Abandon: Book Three of the Forgotten Affinities Series

by Analeigh Ford

  Most of them are strangers to me, but two I recognize immediately; Dr. Fashu and the Ritual teacher. Alone, they are expected, but together…something about them doesn’t bode well. I had started to kind of like the short-haired, spunky Ritual Mage that replaced the old one. But if she’s the type to keep company with Fashu, then I must have misjudged her.

  “I told you we should be wary of this,” the Ritual teacher says, turning to Dr. Fashu. “When several of my students went missing, I told you the school was going to be their next target. As acting principal—”

  “As principal, it is my duty to make sure the school runs smoothly,” Dr. Fashu says through gritted teeth. His new role hasn’t suited him very well.

  I shouldn’t be glad, after all he’s probably ruined the school by now, but I am—simply for the sake that I believe the role of principal would be akin to Dr. Fashu’s own personal hell.

  “And part of that is sifting through the constant drone of you and the other teacher’s paranoia,” he adds, his voice thick with the warning not to blame him again.

  “Well this one obviously wasn’t just paranoia,” she snaps back.

  I wonder just how many students disappeared when Bram shut the compound down to keep anyone going in or out. Fear of The Underground must have spread. I imagine Acacia and Horatio haven’t been the only students to leave the school, if Dr. Fashu didn’t immediately make the connection.

  One of the other’s step up to break up the verbal altercation. It is another woman, this one both plain and powerful. Something about how she carries herself reminds me of Cedric’s father. She is more than old money, she is old power too.

  “The real question,” she says, “Is how they got past the protection spells.”

  One of her long fingers traces along the top of one of the pedestals, but there is no dust to sandwich between her fingers when she rubs them together. She squints up her eyes a bit, and I feel her gaze flicker past us as she scans the corners of the room.

  Dr. Fashu steps forward again. “That,” he says, “Is probably due to the girl.”

  I freeze. Took them all of thirty seconds to figure out I’m involved.

  “But why?” The Ritual teacher asks. She steps up too, this time her gaze locked on the last pedestal where the Spindle artifact was a moment earlier. I have to resist the urge to reach down to my ankle and scratch at a burning sensation now growing on my skin. I really hope this spell, whatever it is, doesn’t last long. I’m not sure how long my natural resistance will fight it, or what will happen when that resistance wears off. I don’t want to find out here.

  “The why doesn’t matter so much as how,” the unknown woman says. She steps back a bit, carefully. “If this is the doing of The Underground…then we have to be more careful.”

  “Of course it is the doing of The Underground,” Dr. Fashu says, his face growing red with rage and frustration. “If you had just appointed me to the tribunal as planned—”

  She stops him with a lazily raised hand. “There is a process for that,” she says, in a tone that ensures me she’s said it many times before. “Until then, your role here in the school is to protect the students and make sure their studies continue unhindered. I suggest you start thinking of how to prevent this in the future, and also…” she glances back at the pedestals and then to the dark, carved runes beneath, “How you plan on binding the next round of students that come in next year.”

  My gaze follows hers. Though they’ve reset to their original state, the runes beneath us once shifted at my initiation. I’d forgotten until now, but the omen they spelled out rings truer than ever.

  No more shall be bound by the circle here.

  But there isn’t much time to think on it. My own Psychic ability to hold our invisibility is waning. I can feel my power draining from my body faster than it should—doubtless thanks to the protection spell and the fact that I can’t draw from the only paired mage here with me—Flynn.

  If we could just crawl past them, without them noticing, and get to that tear…

  The woman, turns away from the pedestals and to the fourth person. He is small and young, quite likely a recent graduate from one of the other schools. I’m glad to see that Dr. Fashu did not bring his own assistant, Jessica, Flynn’s other unfortunately paired mage. If she were here, her blue brand would have already given us away.

  Then again, since she also isn’t getting along with Flynn, she probably doesn’t have any access to her Psychic Magic either. I wonder how long it’s going to be before Dr. Fashu finally gives up and disposes of her.

  For now, the woman just tells her assistant to contact someone with a name I don’t quite catch, and turns to run back up the stairs.

  But when he does, he spots something and freezes.

  I know immediately what it is that he sees.

  The tear can only be seen from a very particular angle, and it just happens to be exactly where he stands. While the woman and all the rest of them have already started to turn away, I watch as this stranger takes a faltering step toward the tear, his head cocking quizzically to the side.

  “Shit,” I whisper, then have to stop and hold my breath until I am sure no one’s heard me. Flynn nudges me, and though I can’t see him since he’s also covered by my shoddy invisibility, I do think I see a slight shift in the shadows I’ve tried to carefully paint beneath him.

  The assistant takes another step forward, his eyes trained on the tear between the planes that Flynn and I already should have gone through.

  “Hey there’s something—”

  And just as he says it, he reaches forward and is pulled through.

  13

  Octavia

  Now is our chance. In the flurry of chaos and shock that ensues, I try my best to keep the invisibility over Flynn and I as we dart from the room, but my main concern is just getting away. I don’t like to imagine what is happening to him there, on the other side, with Edgar.

