Page 84 of Rejected Moons (Rejected Moons 3)

He eases Emlyn down slowly onto her feet. She’s holding onto his arm for balance, but she seems a little stronger, and I think she must be remembering the healing magic I taught her.

She looks over at the wolf who used to be her packmate.

“You should go,” she says quietly. “We don’t want to kill you. But that doesn’t mean we won’t do it.” And she looks meaningfully at the one lying dead on the ground.

He looks from her to Nate to me.

Then he spins around and runs off into the forest.

Nate approaches the chasm and looks down into it. “Damn,” he says. “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I don’t think we’re dealing with an earthquake.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think this was magic,” I say.

Chapter Fifty-five: NATE

IburyEmlyn’salphain the woods a few yards away from the place where we fought. I don’t want to make her do it. He might have wanted to kill her, but he’s still someone she was close to.

When I get back, she and Milo are studying the crack in the ground on hands and knees. I watch as Em picks up a rock and drops it down.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Quiet,” Emlyn says. “I can’t hear with you talking.”

“What are you trying to hear?”

“Just be quiet,” she says. She picks up another rock and drops it.

I’m quiet this time.

Several long seconds later, I hear a clatter. It sounds like it’s coming from a long way away.

“They’re definitely dead,” Milo said. “No one could have survived a fall like that.”

“You’re sure?” Emlyn asks.

“Yeah,” he says.

“I don’t get it,” I admit. “You said this was magic?”

Milo points down at it. “Look at the mist,” he says. “That’s not natural. Why would there be mist underground?”

“But you didn’t do it?”

“No,” he says. “This is elemental magic. That’s seriously advanced stuff. I only know how to do the things children can do.”

“Andyoudidn’t do it,” I say to Emlyn.

“Definitely not,” she says. “Unless there’s some way I could have done it without realizing it.”

“No,” Milo says. “You were using magic during the battle though, weren’t you?”

“Healing magic,” she says. “I used it to keep Victor from shifting. Shifting is maiming the body, in a way. Your bones have to leave their natural alignment. I used healing magic to hold him together in the form he was in, so he couldn’t take his wolf form.”

“I never thought of that,” Milo says. He sounds impressed. “You just came up with that?”

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