Page 85 of Centaur Bolt

“I am your instructor,mademoiselle,” he said calmly. “It is important I know yourcapacitésif I am going to teach you. And keeping a journal is vital. Write down essential details so you can orient yourself. Paste in photos, or even drawings.”

“I will speak to Emmanuel about fashioning a harness for it, so you can keep it with you,” Cara offered. “This time travel thing is potentially very dangerous. You could so easily get lost in time. Tracking details in your journal will help you prevent it from happening.”

I debated and then went for it. “I don’t think that what happened was as much of a fluke as it might seem. I watched Kiko’s video, and Jumped to not only the place, but the moment she was—um, talking—to Scott. At the time, I wasn’t aware of using the other reference. If I’d just thought about the arbor, it probably wouldn’t have happened.”

Jacques’s brows rose. “It being a video might have entrenched their presence more strongly in your mind.”

Actually, it had been what they’d been doing that had entrenched it, but I got his point.

“I recommend that you spend some time recording things,” Cara stated. “And that when you Jump, you make sure you are focused clearly on your goal.”

The clear concern in her gaze infused me with guilt—I hadn’t been fully honest with her. I was pretty sure the shapeshifting component would cause an uproar. I had questions that needed answers, though—if worded with care, maybe I’d get them without giving anything away.

“Why is this talent appearing now?” I asked. “Do shapeshifters wake up one morning and suddenly turn into a wolf?”

Jacques snorted a laugh, and Cara smiled at me as she led the way along the path. “Whoever your parents were, at least one of them wasn’t human. Shapeshifters are born able to shift to beast, but many Cryptids do not develop their abilities until they mature. Your talents followed that pattern and lay dormant until now.”

That answered the Jumper thing, but not the shapeshifter one. I had to be careful here. “But not everyone is born a shapeshifter, am I right? Kiko told me that regular people can become shapeshifters by being bitten.”

Cara didn’t seem triggered by the question. “Yes, that is true. When predisposed people are bitten, they begin to transform over a few weeks. But not all species are susceptible. Liberis, for instance, are immune to shifter viruses.”

Not entirely helpful because I hadn’t been bitten. I hesitated, but decided to risk it. Considering we were surrounded by handsome young male Dires, and my BFF seemed to be a Satyr determined to bed each one of them, I thought it might be construed as a perfectly innocent question. “Can Dires get humans pregnant?”

She shot me a look, and my stomach clenched, but then she said, “There have been extremely rare instances of it happening, or at least, so it has been written. The general consensus is that humans are not fertile with Dires.” She leaned closer. “But Riley, remember that you are not fully human. So all bets are off. I suggest that if you go that route, you use protection.” She paused. “It would be best not to go that route at all. Could lead to complications with your fellow students.”

My face flushed. I had no intention of doing so, but at least my question hadn’t raised any alarm. Had one of my parents been a Dire? Was I a living example of that rare instance? I desperately wanted to know if that kind of thing would delay the emergence of the beast, but there wasn’t an innocent way to frame that question. Or the even larger one—why I had been male when I shifted.

We reached the bench, and Cara pulled out a fancy digital camera.

When I raised my brows, she said, “I like taking photos. I print the best ones off when I go home.” She waved a hand at the surrounding meadow. “This was all forest before they built the castle. You can still see the stumps amid the grasses. But nature has healed the land, and we are working to bring back the trees.” She pointed to the young trees that had been planted throughout the meadow.

I hadn’t noticed the stumps until she pointed them out, and said so.

“Those are the kind of details you need to pay attention to and jot down in your journal,” she said. “Every bit that you can add will increase the accuracy of your Jump.” She handed me the phone. On it was an image of three boulders near the lake. The late evening sun lit them in hues of orange and red.

I looked along the shore but didn’t see them.

“They’re on the other side of the lake. I just took that photo last night, and I thought it might be useful for this practice session. See how that one looks like a seal? It’s pretty distinctive. But if you Jump to the scene in that picture, you’ll go back to last evening.” She pointed to the sky. “So picture them, but add the morning sun overhead.”

I looked around us, getting a feel for the way the light hit the other boulders along the shore. I appreciated that Cara hadn’t freaked out about all this. Rather, she was trying to guide me through it.

I had little doubt she’d do the same thing if she knew about the shifter thing. But I couldn’t take the chance that it would distract from my mission to rescue Marcus. Once he was safe, I could explore it.

For now, it had to take a back seat to other things.

“Give me a few minutes to get into position,” Cara said as she slid out of her gown. Startled, I got a quick glimpse of smooth skin, before her body expanded into a graceful and beautiful horse.

She tossed her mane, and her horn gleamed in the sunlight. Not a horse, I reminded myself. A Unicorn.

“I will await thee at the boulders,” she said, and launched into a smooth, ground-devouring gallop along the path. In seconds, she’d vanished into the trees.

I peered closer at the photo on the tiny screen. The boulder did look like a seal.

“If you are uncertain about this,ma chère fille, we can go back to basic visualization.” Jacques appeared uncertain, and Sparkle twittered from her perch on his shoulder.

“No, it’s okay, Jacques. I need to know how to do this properly, or I’ll end up time traveling when I least expect it.”

He shook his shaggy head. “I don’t know how you are doing it at all,” he confessed.

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