Page 19 of Bonds of Magic
“I’m not lying, I swear.”
“I didn’t say you were.” He straightened in his chair. “So what happened? You were able to use your anchor to control the dream?”
“Not control it, exactly.” I made a face. I hadn’t controlled it in the slightest, if I were being honest. I’d surrendered to it—and to my own most shameful fantasies. I shook my head. “But it’s still progress, right?”
Noah was quiet for a long moment, and then said, “It is. Some, anyway. But you have a lot farther to go, and Dean Mansur is right. You don’t have much time.”
He stood up and motioned for me to do the same. “Now get up. I have to get you back to the manor before I can do anything else.”
And just like that, my excitement deflated. Of course Noah wasn’t excited for me. Of course he wanted me gone. I was a burden. A parcel to be watched over and passed back and forth. Not an actual human with feelings.
I sighed, and followed him out into the woods.
Why had I ever expected anything else?
4
NOAH
Ipushed open the door to Isaac’s office. It was early, the morning after my first lesson with Cory, and I had a day’s worth of classes to prepare for. But Isaac had sent a vocator message at dawn, asking me to visit him. Not asking, actually—telling.
“You need to arrest Sheridan,” I said as I entered. “And Teresa. Maybe Hans and Autumn for good measure.”
Isaac looked up from his desk, where he was holding something that looked vaguely like a silver and gold Rubik’s cube—if Rubik’s cubes had ten sides and were covered in tiny runes.
He arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” I crossed the room and stood in front of his desk. “I honestly don’t know why you haven’t done it already. We need to question them and find out which one of them put Erika Martinez in that trance.”
Isaac went back to studying the artifact in his hands. “Are you so sure one of them is at fault?”
“It has to be one of them.” I made a grab for the hunk of metal, trying to pull Isaac’s attention back to me. He tutted and pulled it away. “Are you even going to look at me? You’re the one who asked me to come here before I did anything else today.”
“I have also asked you to knock. Repeatedly.”
He stared at the artifact. His brow furrowed, then cleared as he twisted one side twice to the right, then down once, and to the left. The runes realigned and flashed gold in his hands. Finally, he set it down and looked up.
“And I’d think you’d have the sense not to grab at a magical artifact just because you’re frustrated. Particularly one capable of burning off your fingers, if you don’t know how to handle it properly.”
His look was severe, and I struggled not to take a step back. I wasn’t afraid of Isaac, or the look he gave me. Just…wary about that lump of metal. That was all.
“Whydidyou ask me here, then?”
I flopped down into one of the chairs in front of Isaac’s desk. It was the one Cory sat in two nights ago. I swore I could even smell his scent for a moment, like clean cotton and dark berries.
Get a grip, I commanded myself internally.
“To discuss our investigations,” Isaac said. “And to make sure you don’t go haring off on a revenge mission that could cause incalculable damage.”
“What kind of damage are you worried about me doing? You can’t seriously be protecting them.”
“I’m protecting this school.” Issac’s tone was heated. “Do you have any idea how many messages I’m fielding? Constant contact from donors and families telling me to shut the university down, to call in investigators from the Council, or to expel a quarter of the student body. Vesperwood’s status as a functioning, independent university is hanging by a thread.”
“All the more reason to haul the ward-keepers in and get some answers.”
“And how do you propose to do that without the entire school finding out?”
“Who cares if they find out? If one of them is working for Argus—hell, maybe more than one—then what matters is stopping them, not keeping it a secret. Bring them in, hold them for a while, and use a little force.”
