Page 222 of A Winding Wave of Magic
Oh, that I could.
My head ached as I leaned back against the stone wall. What to do next? I could try to feel my way somewhere and at least determine the cave’s dimensions. But the echo suggested a height or maybe a very dangerous drop. Besides, other things occupied caves like these—the living were the least of my worries.
“Cassandra?”
I jerked at the sound of my name, spoken in that deep, warm baritone.
“Cass? Are you there?”
“Jonathan?” Relief flooded me.
He was close, though not immediately so. A cough echoed off the walls of the cave, and a scatter of pebbles chased it.“Yes, it’s me. Keep—keep talking.”
“I—I’m here,” I called into the darkness. “Where are you?”
As they escaped my mouth, the words themselves seemed to light up just a bit—enough to cast a gentle glow across the cave, through which I could now see a pair of glowing green eyes blinking through the dark—lynx eyes.
“Jonathan!” I started to scramble up from my reclined position, but his cry was immediate.
“For the love of the gods,stop!”
I froze. “What is it?”
Those eyes were two tiny beacons in this frightening abyss—and itwasan abyss, I realized. Yawning between us was a chasm of pure darkness. All I could see in Jonathan’s eyes was fear and caution, along with the flickering indication of his sorcerer’s Sight.
“You’re on a cliff. We’re separated. One step, and you’ll fall.”
I pressed myself against the wall, edging as far away from that invisible ledge as I dared. “Jonathan,” I whispered.“Wherearewe? Is this—is this still the Brigantian?”
“No.” His answer was final. “Definitely not. I’ve explored every inch of that school, and there’s nothing like this there. This feels similar to the place where it was founded, though. The original school was built on an ancient gravesite similar to the passage tomb Rachel was excavating, and some of them were developed from natural cave systems. Ones that would have housed the first of us, in the very beginning.”
I’d seen caves like that in books. Places where the first humans had taken time out of their lives based on hunting and gathering to put their marks on cave walls. Pictures of animals. Handprints. Playful spots of color and pattern that spoke of the pure joy of being alive.
If there was anything that made us all human, fae or otherwise, it was art.
“Can you get us out?”
I was hopeful. He had some power here, at least. I imagined a spell where he could ask the rock to create a tunnel for us. Rearrange itself as an opening that would allow us to escape.
“No.” Hopelessness—and shame—laced through the word. “There’s a spell on this place that suppresses my power. Yours?”
I pressed my fingers into the rocks below. A memory of another sitting in just this spot, equally afraid, practically throttled me before I jerked my hand back. If memories were meaning, the terror of this cave was substantial.
Just how old was the terror leaching from these walls?
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I can feel the people who’ve been here before. Their memories are strong. Not much good it will do us, though.” I shrunk into myself, not wanting to risk a full attack. Especially without the one person who had ever seemed to calm it on the other side of a crevasse.
“Who—do you know how we got here?”
“My father. He must have been waiting. The moment Celine opened the safeguards, we were taken. I should have been prepared.”
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
He was quiet. Then: “I should have been prepared.”
“Yes, you should have.”
A shaft of light shot through the cave like a spear as a door opened behind me. It was so bright compared to the abject darkness that when I turned, I couldn’t see anything else but the illuminated stream and the silhouette of a tall, thin figure in its center.
