Page 41 of The Holy Academy of Witches

“How did you find me, Sage? A vision?” He asked, stepping closer.

“No… well, not really. I just looked, through the bond. It didn’t show me you though, just the bar.”

“Have you been there before?”

“No, I just… I couldfeelit. After I saw it, I just kind of knew.”

He nodded, “I didn’t get into any fight, although I was pretty pissed at my drummer, we got into a bit of an argument. Maybe it was the anger?” He looked at me for verification.

“Yeah, maybe” I agreed.

“Sounds like we should do some research.” He muttered.

“Discreetly?” I asked, my voice rising out of fear.

“Discreetly,” he agreed. His smile was smaller as he picked up the long wool overcoat from earlier and the map ball fell to the ground. He picked it up and unfurled it before bursting into laughter. “You really got out a protractor for my hand drawn map?” He chuckled.

“You really forgot to map an entire body of water?” I replied, crossing my arms.

“I didn’t think the stream was important to the land bound rendezvous!”

“You said I could use any mode of transportation but took away an entire mode of travel with that assumption.” I threw back.

He rolled his eyes looking back to the map with pursed lips. He noted each mark of red with a nod before carefully folding it back up and placing it in his breast pocket. He looked pointedly at my lack of shoes before gesturing to the door.

“We have to go, come on.” His voice was reluctant, harder.

I groaned as I put on the shoes, muttering about greedy lakes stealing a girl’s favourite shoes, until they were secured.

As we walked outside, I noticed the stars were much brighter here, away from campus. Cillian steered me away from the shed as I walked there on auto pilot. I jerked my arm away, uncomfortable with the casual touch from him.

He raised his hands in apology before saying, “We have to walk the rest of the way, or use magic. I have a bit of a shortcut if you’ll trust me enough to know the way, Miss Cartographer?”

“And what kind of shortcut is that?” I asked looking around for some sort of self powered hang glider or equally ridiculous millionaire contraption. I looked back and saw a tree bending in half till Cillian could grab a branch.

“You coming?” He asked.

Ignoring his hand, I took a running jump onto the limb above him, “Well you gonna sit around all day?” We both laughed, holding onto our respective branches as the tree righted itself. As we climbed to the canopy I saw a network of branches and twigs woven into one road that cut across the entire forest. I’d known he was skilled, but I’d never heard of anyone doing anything like this.

“This is mine. It’s secret, more so than the music thing, but… I figure it’s still less likely to get me killed than yours. And it’s a nice shortcut from my place through the anti-apparition wards.”

“Why not just apparate to the border and walk from there?”

“That’s what I did when I came here, but it feels impolite to leave you to your own devices after you came all the way to save me.”

Well that was weirdly thoughtful, and explained why he hadn’t enforced an oath to not talk about his cabin, or the band, and now this odd tree-ish boardwalk. Why would he be worried abouthissecrets when he owned mine? Basically ownedme,with the bond and the knowledge I’d spilled to protect Theo.

“So who knows about the music thing?” I asked.

“Adeline… The locals of course, a few students at the school that shag the locals, my parents certainly, though they don’t say anything as I’m doing so well academically.”

“Okay, what about the cabin?”

“Just you.”

“The tree road?” I questioned.

“You again.”

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