Page 88 of Serpent and Shadow

Slowly, my heart and lungs got back under control.

My chest and stomach hurt, but that was minor compared to what would have happened if I’d fallen.

I cautiously opened my eyes.

The Eyrie stood in sharp relief in my direct line of sight, a shadowy finger reaching high above the cliff face overlooking the valley. A nearly-full moon stood in the sky behind it, half-obscured in clouds, but bright enough to illuminate most of the valley. The clouds whispered by and it grew even brighter, until I could seen the moonlight reflecting on the snaking Faerie River.

I swallowed, and cautiously lifted my head.

I was on the roof of the north corridor of Malcroix Mansion.

I didn’t know if Bones had thrown me there deliberately, sending me back to where I’d started without realizing what that would mean, or if I’d done it to myself.

A gust of wind cut into my clothes, and I gasped at how cold it was, despite how much the days had been warming for the past few weeks.

From the position of the moon, it had to be late. It had only just risen when I’d looked out the east-facing window of the tower earlier that night.

I closed my eyes, and put my focus on the sun primal over my head.

Could you send the monocerus to see if anyone’s awake? I asked my primal. And if any of them might be willing to come get me?

There was a silence where I just hung there, from the top of the roof, panting.

I waited for my monocerus to reform out of blue and white particles.

It didn’t.

I waited a few minutes longer before I realized it wasn’t going to happen.

Could you send something up there? I asked.

That time, I felt my primal agree.

I’d scarcely completed the request when blue and white particles of magic swirled visibly in front of me. The magic clearly flowed down from the primal over my head, but I never saw what they became, or if they transformed into anything at all. The indefinite cloud of magic hovered right in front of where my hand gripped the top of the roof’s arch, and I felt a friendly, inquisitive, strangely intense presence there, seemingly looking at me.

Whatever it was, it felt different from how the monocerus usually felt.

“I know,” I told it, feeling a question, or maybe a comment there, despite the silence. My words got torn from my lips by the wind, but I could feel it hear me. “I know. I shouldn’t have come back alone. I’m not happy about it, either. But I couldn’t get him to come with me.” I clenched my jaw when my eyes stung. “Next time. Okay?”

The cloud just hovered there, silent.

Even so, I felt more meaning from it, and then I was fighting tears.

“I don’t know how,” I said. “I’ll think of something.”

The cloud pulsed with blue and green light.

“It’s not my fault,” I said, struggling against a closing in my throat.

I felt like I was lying, although I couldn’t decide if I was.

Whatever the truth of things, it one hundred percent felt like I was to blame.

Luc came to get me.

As it turned out, that cloud of blue light didn’t have to travel far to find my friends.

When they saw me disappear through the stone roof of the northwest corridor, Luc, Nyx, Alaric, and Jolie all opted to stay in Bones’s tower for the night, and wait for me to return.