Page 80 of A Dawn Of Blood

“That’swhat I’ll do the next time I’m threatened with a history lesson,” I hear Lorcan say. “Just go hide in the bathroom.”

“Weren’t you a professor, MacArthur?” Dryden asks.

“What’sthatsupposed to mean?” Lorcan snaps just as I tear my eyes away from Cain and turn to them. “To be a professor, you need to like history? Do you seemegoing around wondering why not all Divine Magic turds grow long, white beards?”

Dryden turns to me to sneakily roll his eyes.

Then I feel it and I freeze. I feel the absence. I spin around, frantically scanning the building.

“Anna, what’s wrong, Anna?” I hear Dryden asking.

My hand darts to my neck, my mind flashing with the image of him touching me just moments ago. “He’s messed with the magic somehow,” I whisper, “I can’t feel him.”

My words cause panic, while I myself move for the building.

“No,” Dryden stops me by grabbing my upper arm. He quickly inspects the collar and does some magic on it. “There,” he says, letting out a pent-up breath.

But the second he finishes, a much stronger pain than ever before shoots through my entire body. I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling for something to grab onto and finding someone’s arm.

“What’s going on?” I hear Raven ask with worry in her voice.

“It’s more painful than usual because he’s trying to escape,” Dryden replies.

“What should we do?”

“The magic’s back on, so if he doesn’t want to die—”

The next thing I know, the pain is subsiding, I’m opening my eyes and watching Cain walk out of the building and head back towards me, seemingly as collected as always. Then again, he’s rubbing his neck, gritting his teeth and not looking anyone in the eye.

“Asshole,” Dryden lunges at him when he comes to a stop, “you fucking asshole.” He shoves him in the chest, but doesn’t move him an inch. Cain doesn’t acknowledge him one bit and Dryden moves to hit again.

“No, Dryden,” I urge him, albeit through gritted teeth, “please, don’t.”

Without taking his eyes off Cain, he reluctantly and angrily retreats.

And now I’m more desolate than ever, because of course the only reason he’d touch me is so he could make his move to escape. “Let’s just go, alright?” I motion at a patch of grass nearby. “I think that’s the spot Nimueh described, right over there, but we still need to find the entrance.”

*

It’s in sullen silence that we all march up to the patch of grass with a single tree at the center. I start looking around, grateful for the distraction.

“We’ll need to talk about this, Anna,” Dryden comes to whisper in my ear. “Not even an advanced Divine Magic user would’ve figured out a way to mess with this magic so quickly.”

But I don’t want to think about it right now. “Can it wait until we’re back?”

With the corner of my eye, I see him nod.

We spend quite some time inspecting the spot, finding nothing.

“Alright,whereis the goddamn entrance?” Nuala demands. “Isn’t it supposed to be right here?”

We give it a couple of more tries, finally figuring out the magic. A trap door opens onto a dimly-lit staircase, beckoning us inside.

“This is it,” Raven confirms after she’s done using echolocation.

I turn to her, my eyes wide with wonder. “Holy shit,really?”

Smiling, she nods.

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