Page 75 of A Promise of Peridot
Mari only huffed and traipsed around him. “Fedrik, are you all right?”
Fedrik only grimaced in response, his eyes elsewhere. He and I were both staring at that same leafy green spot in the jungle Mari had just plowed through.
Waiting.
A beat—
And then another.
Before my eyes stung. Before my hands clenched into fists. Before acid burned my throat.
“Where is Arwen?” Mari asked it first, her voice smaller than I’d ever heard it.
Fedrik looked stricken. “She isn’t with you?”
My whole body went still, my pulse halting in my veins. “Youwere just with her.” My sight had gone red, like a fog of blood. “What do you mean,where is she?”
Griffin stepped in front of Mari smoothly, his face a mask of calm.
“Fuck, Griff, I’m not going to hurt her,” I bit out. “Mari, tell me what happened.”
The witch swallowed audibly. “We escaped the treasure room and made it through this terrifying stone maze and then there was an avalanche of rock that was barreling toward us and we wereexhausted, I’ve never run that much in my entire life, but even Arwen was tired I could tell—” She paused to swallow again. “It was horrible and so much faster than us and we were just going deeper and deeper into the caves until we saw this corridor that opened up to the jungle, and she... she...”
Finish the thought before I rip it from your tongue—
“She saved me. She used her lighte.” Mari said the word quietly. “To protect us both and push me in even though there wasn’t enough time for her, too. She would have been squashed, so she just kept running. And I tried to go back, but the tunnel was impenetrable because of the landslide. I tried a disintegration spell, which is most commonly used on wood that’s been infested by termites, but it didn’t have any effect on the stone, and I don’t have my spell books, and—” Another swallow. “All I could do was hope she made it to you first, but now... I don’t know where she is.”
For a moment it was silent. Nothing but the caws of birds and the humid breeze rustling in the waxy leaves around us.
“I have to go back in.” I wasn’t even sure if I had spoken the words aloud.
“You heard the witch,” Griffin said. “There’s no way back in.”
“Arwen is probably trapped in there. Hergreatest fucking fear.I have to—” I couldn’t think. What could I even do? I whirled to Mari. The look in her eyes said my expression was as horrifying as it felt on my face. I tried to school my features. “Mari, you have to do something.”
“Like what?” She clutched at Briar’s amulet again.
“A locator spell,” Fedrik groaned against the tree, his face very pale.
“I just told you.” Her voice was getting frantic. “I don’t have my grimoires. I don’t know these spells off the top of my head. I’m not an encyclopedia.”
This was not the time for Mari to start doubting herself. As if reading my thoughts, Griffin held her gaze and said firmly, “You know enough. What about—”
“Oh yes, you know all the spells! Rattle them off for me, will you?”
I nearly knocked myself unconscious. “Please, Mari. Skewer the commander with your witlater. Thinknow.”
Griffin, the brave bastard, only stepped closer to her. “Clear your mind and think of your grimoires. You’ve read them all cover to cover.”
Mari chewed her lip. “Maybe a binding spell? To tie one of us to her. It’d be a bit like running around blindfolded, but they’d know if they were getting closer. They’d be able to feel her.”
“Me. Send me. Do itnow.”
“I need a memory of you and her. To bind you together.”
A dark cloud passed over the shining sun and a chill crawled up my spine. “What kind of memory?”
Mari shut her eyes. “Anything with a strong emotion.” She brought her hands up to the sky, fingers taut and spread widetoward the tree cover, and murmured words in a language I didn’t recognize.
