Spirit Prophecy (The Gateway Trilogy Book 2) (45 page)

I took a deep breath. I half-wished Fiona was here to oversee this, to make sure I was doing it right, but she’d probably just yell at me and rip up the results anyway.

“Ready?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Milo said. “I don’t really know how to do this.”

“Neither do I,” I admitted. “Anytime it has happened before, I wasn’t even aware of it. But Fiona said that the harder you concentrate on sending the image and the more I concentrate on receiving it, the better the odds that I’ll get something on paper.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” Milo said.

I closed my eyes and rested the tip of the charcoal pencil on the paper. Then I cleared my mind and tried to reach out beyond myself to where Milo was, opening myself to him and what he wanted to show me.

The next thing I knew, the pencil dropped from my hand which was cramped into a fist. I clutched at the seizing muscles and tried to pull my fingers straight.

“Jess! Are you okay?”

I groaned, massaging my hand. “It worked didn’t it?” I asked. “Damn it, that hurts!”

“That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!” Milo said. “Your hand was moving so fast it was a blur! Don’t you remember doing it?”

“Not a stroke,” I said, looking around on the floor now for the result. My eyes fell on the paper to my right and I gasped.

“Neil!”

It was Neil Caddigan, there was absolutely no doubt. He stared up at me with his cold, pale eyes from the floor as if he were looking up through a window. His expression was hungry and fierce, so unlike any expression I’d ever seen him wear in life, when he’d appeared so calm, so scholarly.

“Do you know him?” Hannah asked, stunned.

“Yes,” I breathed. "This is the guy I’ve been trying to get in touch with, the team member I told you was from England. And he was walking in to Pierce’s office on the last day I saw him, the last day anyone saw him.”

“What is that symbol there on his shirt?” Hannah asked sharply.

I followed her gaze below Neil’s face to a small insignia near his throat.

“It wasn’t on the shirt, it was a pin or something,” Milo said.

I stared at it. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The symbol looked like an archway with a ring encircling both sides of the threshold.

“The Necromancers,” Hannah whispered. “It’s the symbol of the Necromancers. I recognize it from class. And it’s on the books and cloaks they have stored in the archive in the basement.”

I stared at it again. She was right. My head swam and my stomach heaved. I closed my eyes and put my head down between my legs. Neil Caddigan was a Necromancer, and he had found me. He had tried to kill me. And if he had been the last one to see Pierce alive…“I’m going to be sick.”

I jumped up and ran across the hall to the bathroom. I skidded to my knees in front of the toilet and was violently ill, retching and heaving until there was nothing left in me but crippling fear and worry.

“They’re supposed to be gone,” I said. “They’re supposed to be dead and gone. Why are they suddenly back again, and what would they want with us?”

Hannah knelt behind me, stroking my hair. “I don’t know. Jess, we have to tell someone.”

“Who? Who do we tell? No one’s going to believe us, and even if they did, what can they do?”

“They can use their resources. They can help you find Pierce. They know so much more about the Necromancers than we do, they might be able to help. And they’ll want to protect us, Jess. If the Necromancers are really back then they need to know.”

“I can’t think,” I said. “I can’t think, I need to sleep,” I said. “We can talk about it later. We need to be careful who we talk to, and I don’t want to do anything rash.”

“Half the Durupinen in this place already want you both out of here,” Milo said. “If they know the Necromancers are after you, they might throw you to the wolves just to protect themselves.”

“They would never do that,” Hannah said harshly. Milo shrugged but looked unconvinced. “So far I haven’t seen a lot of loyalty in this happy little sisterhood, especially toward you.”

“I need to lie down. I need to sleep,” I repeated.

“It’ll be okay, Jess. It will be okay,” Hannah intoned, still stroking my hair.

But she couldn’t know that. Nobody could.

My dreams that night had one, disturbing difference. The Silent Child stood where she always stood, before the wall of flames. But now a second figure stood beside her, his hand resting on her shoulder, a malicious smile narrowing his pale, silvery eyes.

MARION, IT SEEMED, DIDN’T WANT THE OTHER APPRENTICES to know about our adventure, because I received not a gawk or a glare from any of the other girls the next day. I could not have cared less either way. I had far too much on my mind to give even the slightest of damns what Peyton or anyone else thought of my behavior. There were much bigger, more dangerous problems to deal with now.

When Savvy saw us at breakfast the next day, I decided to fill her in. She was a part of this now, whether she wanted to be or not, because Neil had seen her with me. I decided she had to know the details, so that she didn’t try to go sneaking out on her own again.

She listened to everything I had to say with an uncharacteristically serious look on her face, and when I was finished, she said, “Damn, Jess. If I knew you were going to be this much trouble, I’d have jumped in someone else’s shower that first day.”

“I’m sorry, Sav,” I said. “I had no idea any of this was going to —”

She held up a hand. “I know that. Stop apologizing. You’re my mate, and if it weren’t for you and your sister, I’d have never lasted here as long as I have. Mates stick together, whatever, you got me? Now is there anything I can do to help?”

I blew out a long, slow breath. “I don’t think so. Well, yeah, you can stop sneaking out while Neil is still out there looking for us. Just lay low here and keep safe.”

Savvy rolled her eyes. “Suppose I’ll have to. I don’t fancy another run in with that car. I don’t think we’d be lucky enough to walk away from it twice. Anyway, plenty here to keep us busy.” She handed me a slip of paper in Marion’s handwriting. “That’s your punishment. Two weeks of cleaning and restoring the artwork every night with Fiona. That ought to be a barrel of laughs.”

