Page 86 of House of Ydril

I hear footsteps and I feel a veil being thrown over my consciousness. If I could do anything, I’d scream, louder than I’ve ever screamed before. But I can do absolutely nothing, even as I see a person walk around me and stop right in front of my rounded eyes.

Just like that time in front of the woods, I see all the individual features of the person’s face. The eyes. The nose. The mouth. But they don’t fit together and the end result is a mess that my mind simply can’t comprehend.

The person scoffs and takes one step closer to me.

Feeling my heart about to burst out of my ribcage, it finally hits me.

When it happened, that time in front of the woods, they tried to take the Diary away from me. And the only one who’d seen Moswen by then was Leo.

Leo.

This is Leo, using Mind Magic on me. I’m going to die now, I think to myself. I know too much and he needs to get rid of me as soon as possible. Think, Quinn, think, I urge myself, but he’s already getting ready to strike, I can feel it.

I imagine closing my eyes shut and opening them again. And for a second, my Sight allows me to break through his magic and an image flickers before my eyes. The image of Ouroboros.

For a second, I feel my heart stop. House of Faust sigil. He has the House of Faust sigil embroidered onto his shirt.

Then all of a sudden, something sharp gets violently shoved into my chest, the instant wave of pain rendering me blind.

The next thing I know, I’m stumbling backwards with my hands on my chest as the door behind me closes almost without a sound.

He’s left me for dead.

And I can move now, but that only makes me crash into the door and slide down to the ground, the throbbing pain spreading from my very core keeping me stiff as a corpse.

I try to scream and yell for help, but that only makes me cough up blood. I feel the life being drained out of my body, but there’s no longer a single part of it I can make cooperate.

And just as my eyes start threatening to close, I force them open and I invoke Sight. I look around me, searching for something I could use to get out of this alive.

The only thing I see is this strange web of light ribbons on the ground. They remind me of blood vessels, especially because they seem to be flowing. I make my tired mind reach out to them.

I tug at one.

Nothing.

I wince, but I tug at another.

And I hear a strange crackling sound and my ears prick up, my skin feeling the ground beneath me start warming up.

“Hello, little one,” I hear her say, immediately recognizing Dame Gothel’s voice. “Thought you’d never notice me.”

How are you here, I want to ask, but I can’t reply. I can’t even open my mouth.

“I could sense that you were in danger,” she whispers to me as if she’d read my mind. And as she does it, I start feeling life flow back into my body. “After all,” she adds, “I did taste your blood.”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

“Yes, you owe me one, if that’s what you wanted to ask,” Dame Gothel says with a chuckle and disappears.

And it all hurts like hell, but blood stops flowing out of my wound and my head starts clearing up, making my mind rush to figuring out the next step.

I crawl away from the door so I can open it. I need to get out of here quickly, before everyone else starts leaving the Arena. I wince as I reach for the doorknob. I really think I shouldn’t let anyone see me, considering it must behimwho attacked me just now.

Faust. The most powerful man at the Academy. The most dangerous vampire. The leader of the Vipers. And how did I manage to not see it, that he is also the one behind my boxes of chocolates, it’s beyond me.

So I slowly get up, letting out a wince with every move. I open the door, take a peek outside and rush down the hallway, checking on my wound every two seconds to make sure I haven’t started bleeding again. But it’s now only a surface wound and even though it’s agonizingly painful, I think I won’t be dying any time soon.

As quickly as I can, I make my way back to my room, which I’ve decided is safe enough for the time being, considering he thinks he’s killed me. It seems that everyone’s still busy with the interviews, because I don’t bump into a single person as I go.

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