  I’ve already seen what he’s willing to do to mages who are actually supposed to be there. After all, I’m sure he wasn’t assigned the task of guarding The Underground because of his famously good nature.

  As soon as the door shut behind us, I stop trying to pull the Psychic cloak over us. My breath is heaving more than it should, and although Flynn looks like the worst of the Psychic pain has passed—I can’t count on him to be able to help us escape now.

  I should be happy to be back in the academy, even by mistake, but all I feel is panic. If we are spotted, I’ll be recognized at once. There’s no way we can get from here to the divination room without being seen and recognized, even if we take every back stairway and least-traveled hallway. It just isn’t possible.

  Flynn has come to the same conclusion. He grabs one of my arms and pulls me into one of the small rooms connected to this antechamber. It’s small and mostly plain. It looks like it’s being used for storage until the next initiation ceremony.

  I put my back to the door and close my eyes a second, trying to catch my breath.

  “I don’t think I can hold invisibility like that on us for that long, so I will just have to save it for emergencies,” I say. It isn’t so much that the illusion itself is particularly draining, but rather than the protection spell is making it difficult for me to concentrate for any extended period.

  Flynn nods, and even though the lighting in here is dim, the look on his face isn’t quite right.

  “What is it?”

  He just avoids looking at me. “Nothing.”

  “Come on Flynn, if you’ve got something to say…now would be the time.” I pause a second and put one ear to the door. I think I might hear the Ritual Chamber opening, but I can’t be sure.

  “Use your Psychic ability to reach for their mind,” Flynn says.

  “Huh?” It takes me a second to realize what he means, but then I do. I’ve never reached out for a mind I didn’t know before, so it takes me a few seconds to focus my thoughts enough before I feel it working. It’s like re
aching my finger out into an unknown darkness—looking for something, but not sure what I will find.

  I think, for a second, that I feel something. But then, just as quickly, it slips away.

  I glance back over at Flynn and shake my head.

  “Then let’s go.”

  I reach out an arm to bar his exit. He’s stopped, one hand on the door, ready to leave. A couple seconds won’t hurt us. I think.

  “Not until you tell me what it is that’s bothering you.”

  He sighs a bit and steps back, taking the second to polish his glasses on the hem of his shirt before finally meeting my gaze.

  Sometimes, I forget how easy it is to get lost in those dark, dark irises of his.

  “Why aren’t you angry with me?”

  That is not what I expected. “Angry?” I start a second, and then stop. “You mean, about Jessica still?”

  “Yes. It was wrong of me. Unforgivable.”

  “I mean…do you want me to be angry with you?”

  “I just,” he squeezes his eyes shut and presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I haven’t exactly been very good at reading your emotions in the past. I want to make sure that…that everything is…okay, between us.”

  It is my turn to sigh. I let my posture slump back against the door, this time in resignation. “Flynn…” I say, holding out a moment as I look for the right words, “I just effectively ruined your life by dragging you into The Underground, and you’re still worried I’m angry at you?”

  Flynn is visibly taken aback. “I lied about it.”

  “Yes,” I say, the memory of his betrayal momentarily pricking at my insides. “And you should never do it again. The thing is...”

  “Yeah?”

  “I would have done the same thing,” I say. I straighten up again. Truth be told, I am not over the whole Jessica thing, but dwelling on it isn’t going to change anything. Jessica has proven herself to be a monster, and a manipulative one at that. Even if Flynn had told me earlier, it wouldn’t have changed anything except distract me from my studies. But I don’t tell him that. Let the man grovel a little more.

  “So…I am forgiven?”

  I nod, and then quickly raise up my hand to add, “Just to be clear, I will bring it up in future arguments if I think it will help plead my case.”

  I don’t think I have ever seen Flynn so happy. He steps up, and rather than kissing me, he takes both of my hands in his and raises them to his lips, never breaking eye contact. The action makes a fire alight in my stomach, and if my skin was not already burning from the spell, it surely would have burned as well.

  When we get out of here…if we get out of here…I might have to forget my frustrations a little longer. I’d like to see more of this side of Flynn when we’re in a little less peril.

  For now, I reach out into the antechamber with my mind again, and finding no one, we sneak back out. I let Flynn take the lead here. The few times I’ve made it to the divination room on my own I’ve counted myself very lucky, but we cannot count on that luck today. Not when our lives, and more specifically the lives of Cedric, Kendall, and Draven still on the other side, depend on it as well.

  It is this thought that makes me still my beating heart and follow, as silently as possible, just behind Flynn as we turn the corner and head for the back stairs. I’m surprised by the lack of students in the hall, even if Flynn’s phone was correct and it’s a Sunday.

  I’m not sure if it is whatever extra security measures they’ve put in place, but even still, the place seems unusually deserted.

  “Where do you think everyone is?” I ask, as soon as we’ve turned the corner into the upstairs hallways and we still haven’t run into another soul. We stop a second and I feel out again, once more, and meet nothing. I can’t be sure how far I’m really looking out, but from where we stand, peering around the corner, we still see no one.

