Page 21 of Gift from the Nexus

When she pulls her magic back, I press my palm to his clammy skin and push in to see what I can see. Which is nothing.

His mind is empty as if it’s been wiped clean, but this isn’t permanent damage. I sense his memories fluttering about behind the black drape, trying to break through the command holding them hostage.

This block doesn’t feel as invasive or as strong as those the Summum-Master left behind, but just to be sure he isn’t the traitor himself, I remove my hand from his forehead and move the collar of his shirt down, looking for the mark of the Mastery. Lucky for him, there isn’t one, and I don’t second-guess myself as I peel the block away gently.

I jump back as he rolls to his side and throws up, groaning in pain as it continues coming up. His bodily fluids don’t deter Dr. Evie in the least bit, and she springs right into action, laying her hand on his stomach to ease the sickness and dissolve the drug that’s coursing through him.

“Give me just a moment to check him over and then you can question him. He’s been given a very hefty dose of some sort of tonic.” She cuts her eyes to me, basically telling me to back the hell off for a second as I stand over her shoulder, watching everything she’s doing.

I pointedly ignore her request until squeals and cries behind me draw my attention away. Caspian has three third year girls wrapped in his shadows, withering and begging to be set free, but he disregards their request, looking at them as if he’s seconds away from snapping their necks.

“What’s going on?” Corentin and I ask at the same time.

“Guess who’s missing and these three refuse to answer my questions about her whereabouts,” Caspian says, shaking the girls around, making them sob and wail louder.

Their shrills are cut off when he slaps tendrils of shadows across their mouths, laughing and taunting them mercilessly as their tears and snot continue to stream down their faces. Now that they’re more subdued, recognition of who they are comes to me and I take a meaningful step toward them.

That fucking cunt.

“Where the hell is Gima?” I ask firmly.

They obviously can’t answer me out loud, so I forcefully push my way into their heads, painfully tearing out all information I may need.

“Gima Everglow?” my Uncle Dyce asks.

“Yeah, obsessive, crazy stalker bitch.” Draken growls in response.

I pay them no mind as I sift through as many conversations as I can between these girls and her. Never once has she mentioned the Mastery or her involvement with these three, but there’s a lot of talk about what her father has promised her and what he tells her to do. Apparently, her obsession with Corentin hasn’t been all that fabricated from her own delusional thoughts. Her father vowed he’d—we’d be hers.

“Tillman, anything?” Corentin asks me as if he knows I’m gathering information that pertains to him.

“They don’t know anything of the Mastery, and Gima’s never mentioned them. Before the attack, she left their room and when one of them asked where she was going, she told her to mind her own fucking business. And it seems Gima’s father promised her we’d be her Nexus, no matter what. It was decided,” I inform him, and he immediately whips around to his dad.

“There hasn’t been talk of any arranged pairing, son. You know how your mother feels about that,” Uncle Dyce swears, which cools the rage in Corentin’s eyes, but his wheels are turning.

“We need to find Gima. Either she’s been taken as well or she played a role in this, which tells us her family is one of two betraying us.”

Taking that statement, letting it stew in my mind, I turn to make my way back to the Caster, and again the agonizing thoughts of what I could’ve, should’ve done, rear their ugly heads. Dwelling on the woulda, coulda, shouldas is a pointless waste of my time and thoughts, but I can’t help it.

I should’ve pushed him to kick her out, consequences from her family be damned, because now there’s a possibility, a large possibility, that bitch is the reason Willow is gone and why it was so easy for them to attack an academy full of highly gifted students.

“Mr. Blythe, can you tell me what happened to the wards?” I say as soon as I march back up to him and Dr. Evie. My pleasantries are null, but if he’s well enough to sit up and drink water on his own, he’s well enough to answer questions.

“I’m sorry, Leader Tillman. I can’t seem to recall anything,” he says regretfully.

“I believe Mr. Blythe was given a memory tonic. His symptoms and loss of short-term memories align with what we’ve seen from some of the hostages we’ve treated,” Dr. Evie concludes, but I’m not willing to accept that.

“If it’s okay with you, Mr. Blythe, I’d like to take a look myself,” I state. Regardless, if he says no, I’m looking anyways. I’ll get a much clearer picture if he allows me to touch him, though.

“Sure, sure, of course,” he easily agrees, passing his cup to Dr. Evie.

As gently as I can since I mean him no harm, I push my magic across his mind, diving deeper and deeper into his subconscious. This is always where I would become stumped when I triedto help and question the hostages who we rescued from the Mastery.

I could sense memories floating around, but they’d be so garbled and muddled that I could never make sense of them. Or if they’d been poisoned enough times, the memory would appear as nothing more than a murky spot, a hole where a memory should reside.

In my search, I look and listen for any mention or involvement of the Mastery but thankfully find none. Setting my intentions clear to show me his memories of the day, I’m taken right to the moment he wakes up. Speeding forward, rather than watching his mundane morning routine, there’s a small blimp in time where the picture of his routine goes from crystal clear to murky as he settles into his office. There’s a hazy residue surrounding the memory and I can tell it’s the remnants of the tonic.

That’s what I need.

---