Page 101 of Graevale
… Or that shewantedto win.
It was because of her uncertainty that Alex remained silent, choosing instead to shake off her lingering embarrassment and trust that Kaiden would give her the space and time she needed. She settled in at his side, bracing for what the future might bring while listening to his calming chatter as together they sought out their teacher.
If Alex thought her strange tasks with Athora would start to seem more purposeful when she began working with Kaiden, she soon found out that she was wrong. Instead of jumping rope on her own, she jumped rope with Kaiden. Instead of juggling various objects for hours on her own, she juggled with Kaiden. Instead of learning how to caramelise the perfect soufflé, she… well, she failed that task, since she hadn’t lied about her limited baking skills, but she got to watch Kaiden complete it—as well as enjoy the delicious results afterwards.
The mindless and downright bizarre tasks Athora set them gave Alex not only the chance to get to know Kaiden much better, but also to experience the Library on a deeper level than ever before. From swimming through underwater rooms, to floating in spaces with zero gravity like the ChemTech facility she’d once broken into, Alex was reminded over and over that there were no limits to what the Library might offer. Other times the rooms themselves were normal but contained mysterious additions—such as hot coals for them to walk across, but they were only hot when theythoughtthey were hot, with the point being that what their minds conceived, they created. The only way Alex managed to make it across unburned was by keeping her eyes closed and acting like she was walking on normal-temperatured rocks. Athora, however, made her go back and do it again until she could cross with her eyes open and not get burned.
Throughout it all, Kaiden remained at her side. He never questioned Athora, which made Alex wonder how he’d trained with the mysterious man for years without losing his mind. When she asked him on their walk back to the dorms on Tuesday night, he simply said the alternative wasn’t worth the risk just to assuage his curiosity. When put like that, Alex understood completely.
On Wednesday night there was a change to their routine, since after they finished, Athora told Alex that her parents had been asking for her.
Who, exactly, they’d been asking, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t willing to question her intimidating instructor in case he considered that as her breaking the rules, and instead she merely thanked him for passing along the message.
Now that Alex and Kaiden were training together, he usually hitched a ride with her down to the cavern and back up again. But after hearing about her parents, Alex thought it best if Athora returned Kaiden to the foyer that night so she could go and check in on her family and make sure they hadn’t accidentally raised a mummified priest to life.
The problem was, just as she was about to make her request, Athora disappeared.
“So, your parents, huh?” Kaiden asked, his curiosity evident. “You brought them over from Freya with you?”
Alex gave a helpless shrug and said, “They kind of panicked after realising I’d been missing for eight months my first year here, back when I didn’t know I could open doorways between worlds.” That felt like a lifetime ago to her now. “I wasn’t able to come up with a reasonable excuse, so I told them the truth about Akarnae and Medora. To avoid being locked up in a psych ward, I brought them here and Darrius explained everything. They’re archaeologists—people who study ancient relics and artefacts—but they’re also intrepid explorers, so naturally, they decided they wanted to spend time in a whole new world. It’s the greatest adventure they’ve ever been on.”
Kaiden cocked his head to the side. “Is that safe for them? Considering everything between you and Aven?”
Alex sent him a small smile, touched by his concern. “I was worried about that too, but the Library has been very accommodating with providing a safe place for them. They’re having the time of their lives and they’ve never even left the building.”
Kaiden seemed both amused and disbelieving. “This I have to see.”
Alex looked at him, not following. Or perhaps, notwantingto follow. “Sorry?”
“Athora said they’ve been asking about you,” Kaiden reminded her unnecessarily. “I presume you’re about to go visit them. I’d like to come.”
Alex was shaking her head firmly before he even finished speaking. “No way.”
Now he just looked fully amused, all signs of disbelief gone. “Why not, Alex? You’re not nervous about introducing me to your parents, are you?”
Everything within her shifted into panic mode at the very idea. “My friends haven’t even met them yet. Only Darrius.”
“Then I’m sure they’ll enjoy some fresh company. Unless…” He sent her a challenging look. “Is there a reason you don’t want them to meet me? A reason, like, say, worrying they’ll get the wrong idea about us?”
Refusing to let him see how much his words were affecting her, Alex lifted her chin and blatantly lied, “Of course I’m not worried.”
To prove her false words true, Alex summoned a doorway right in the middle of the cavern that opened to the Ancient Egyptian environment.
“After you,” she told Kaiden, motioning with her hand for him to step through first and desperately hoping her parents would be deep within the bowels of the pyramid where they couldn’t be located.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, since after she and Kaiden battled the dry, sand-stinging winds to enter the ancient site, they happened upon her parents only a few chambers down from the entrance, right where Alex had last seen them. It looked like they were finishing up for the night, since they were packing away their tools and chatting about something unrelated to their work—a surprise in and of itself.
“… and then I said to him, ‘I don’t know about you, sir, but my wife thinks my beard makes me look—”
Alex cleared her throat loudly, not at all wanting to hear what her mother thought about her father’s facial hair.
Both Rachel and Jack looked up at her interruption, their faces brightening. Then their eyes flicked past her as Kaiden stepped into view, and if anything, their expressions became even more radiant.
“Jack, honey, look!” Rachel cried, as if her husband wasn’t standing right beside her. “Alex brought aboywith her!”
She made it sound like it was the most wonderful news in the world, like discovering that Christmas, Easter and her birthday would all be repeated back to back for the rest of her life.
“I didn’t reallybringhim,” Alex said even though she knew there was little point in attempting to explain that she’d allowed him to come under duress. “He just… decided to… tag along.”