  “Probably back in their dorm rooms, as instructed,” a voice says from so close behind, I am scared witless. I forget all caution and stumble forward into the middle of the hall. The slap of my hands on the marble floors echoes all the way down the empty corridor.

  I turn around and look up into the face of one of the very last people I want to see right now.

  “It’s been a while, Whitney.”

  Cedric’s ex-girlfriend steps out after us into the middle of the hall.

  Her hair has finally gotten long enough to have extensions put in, a fact which she makes sure I realize with an unnecessary and rather exaggerated flip of her hair over one shoulder. It seems the return of her long locks has also summoned back her old catty confidence.

  “Not long enough,” she says. Flynn offers me a hand up, which I take—not once letting my eyes fall away from her. It would be just like her, just like my luck lately, to get this far only to be stopped by Whitney of all people.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  Her eyes slide from my face to the bag at my side. “Those the artifacts?”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  She rolls her eyes and shoves her phone in my face. The whole school has been put on high alert that they’ve been stolen. I watch carefully as she shoves her phone back in her pocket to make sure she doesn’t dial anyone as she does.

  “I don’t really care about them,” she says airily. “I want…” her eyes raise to follow the shape of Flynn’s broad shoulders, his carefully sculpted pecs visible even now through his shirt, down through the tapered V of his torso. “I want you.” Her gaze does not stop on Flynn, but on me. “Gone.”

  I hesitate. “Aren’t you going to turn us in?”

  She just stares, her jaw working like she’s chewing on gum. “And what good would that do me?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, “The satisfaction of seeing me caught?”

  She nods slightly and gets a far-off look. “I suppose,” she says. “But then you’d still be here. And truth be told, I was getting pretty sick of hearing about you.”

  I can’t believe this. There’s no way Whitney is going to let us go just because she was tired of me taking her spotlight…or is there?

  I test her resolve by taking a half a step back, away from her, and closer to the divination room. We’re so close to escaping back into the in-between that I can feel it calling to me.

  “But then again…” she says, reaching into her back pocket again and to fiddle with her phone. “I do like the idea of actually seeing your powers stripped. It’s been a long time coming.”

  “So…what do you really want?” I repeat my earlier question.

  This time, her lips purse and her eyes snap to mine without hesitation. “I want that little present that Cedric gave you,” she says.

  Nausea tugs at my insides, and I instinctively reach up to touch the lump under my shirt where the diamond pendant hangs.

  Whitney’s eyes fall greedily down to my hand.

  “But you can’t even use it.” The necklace is a tool for Earth Mages, not just a pretty bauble. Whitney knows that, and she also knows that as a Psychic Mage, it’s basically useless to her.

  “That doesn’t matter. I want it.” Flynn touches my upper arm. Though he looks forward, I can tell he’s focused on a far-off sound. Someone else is coming up the stairwell.

  “Fine. But you have to give me information too.”

  “About that little friend of yours…what is it, Thursday?”

  I have to ignore her sleight. I grit my teeth together and try not to freak out at the sound of the approaching footsteps. “Yep, she’s the one.”

  “I don’t know, actually,” she says, careful to drag out her words so they take as long as possible. “I haven’t seen her around. I think they’re waiting until the tribunal meets to deal with her. Supposed to be the day after Christmas, I think.” She chuckles darkly. “Nothing quite like that to ruin the holidays, am I right?”

  The footsteps draw closer.

  I grit my teeth. I wish there was more time to gather informat
ion, but we can’t risk it.

  So, though it kills me to do it, I tug the necklace over my head and toss it to Whitney. She catches it in her palm and folds her long, overly-manicured nails like claws over it.

  Her smug face is enough to make me want to punch her, here and now, but we have to go.

  Flynn pulls hard on my arm and drags us down the corridor. We’ve barely slipped inside the divination room when we hear voices echoing after us. Now that she’s gotten what she wants, Whitney points them straight to us.

  I expected it, but it still stings.

  I shove the door behind us and bolt it. That may buy us just enough time.

  Flynn skids to a halt by the tear he’s discovered.

  “What are you doing?”

  I look up from where I’ve pulled out his phone again.

  “I have to do this,” I say, quietly. It only takes me a couple seconds, a few terrifying, risky seconds, for me to type out the text.

  I send it to every one of Flynn’s contacts. It’s the only way I can be sure it’ll eventually get to Wednesday.

  Kendall is safe. We’ll come back for you.

  I don’t sign it. I don’t need to.

  It isn’t much, but it’s something. It isn’t like I exactly expected to be able to sneak her back into the in-between with us. Well…maybe a little, somewhere deep down where the dreamer part of me hasn’t yet died.

  I plunge into the tear just as hands begin to beat against the door. We’re seconds away from someone unlocking it and barging in after us…but it’s worth it.

  We got what we came for, but in the meantime, my hand goes to the missing chain against my neck. I also left something precious behind.

  14

  Octavia