Page 80 of Gift from the Source
I jump into telling them all what’s been going on since I shadowed off in a fit from the mansion. Before I can even finish my story, the impatient-ass dragon snatches my book off the ottoman.
“Draken,” I warn.
“It’s a barrier spell mixed in with an enchantment. Like a double block, shadow man,” he says so nonchalantly I grit my teeth.
“Excuse me?”
“You gotta find your way around the barrier, then untangle the web. Duh.” He snorts.
I attempt to get up from my seat to punch him and his smile falls.
“Easy,” my Primary coos like I’m a child.
“Everyone out,” I bark.
“You just called us—”
“Well, now I want you all out,” I say, cutting Corentin off.
He huffs, but Tillman, the ever-fucking understanding, placing a hand on his and Draken’s shoulder, then steers them toward the door. A pair of warm lips kiss my temple, and I latch my hand onto her thigh.
“Not you.”
As my door shuts, I release a heavy, annoyed breath and Willow chuckles softly.
“Don’t get so upset with Draken. His senses are growing, and his communal knowledge is coming in rapidly. He doesn’t even notice it half the time,” she says.
“Doesn’t notice it or is ignoring it?”
“A little of both, I believe. I’ve never been one to get in the middle of any of your disagreements, but this time, I think you should look from adifferent perspective before you get so angry with him. He needs your help, not anger,” she says so gently, it immediately douses my ire.
As much as he drives me mad sometimes, I’d never hurt him purposely.
“Go on then, Primary.”
“I think these changes are scary for him. For most of his life, he’s felt beneath all of you despite none of you treating him differently for him having the ability to shift into a dragon. You were all raised with information at your fingertips. It’s foreign for him to know things that he can’t explain, especially like just now when he knows them before even you. Our communal knowledge comes freely. It isn’t something we have to search our memories for. So when something just comes to him, he doesn’t have a way to tell you how he knows it, he just does. It’s his new natural, normal.”
My chest pinches at the thought of him feeling beneath us. I’ve always said that the dragon is far smarter than he even believes and now, my words are coming true for everyone else to see. I may give him a hard time, but I’ve always seen the depth of my little brother. And if now it’s his turn to help and teach me, I’ll listen to him.
My mind drifts back to the moment when she was commanding her blood into the pocket dimension and Keeper’s language was floating through the air. Draken just knew what was being said.
“I’ll do better. I promise. You know, he told me he’d teach me the language of the Keep. It’d be his and my secret,” I say, chuckling at her mocking gasp.
“A secret without me? I don’t like it.” She laughs and I pull her into my lap. “Good thing Vince is teaching him how to…well, teach. Just keep your cool with him while he learns.”
She’s right when she said she usually stays out of our disagreements, but if she feels this need right now to defend him like this, then she’s truly worried.
“I will, Primary.”
“Good. Now a barrier spell and an enchantment. What’s the difference in a barrier compared to a ward or any other sort of concealment?” she asks, getting us back on track because she knows I’m itching to figure this out.
“It’s exactly what it’s called. A barrier spell is like an object placed in your way. You must maneuver around it without setting off the alarm, so to speak. After my kidnapping, my mother had placed detection and tracking spells on me. One of those was a barrier spell to know if I…”
My words fade out as my mind runs wild.
The barrier spell she placed was to set an alarm if I ventured too far into the forest I was kidnapped from. There was also one placed around the academy and the mansion. I felt suffocated until Uncle Orien and Gaster taught me how to use my shadows to evade it.
“He was truly a genius,” I whisper, moving Willow off my lap and sitting her beside me.
