Page 35 of Wilds of Wonder
We might just find the bone collector yet.
Chapter Nineteen
MAVERICK
Moonlight splintered into the ice cave, and I sat up, swearing at the sight of the waning moon set in the purple-hazed sky. It was almost morning, and I’d slept far later than I’d meant to.
That avalanche I’d caused would slow the white rabbit, but it wouldn’t stop her. If I’d learned anything about her over the years, it was that she was stubborn. Hardheaded. She was a survivor. And now she was something she’d never been before: a pain in my ass.
All I’d wanted since our last meeting was to see her again, to know how she was doing. Now that exact wish had come true, and I wanted more than ever to go back. I didn’t want to know that she’d been married the entire time we’d played our games. I didn’t want to know she was a murderer.
Mostly, I didn’t want her to find me.
This couldn’t be one of our games. I needed that bolt, and where I was going was one place she could not follow. It was far too risky. I might’ve been angry with her, angry at what I’d found out about her, but that didn’t mean I wanted to put her in danger.
She would come to the ice caves. She’d know this was one of the only safe havens in the Glacier Mountains. I had to be gone before she arrived.
I scratched my head. The only problem was that I didn’t exactly know how to get where I was going. I had an idea, had an inkling it had to do with this network of caves, but it wasn’t a certainty.
I heard the white rabbit’s voice in my head.“Nothing is ever certain. Not when it comes to history.”
She’d said that to me once, and it had stuck with me ever since.
Enough of the white rabbit. Of Emory Growley. I needed to banish her from my thoughts once and for all.
I reached for my satchel and opened it, the lightning bolt sitting inside, and next to the lightning bolt was a folded note. I swallowed, reaching for it and opening it up.
I’m not crazy. I think my reality is just different than yours, and I have to go find it.
Love,
A
That was it. That was all I had from Annalee. She’d left it on her desk in her dorm room, not addressed to Father or Mother, but to me. A single sentence, and I’d known what I had to do, where I had to go to fix all of this. After all, it was my fault she left.
Now I had to find her. It was no secret where she’d run away to, not when she’d obsessed over the place for years. But how to follow her? That was the challenge. I’d need the bolt to protect myself and get us back out. This was unprecedented territory. A place no elemental had gone before.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. Many had gone before, but they’d never returned.
I took a deep breath and stood, stretching out my sore limbs. I glanced around the ice cave where I’d settled. These caves were dug by frost elementals under the order of Spirit Frost. He’d been growing paranoid and had ordered his subjects to build these caves and tunnels in the mountain, a way to hide should they need it.
Most thought he’d gone mad in those final years before he and the other spirits disappeared. I wasn’t so sure. If he’d been that paranoidthat he’d built tunnels into a mountain, there had to be a reason. But without any proof, I’d never be able to propose a theory so bold. Especially not when all the other professors were so set in their ways, so convinced that if they proved a theory it was set in stone. Unchanging. It drove me mad, but I didn’t want to risk my job, so for the most part, I kept my mouth shut.
I snatched my satchel, slinging it around my chest as an icy wind whistled through the cave.
I had to leave. Now. I shrugged on my coat, then grabbed my cloak from my satchel and swung it on, raising the hood and walking deeper into the cave, ready to explore and find my way to Annalee.
“Stop!” a voice yelled, one I’d recognize anywhere.
An icy wall crackled up in front of me, blocking my path forward. I shot fire out, melting the ice, but it wasn’t fast enough.
“Give it up,” Emory said from behind me.
I turned slowly. There she stood with those two familiar companions.
“Give what up?” I said with an innocent shrug.
This felt familiar, like we were falling back into our roles: white rabbit and bone collector. No Emory or Maverick. No wife or professor.
