Page 164 of Mud

Nowhere to be found.

I must have searched the entire city for what could have been hours, and I still didn’t find him. He could have moved on to the next challenge and I would have no clue—which was probably what happened. As much as it sucked to admit it, that was the most reasonable explanation of his disappearance.

Eventually, I stopped searching, and I couldn’t decide what made me more sick: the memory of Ben, the thought that Taland had done something to me, or that Taland was gone. My suspicion of him just messing with me when he made me that “deal” was true—he’d never really had any intention of helping me.

But then I wondered,whywould he do that? He killed a player for me right in front of my eyes. He killed him and carried me in his arms and held my hair back while I threw up all night.

Well, the three hours of this loop we were in, apparently.

Why would he go through all that trouble just to get me to agree to a deal with him, then disappear?

The sky was as dark as always. No cloud in sight, unfortunately, and my hope slipped away from my fingers a little more. It did so slowly at first, and then all at once. Refiq had either fooled me, too, or he’d genuinely failed to prepare his cloud for the sky.

Or maybe even the magic of the Roe didn’t allow it—who knew?

Definitely not me.

I must have gone through at least ten dark alleys and to the other sides of the streets, having no clue where I was headed, no longer searching for anything, just waiting for that cloud to miraculously appear over my head. Reality had started to feel very unreal, so when I saw a wide, open field with no buildings anywhere near it, only the silhouette of some trees in the middle, it was easy to convince myself that I was dreaming.

My feet were heavy, but I no longer feared that someone was coming behind me. That someone knew I was Mud or that someone had found Ben upstairs in that building, dead or dying, and they were running after me to make me pay for his life. My eyes remained on those trees, thin and dark and barely standing, and I somehow made it all the way to them. Somehow, I went close enough to touch the cold, rough bark, to sit near a trunk, and rest my back against it.

I looked up, but I saw no fruit, just leaves here and there. Tired leaves, pointing at the ground, the soil dark, barely any blade of grass or bush in sight. Definitely no flowers.

But I knew these trees had once held apples on those branches—green, juicy apples—even if none remained that I could see. I knew this was the orchard Taland had talked about, and for whatever reason, I was so glad I’d found it. Here, I felt closer to him, could almost swear the scent of him lingered in the air, the warmth of him pressed against my skin.

I closed my eyes to rest for a minute, head against the tree, my worries nonexistent.

Sleep took me right away.

When I woke up, Taland was there, eating an apple.

Chapter 31

Rosabel La Rouge

Present day

My eyes opened slowly, but I must have woken up in a dream because they insisted that Taland was sitting cross-legged in front of me, biting into an apple. At ease. Comfortable. Smiling.

A more beautiful view had probably never existed.

All my thoughts had slowed down as they did in dreams, which was the second hint that this wasn’t real.

Except when he reached out his hand and touched the tip of my nose, he felt exactly as Taland did—a charge of electricity that went straight to my heart to make its beat accelerate.

“What are you doing here, sweetness?”

His voice was as soft as his touch.

And he was most definitelyreal.

My instincts were already fired up. I sat up with a jolt, half of me convinced that I couldn’t breathe even though Icould feel the air going down my throat, expanding my lungs. The darkness was just as all-consuming as I remembered the last time I was awake, and Taland was really there, smiling as he ate his apple.

“What…what…whatthe hell did you do?!”

It took me a couple of tries to get the words out, only because I was still shocked at the image my mind was replaying for me—of Ben lying on the floor, Blackfire magic coming out of his mouth.

That certainly surprised Taland. “What did I do with what?”

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