I groaned. “I barely survive one class a week with that woman. Every night for two weeks? That’s going to be a nightmare. When am I going to get my work done?”

“No idea, but if you figure it out, let me know, will you? I’ll be trapped in the library, filing and stacking books,” Savvy said.

Savvy could whine and moan all she liked, but I had no doubt my punishment was worse than hers, and that Marion had taken great pleasure in ensuring it was cruel and unusual.

“I was just thinking, if this Necromancer guy is trying to kill you, it doesn’t look good for your professor mate, does it?”

“No,” I said, “it doesn’t.”

§

That afternoon, on my way to my first torture session with Fiona, I spotted Finn on the grounds. He was standing shin-deep in a hole in the ground, heaving large shovelfuls of earth onto a pile in the grass nearby. Just behind him was one of Fairhaven’s beautiful fountains, this one depicting a woman in Grecian robes carrying a pitcher of water on her shoulder. Coming to a spur-of-the-moment decision, I walked toward him until I stood on the very edge of the ditch. I waited for him to notice me, but he didn’t look up, so I cleared my throat.

“Hi,” I said tentatively.

He said nothing with the exception of a grunt that could have been directed at me, but could also have been a direct result of the physical exertion of digging.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Tired,” he said, wiping his shining forehead and smearing it with dirt in the process.

“No, I mean, after the accident. Were you hurt?”

“Mild concussion, a sprained ankle, and a few stitches. It should have been a lot worse,” he said.

“Good,” I said. His head snapped up and he glared at me, so I clarified. “I mean, it’s good that you weren’t badly injured. I was really worried there for a few minutes, before I got you out of the car.”

He shrugged, as though he didn’t want to dwell on the memory. I looked down at his callused, work-blackened hands. I must have imagined how soft his touch had been on my cheek. Those hands couldn’t possibly have been so gentle.

“I’m fine, too. Not even any stitches,” I said after a few moments of ringing silence.

“I know,” he said.

“You know?”

“I went to Mrs. Mistlemoore in the infirmary for a full report on your injuries,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Right.”

“It was the most direct means of ascertaining your physical condition,” he said, stiffly.

I just nodded. It did not escape me that it was also the best way to get the information without having to interact with me.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he said as he heaved a shovelful of dirt onto the growing pile. “I’m digging. If you’re wondering where to find me for the foreseeable future, I’ll be right here —digging.”

“Is this your punishment for the car?”

“No, this is my punishment for leaving the premises without alerting a superior to my decision. Those,” he pointed to a wheelbarrow full of large square stones, “are my punishment for the car.”

“Oh,” I said. “I…did you get in a lot of trouble?”

He looked at me, and then pointedly at the wheelbarrow. “There are six more of those behind the shed when I’ve finished with these. So yes, I think it’s fair to say that I am in a lot of trouble.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Save it.”

“Save it for what?” I asked.

“For someone who gives a damn,” he said. He raked a filthy arm across his face, depositing much more dirt than he wiped away. “I tried that, and it’s only ever turned around and bitten me in the ass, so I’m done.”

“But I think you do give a damn,” I said quietly.

He didn’t answer, and merely continued to dig.

“Just stop that for a minute and listen to me, would you?” I said, wrenching the shovel from his grip and tossing it to the ground, where it clattered loudly on the gravel walk.

“Give that back to me.”

“No.”

“Give it to me before someone sees that I’m not working anymore and I wind up with another ditch to dig.”

“Not until you stop and listen to what I have to say.”

He glared at me, and for a moment I thought he might lash out, but instead he shook his head and sat, grudgingly, on the fountain’s edge, looking out over the lawns.

“I know that you didn’t have to lie to them. I know you had no good reason to do what I asked you to do, because I didn’t give you one. So why did you do it?”

He still wouldn’t look at me, but instead just stared intently at his fingernails as he picked, picked, picked at the dirt from under them.

“I don’t know. I still don’t really know. I was going to tell them everything, and then I just … didn’t. I still can’t explain it to myself, and now I wish I hadn’t done it.”

“I kept telling you that you needed to trust me, but I had no right to ask that of you. Trust has to be earned, and I haven’t been nearly honest enough with you to earn it.”

He stopped picking at his nails and sat very still. I took this as a hopeful sign that he wasn’t completely ignoring me and went on.

“I know we haven’t gotten along. I don’t know why we can’t just suck it up and coexist. Maybe we’re both too stubborn to depend on someone. I know I am. I hate depending on people, probably because I could only depend on myself for most of my life. Self-reliance is kind of my thing. And now I’m here, trying to figure out what the hell is happening with my life, and almost everyone is awful to us, and all I want to do is go home.”

I chanced a glance at his face, but he still wasn’t looking at me. I still couldn’t tell for sure if he was listening. I looked away again, watching the water bubbling from the woman’s pitcher, tumbling over itself in a rush to reach the pool below.

“I’m trying my best, but it’s hard to commit to something that tore apart my family and ruined my life. I’m trying to buy into the idea that this is my duty, but I can’t help feeling like the Durupinen owe a hell of a lot more to me than I owe to them. So in the end, I’m not here for the clan or the Council or whatever other bullshit. I’m here for the spirits, because I’ve seen what can happen to them if we aren’t here to help. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this,” I said with a bitter laugh. “You grew up in the middle of all this Durupinen stuff; it probably just feels like second nature to you.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I grew up in the middle of it, all right — every minute of every day. Believe me, that comes with its own set of problems.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. But still, you lied to them. You could have told them about the guy who was chasing us, but you didn’t. I can’t imagine what reason of your own you would have to do that, so I can only assume you did it because I asked you to.”