Page 122 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“No.”
“Then what’s the use in asking?”
“I figured you’d used some sort of magick to torture the answer out of me,” I admitted.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Blue.” His heavy eyebrows furrowed over his eyes.
“No, you just want to ruin my life by keeping me here.”
Ciarán smirked and stood as he raised his hands out to his sides.
“Guilty.” He stalked over the Skalspring to replace the bottle he’d left under the steady trickle of pale blue liquid with an empty container. “You should consider yourself lucky. There are worse places to be held captive.”
“Oh, yes. I’m overflowing with gratitude to be trapped in a leaky, old outpost,” I snarled.
“This leaky, old outpost is one of the oldest buildings in all of Skalterra.” He sat down next to the Skal pool to organize his bottles. “The style comes straight from Keldori itself. I think they called it Romanesque. Does it remind you of home?”
I exhaled heavily through my nose, searching for patience I knew wasn’t there. Iseult’s warning to not tell anyone in Skalterra about Keldori was fresh on my mind.
“Definitely. Nothing says ‘home sweet home’ like a dilapidated stone shed.”
“Perfect. Then you should be plenty comfortable.” He settled into the floor by his line of bottles and pulled his pack closer to use as a pillow.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, once again struggling against the Skal that kept my wrists bound together. “You can’t go to sleep!”
“You keep telling me what I can’t do,” he rolled over so his back was to me, “but I’m not the one tied to a post. Making all those Nightmares wasn’t easy, and your friends won’t make it far. They’ll be easy to track, so I might as well take a nap.”
“But my interview—”
“Is not my priority, Blue.”
Outside the door to my right, I could see the lightening horizon. The stars that shined through the holes in the roof seemed dimmer than before. Dawn was coming. My interview was in a few hours.
Ratting out Linsey to get a better grade point average would be for nothing. Spending a night alone in the woods would be for nothing. Mom going viral on the internet for punting Mrs. Harper’s lawn ornaments into oblivion would be for nothing.
Everything would be for nothing.
I had to get into Von Leer.
“I’ve worked too hard for this!” I tried to kick a bit of potato from his spilt soup at him. It rolled a pitiful few feet before becoming lodged in a bit of moss.
“I’ve worked hard for this too,” Ciarán said, his back still to me. “I just happened to be the one who landed on top.”
I wanted to scream and thrash against the Skal that held my wrists together behind the column at my back. I wanted to kick my boot across the room and watch it smack Ciarán in the back of his head. I wanted to pull this stupid Romanesque outpost down stone by stone and take us both down with it.
But instead, I settled against my column and shook out my elbows to keep circulation moving through my shoulders. The sun wasn’t completely up yet. I wasn’t sure how daylight here correlated with daylight at home, but I had to have at least a few hours before Von Leer would call me. Screaming and melting down wouldn’t help me. It would only give Ciarán something to laugh at.
I tested the Skal around my wrists again, but it continued to hold strong even as its creator drifted to sleep across the room from me. It burned against my skin just enough to hurt, but not enough to cut into me, otherwise I happily would’ve sacrificed a severed hand to escape.
The column at my back felt sturdy too. I pushed against it, hoping it might crumble, but it stayed frustratingly upright.
My fingernails dug into the skin of my palms. Maybe being patient wasn’t the answer. Maybe Ishouldscream until the Grimguard became so annoyed that he released me.
His shoulders rose and fell in time with his steady breathing. He’d fallen asleep quickly. Maybe creating all those Nightmares had taken more out of him than I’d realized. I chewed on the inside of my cheek.
He might not feel me try to draw his Skalmagick away when he was asleep.
I took a steadying breath and straightened up against my column. I siphoned away as little as possible, drawing it down our bond and feeling it tickle my fingertips. It felt different from Galahad’s magick. Even though I’d only taken a little bit, there was something electric about it that made my extremities feel lighter.
