I take an angry step toward her before Raul catches my shoulder.
“I suggest you listen,” he says in a low, deep voice.
I decide to humor him, and so I step back. I cross my arms, making a point not to look at Allura directly.
“Fine,” I announce, putting on a bored expression.
The witches turn away. They start to concentrate. I try to catch Raul’s eye, but he is wholly focused on what they’re doing.
Irritation bubbles inside me. I do not like, at all, how the witch dismisses my remark. The hierarchy still rules us, after all.
After a few minutes of unremarkable silence, and no change in the witches’ demeanor, my patience runs out.
“Enough of this,” I snarl, striding forward. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
Allura hisses in annoyance. “There’s a very powerful magic at work here,” she says. “The weaves are inverted, so should be impossible to see or sense, but the currents being used are so strong…”
I burst out laughing. Immediately, a look of indignation passes over her face.
I think, for a moment, that her cheeks become a touch red.
“Well of course there’s magic!” I exclaim. “This is the edge of The Haven. Raul, you should have recognized it. This is where the wards Eleira erected begin!”
I stride between the witches, then make a grand show of stepping past their invisible line.
The moment I do, all three gasp. I don’t notice anything remarkable, so I just turn, very slowly, and step back.
All three of my fledglings have their mouths hanging open.
“What?” I say. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“When you did that…” Sute responds, “When you took that step, you were transported many miles away.”
I frown. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m right here.”
She shakes her head, then shares an inscrutable look with her sisters.
“There’s a fold,” she explains softly. “In the very fabric of space. We are acutely sensitive to such things. It exists at the edge of the magic we found.”
“Well, those are the damn wards!” I say. “Seriously.” I glance at Raul, who is coldly silent. “These are the wards, Sute, the ones that Eleira put up. It’s not exactly something incredible.”
“Oh, but it is,” she whispers. “To fold space in on itself so very deftly, to be able to do it without an imperfection anywhere, not a single artifact… it takes sublime amounts of power. More than the three of us have combined. More than should rightly be able to be used on this Earth.”
“You hear that, Raul?” I mock. “Your beloved is supremely powerful.”
“Quiet!” he snaps. By the dark look in his eyes, I can see I’ve struck a nerve.
“The wards are not entirely Eleira’s doing,” he tells the witches. “Our mother made them before.”
“Impossible,” Lorne says. “There could not have been two witches in the history of the world to do something like this. It is power granted only once in a planet’s life cycle.”
I whistle obnoxiously. “So Eleira is the most powerful witch who’s ever lived?”
“It appears so,” Lorne says, fully serious.
I can’t help myself. I laugh again.
“Come on,” I say. “We know you three. We know Cierra. All of you are stronger than the girl. Besides—she’s had access to a great torrial.”
At the sound of that all their eyes light up.
“A torrial?” Allura asks.
“Mother had a crystal throne,” I explain indifferently. “It bound her to The Haven. That is why she was so desperate for a successor. She wanted to free herself from those shackles, because she knew she had served her time.”
The witches do that infuriating secret look amongst themselves again.
“If this is true…” Allura intones. “…then we made the right choice coming here. We had no idea when we made the deal with Mor—”
She cuts off, stopping just short of saying my mother’s name.
That makes me curious.
She motions at me and Raul. “So, go on, then. Lead us inside.”
Raul nods and starts off in a different direction.
“Eleira told me,” he begins, “that there are a series of points around the wards where we can make our entrance. Access points, as it were.” He comes to a stop by a great big stump. “This is one.”
We all gather around him. I was not privileged enough to be granted the information about the location of the points.
Raul stands there, sure and confident of himself.
The rest of us wait.
After a few minutes I clear my throat. “What’s the holdup?”
He gives me a nasty look. “Just be patient.”
We all wait for a few more minutes. When nothing happens, I growl in annoyance.
“Seriously, what’s taking so long?”
Raul hesitates, showing the first sign of confusion I’ve yet seen.
“Isn’t there something you’re supposed to do, some incantation you have to say, some way of alerting the Queen of our arrival?”
“Eleira told me that she will know we’re here and reveal the entrance to us.”
“Well, we’re here,” I say, kicking at the dirt. “And no entrance.”
“Just give her some time, will you?” he snarls. “The way we left things, I’m sure she has more pressing issues to think about than granting us entrance right away.”
I narrow my eyes. I’m not sure, but I think I detect a trace of fear in his voice.
“Well, since I cannot use my own magic anymore, I’m of no use.” I bugger off and lean against a tree. “We’re all waiting on you, Raul.”
“She’ll come,” he forces out. “Trust me, she’ll come.”
But the way he unconsciously hitches his shoulders betrays his doubt.
Chapter Seventeen
James
In The Crusaders’ Facility.
I stand with my arms crossed as Paul prepares the apparatus that will apparently be able to block the Currents.
Victoria looks just as skeptical as I am. Her body language almost mirrors my own.
Paul has found two black obsidian orbs. He’s placed one of them in some sort of machine that he says will activate its power. Victoria asked him if it was a torrial. He just laughed and shook his head.
For the last half hour he’s been tapping away at the computer that is linked to the machine, preparing whatever it is he needs to prepare.
I look over at Paolo. He has a permanent scowl fixed on his face. I don’t blame him. If I were forced to stand idly by while the man responsible for the deaths of my friends walked free, I would not be able to have anywhere near his level of self-control.
April hangs on half a foot behind him, deferring to him as she used to do for me.
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
My patience is wearing thin. “How much longer?” I demand.
Paul answers without looking up. “I’m almost done. The program has to be adjusted for the exact parameters of this place.”
“And what does this program do, exactly?”
Absently he gestures at the obsidian orb in the machine. “It will laser a precise set of runes over the stone. Those runes will be activated when the other stone is placed in an exact location across from it. Together, the obsidian stones will react, and create something like a force field that the Elemental Forces cannot penetrate.”
Victoria sniffs. She obviously does not expect the experiment to work.
“But like I said,” Paul continues, “the runes carved into the stone must be specific to the location. You cannot simply take the orbs elsewhere and erect the same sort of force field. This is just a demonstration,” he glances up and locks eyes with me, “to show you what’s possible.”
“Fine,” I shake my head. “If this helps against Cierra, I am willing to wait.”
I wander off to Paulo and April. I look the pack vampire up and down. I can feel his distaste for Paul emanating off him like noxious fumes.
“I’d like a word with the girl,” I say.
He doesn’t move right away, instead giving me the same once-over.
Then he nods. “Go easy on her,” he says to me under his breath. “She’s been through a lot.”
I definitely feel the protectiveness in his tone.