"Shit," Liam breathed. "Brack..."
"I'm fine in the gym, and we can lock the doors."
"And her?" Liam hissed, gesturing to me. "Do you think she'll stay inside?"
"No, I won't," I told them. "I am the reason they keep leaving! My shadows can chase them off."
"But you need power," Aspen reminded me.
"I'm learning," Keir assured her. "Torian's given me a few ideas."
"But you," Torian told her, "need to stay inside. No classes out there, Ms. Rhodes."
"Not until we find this thing," she swore. "I will not lose another student. Torian Hunt, I gave you my word. I will do everything in my power to keep your sister safe."
"Thendosomething!" he snapped. "Or I will."
"Or both," I said, looking over to my dads. "Zez, I don't know how you can find one of these things, but I know the human way: we look. And I will look and look and look until it is found, so unless you want me out there every chance I can get, you will help me find it!"
"I will do that anyway," he said. "Rain, we don't know it's outside."
"Where else could it be?" I asked.
"Anywhere on these grounds," Ms. Rhodes said. "That includes this entire building. If Harper stopped to see a friend..."
"Well..." I stopped myself before cursing in front of the headmistress.
"Fuck is the word you want," she said. "We have an agreement, Rain. It is different from theirs, but just as binding to me. When your problems are the adult kind, I see no reason the language should not match."
"Good," I said, pushing to my feet, "because I think we have some fucking work to do." And I turned for the door.
That my friends followed felt good. The reason why didn't, but I was now a girl on a mission. And yet, just as I started to feel overwhelmed, I lifted my arm. Jack immediately landed, proving he would always have my back - just like the court did.
Chapter Fifty-Three
RAIN
The six of us piled into Aspen's room to come up with a plan. Clearly, Nevaeh hadn't been lying to us. Twice, Torian said that out loud, almost as if trying to remind himself it was even possible. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to even start looking for some vague symbol of some vague thing that would definitively call the Hunt down on my girlfriend.
Torian had ideas, though. Wilder had been told stories of such things placed around the Winter Palace before he'd come here. They were typically made of a natural material, like wood or cloth. Often, some kind of revulsion or invisibility enchantment was put on them - which I should be immune to. Always, they were written in Faeril of some kind. High Faeril was what Wilder had been told about. Hawke realized he'd seen things written in low Faeril, or the common version of their language, but hadn't realized what they were - although, if they were Hunt signs, that made more sense.
Me? I felt like I was watching a tennis match as my head bounced back and forth between the speakers. Eventually, Aspen's phone beeped with a warning curfew was coming. The guys headed back to their side of the building. Aspen and I kept talking, but she was as ignorant of these things as I was. She'd been little when she'd left and didn't remember such things. Flowers, though, she remembered clearly.
The next morning, I woke to a male voice whispering softly. I couldn'tmake out the words, so I opened my eyes as I rolled toward the sound. Torian stood on Aspen's side of my bed, crouched down so his face was level with his sister's, and his words were not in English.
They were beautiful, though. Beside him, Glow was unfurled completely, acting as if the very sound of Torian's voice was the nutrient it needed. Then I heard Aspen reply in the same language. Clearly, it was one I needed to learn. Well, in my spare time, if I could find any.
"Does this mean you found something?" I asked.
Torian's head snapped up. Those eerie green eyes of his held mine for a long moment, and then he did the last thing I expected. The guy smiled.
"Something, yeah. Sadly, I found approximately a thousand items on the Silver Oaks campus with the right magical signature to be what Ms. Rhodes described."
"But he said some are in houses," Aspen said, rolling onto her back so she could see me.
I nodded, thinking about that. "Doesn't really rule them out, does it?"
"Sadly, no," Torian admitted. "With Aspen showing Winter magic, there are a lot of people who'd gladly ignore it if she vanished. Same for Wilder."
