Page 58 of A Dusk Of Stars

Before I can lunge over the pit, a blinding light that comes from my own body makes me close my eyes shut and I feel myself being flung backwards, my ears ringing with a sudden, violent sound of things exploding all around me.

When I come to, my ears still ringing and my teeth gritting, I’m lying on the ground and I have to push myself up on my elbows to take a look around.

What the…

There’s silence in the Main Hall, everyone staring at the wasteland that until a second ago was the obstacle course. There’s rubble all around me, and a circle of burnt ground stretching from where I’m lying.

My eyes dart to Bane, who’s watching me intently.

Now everyone else is, too, neither moving a muscle nor making a sound.

The very next second, I hear people starting to shout, argue and talk over each other from all around me.

“What did she just do?” one of the voices rises above the surface.

“Calm,” Bane’s voice booms, silencing them all. “The fuck. Down.”

I push myself up, watching him stare everyone down and feeling on the verge of throwing up.

What’s really worrying me is the feeling of something swelling inside me. Something that’s about to burst.

Before I even realize what I’m doing, I start rushing out of the Main Hall.

“Miss Novak,” I hear Bane call out at the same time I feel Raven trying to catch up with me.

I don’t stop moving, I just wave my arm to make them stop focusing on me.

“What’re the rest of us supposed to do now?” I hear someone demand of the professor.

“I’m moving you to a different location,” he says in a controlled but pissed-off voice, “that’s what we’re doing.”

I don’t hear anything else. I’m out in the Entrance Hall, doing my best to get back to my room as quickly as humanly possible.

Before I even reach the Elevator, just as I’m walking past the Brothers Grimm statue, it grabs ahold of me. I stop, grabbing onto the top step of the pedestal, getting down on my knees and resting my forehead on the cool, smooth stone of the statue itself.

That ‘something’ in me bursts.

The next thing I know, the world around me falls silent, and I hear the knock.

***

There’s a sharp smell of spring in the air, and I’m walking through a blur of people, all looking up at me with smiles on their faces. Their clothes are festive, and there are flowers being tossed into the air, and up ahead, at the end of the path I already see my mother and my father sitting in their chairs, their warm, smiling eyes following me closely.

All the while, the sky above us is growing heavy with clouds, and among the smiling faces around me, there are pairs of eyes throwing me sneaky looks, cold like edges of blades.

I start running, my mother and father’s faces getting lost in the crowd. Now they’re lifting me up, and I’m looking down from high above and I see all the little altars, the metal bowls, the lit candles.

It makes my breath turn shallow, when I realize there’s something missing. There’s not a single spindle anywhere around me.

When I look down, there’s blood on my hands, and the arms are starting to drop me, and I’m falling and falling, hearing a deep, echoing laugh boom from somewhere behind me.

Chapter 21

What is going on with me? I keep glancing at my watch, sitting in my room and letting the hours pass, the bright winter day outside slowly turning into night.

I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to be around others right now, but I’m feeling stranger than I’ve ever felt — the echoes of my own magic still coursing through me as if they weren’t my own, and it’s all making me so scared, I just can’t stop myself.

I shoot Raven a text for her and Alaric to meet me in the Junkyard. I peel my ass off my bed and I get moving.

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