiling at me. Colson, too, stayed where he was, as though unsure what to do next.
Asher continued smiling, though now uncertainty began to weigh it down. “Is something wrong? Did something happen?”
“Is the Academy still okay?” I said. “We haven’t been able to get any news but we…well I think we have a plan, but we’ll see. We were hoping you were able to learn something that might help us.”
“We can talk about it on the way,” Mia said. She stepped to the side and put a hand out. “Let’s go.”
I stared at her. Then to the tangle of brush on the other side of the cemetery. “Go where?”
“To our next spot. You have everything you need, don’t you?”
“I…” I looked down at myself, then Asher. “Yeah, we have all our stuff. But I mean…Where?”
“We know someone who can help,” Colson said. “They’re close by.”
I looked again at Asher. He just looked right back. “Okay…”
“We told them what we’re trying to do,” Mia explained. “They said they could help us.”
I waited for her to go on. When she didn’t I started walking, Asher beside me. It took a moment for Mia and Colson to follow after. I glanced back at them. They were walking stiffly, as though they’d just woken up. Or come out of a tough fight.
“Was it hard finding us?”
“Oh, no, super easy,” Mia said. “That magical trail you left was very helpful.”
“Glad to hear it,” Asher said. “Was…getting out of the Academy very hard?”
“Oh, no, it was super easy,” Colson said. “Look, we can talk about this later. We need to hurry.”
“Okay.” I stopped as we reached the edge of the thick brush, turning back to them with hands on my hips. “What’s going on with you two?”
Mia sighed. “Skylar, I told you, we don’t have much time. The person who wants to help us is nearby.”
“He said if we don’t hurry he’s going to leave,” Colson added, as though he hadn’t already said that about a billion times.
Tingles were running up and down my arms. Something about this was off. Way off. They were talking to us like they’d rehearsed this.
“And just who is this person?” Asher said casually. “Please tell me they’ll be friendlier than you two. Barely a greeting. Not even a fist bump. I’d be offended if I wasn’t so suspicious.”
Mia smiled again, but it wasn’t the charming smile of the Mia I knew. It was a smile that reminded me of when she’d been possessed by Kasia. When her body was not her own.
I heard a rustle in the brush behind me. Mia’s smile dropped. Colson pulled out his hammer.
I turned and saw—
Mia and Colson.
A different Mia and Colson. Dirty, tired, but looking so much more like the friends I knew and loved that I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought the imposters who’d greeted us were them.
“Skylar?” Mia gasped. “Asher! And—”
“Oh dear,” False-Mia said, pulling out a long knife. “Now you’ve ruined all the fun.”