Page 47 of The Evernight Court

Less than two hours later,I was out of the castle, thirty minutes early, my nerves getting the best of me. I’d put everything I’d taken in that basket in the kitchen, and I had more than enough food to last me at least for a week—eggs and milk and cheese and bread and meat, fruits and vegetables. It probably wouldn’t be as tasty as what the chefs made on the daily here, but it was food, and I didn’t need to leave the tower to get more for a week. That was more than good enough for me.

I made myself an egg and ham sandwich I’d been craving all day, then I went outside to wait for Quinn because I couldn’t sit still in one place, not after seeing Valentine looking at me like that. Not after remembering what it had felt like when I’d actually considered him a friend, when I’d felt safe in his presence, when I’dmissedhim when he went away for two days.

God, I’d given up what I thought was my freedom for him. How naive of me. How silly of me to think that the likesof him would actually give up his life to set me free. I was glad I’d returned; otherwise, I’d have been dead for real now, but my own self still disappointed me.

“I just have to try harder,” I said to myself now as I jogged in circles around the trees to get warmed up so that when Quinn showed up, I’d be ready to go.

That was it—I just had to try harder for longer, and I’d get the hang of it. I’d move the way Quinn did, fast and precise, capable of pushing back even a vampire, at lease for a little bit.

That thought spun in my head as I moved, but before ten minutes were over, I felt her.

Magic was near me, close enough that I was sure it was coming from the woods, not the town. The town was too far—I couldn’t sense that distance yet. But in the woods, I could pick up the energy so much better by the night, and I had no doubt Quinn was coming.

So, I stopped running and I waited for her to find me.

I had no clue how far I’d gone from the spot where we trained, though. So lost in my head that the world had turned invisible to my eyes, and I’d just kept on moving, thinking I was going in circles.

Now that I was looking at my surroundings, I couldn’t be too sure. Everything looked the same in this wood. The trees, the leaves, the branches, the darkness—it was all the same to my eyes.

And Quinn must have been playing games with me because I waited and waited, but she still didn’t come to find me, and instead I felt her energy retreating somewhere south, farther away from me by the minute.

Or maybe she was testing me?

I grinned at myself—fine. If she wanted to see how far I could sense her, she was going to be surprised because I could tell even the speed with which she was walking, and she wasn’t going to get away from me so easily.

Moving as silently as I could, I took off south, chasing the magic that I barely felt now—she must have gone quite far, and what I could only explain asthe signalof her was disrupted several times from whatever radar was now inside me before I picked it up again. I walked and walked, careful about where I stepped, and I was actually surprised at myself, at how easy it was to see twigs and roots raised off the ground, to hear the squirrels and other animals running on the trees, the leaves whispering like they always did.

I must have walked for a good ten minutes again before the magic became strong enough to let me know Quinn was close. Maybe even within sight.

So, I stopped and I spun around slowly, and I waited for her to make a sound, to laugh or call my name, tease me for being too slow to find her.

She didn’t.

Instead, within a second, the magical energy near metripled.

The sensation took my breath away. Bringing both my hands to my open mouth, I forced myself not to make a single sound as the vibrations went throughout me—more than a poke on my back now. More than a nudge. So much more. It was like something wasradiatingraw energy from somewhere close by, and I was walking toward it even before I knew it.

The first thing I realized was that there was waterahead of me, and I could only see the way the surface of it reflected what little light it could catch from around itself.

The second thing I realized was that that signal, that magic was most definitely not coming from Quinn.

It was coming from the robed person standing at the edge of the wide lake that I saw more and more of the closer to the last trees I went.

But most importantly, it was coming from the siren that had come out of the water only up to her shoulders.

My body froze in place, and I had to hold onto a tree just to make sure I wouldn’t fall on my face. I was far still, possibly over twenty feet, and I could barely make out the figures in the lake, which started just a few feet away from the tree line.

The lake wasn’t big, just like I’d seen on Romin’s tabletop map, and it was quiet, too quiet, surrounded by trees on all sides, so easy to miss if I hadn’t felt the energy of that magic.

All that fucking magic.

I’d felt the same just a few nights ago around the sirens at the party, but it had been different then because we’d been surrounded by so many other kinds of magic as well. Here, I felt it with so much more clarity, and it freaked me out.

Muffled voices reached my ears and my heart jumped, my body moving on its own. I could have sworn I wasn’t in control of my own legs because I was walking, going closer, hiding behind the trees as well as I could, and I didn’t stop until I could hear that crystal clear voice better and understand the words it was saying.

“…must be proud of yourself, are you not? Three times now. You’ve failedthreetimes.”

Laughter.

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