Chapter 23

23

Ihad no choice.

My frown deepened. I was too close to the Imperium now to waste time wondering about a prophecy. The moment had finally come to push through and race across the finish line. Through the walls.

I couldn’t risk going along the halls and having someone see me. Not when another few feet would bring me to my goal. And Barbara’s prize.

Anticipating the pain had my stomach curdling, because I knew becoming one with the walls again would hurt. A lot. Although I didn’t have a tracking spell to take me to the direct location of the Augundae Imperium, I felt the tug of its magic by being this close to it. The students had been right. It was nearby.

I tried a small spell for light to get a feel for the disruption of magic in the area. And when I produced sparks instead of a steady stream of illumination, it gave me a place to start, a direction to turn. I rolled my shoulders and blew out a calming breath.

Briefly I wondered what my parents would think of my behavior, if they were alive. Would they be proud of me for getting into the school or furious with me for breaking all the rules to stay?

They’d both died when I was six. I’d never had the opportunity to really get to know either of them, and couldn’t speak for how they’d feel if they were here today.

Then again, if they were alive, I might not have had to come to the academy to escape Kendrick. I highly doubted either of them would have approved of the match, fated mate or not. I also highly doubted my uncle’s claim that the universe conspired to bring me together with Kendrick. Calling bullshit on that, for sure.

Mentally slapping myself, I walked across the empty classroom and placed my hand on the wall. Gathering strength for what I knew would come. Holding the image in my head and merging with the stone and sheetrock and plaster and wood until I lost my physical body for the second time.

It took a bit longer for me to come out on the other side this time.

Once I was through, I did it again. Each new room brought me closer to the Augundae Imperium, despite the agony, despite the toll it took on me.

With every merge, I became weaker and weaker until blood flowed freely from my nose and I couldn’t get it to stop.

Maybe it wasn’t so much transfiguring into the walls but the act itself. I’d been so focused on practicing my cognitive manipulation and keeping the transfiguration a secret that maybe, like any muscle, this second power just needed me to work on it. I may become better and better, the pain less, with each shift. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to ask for advice.

But I didn’t even know the rules for my secret power. What if, by transforming into the walls—or any inanimate object, really—I was actually killing myself?

Could it be? I paused, everything inside of me drawing toward the Augundae Imperium on the other side. Was I really doing harm to myself, irreparable harm, by going through with this transformation?

I went cold and balked at the thought of the final wall.

“Okay, not to worry,” I whispered aloud. Slapping my cheeks to get some color back. To get myself to focus. “One more. Just get through one more and then see what happens.”

Arms loose at my sides, I shook my head. Twisted my neck and stretched my hands, arms, legs, feet. Loosening up the last of my muscles in preparation. Like a fighter before entering the ring, needing to be limber.

“Nothing to worry about.” My chest tightened.

It was nothing but another lame pep talk but it got me going.

Out of breath and shaking, I made it through the final wall, covered in plaster dust and cobwebs, hardly able to keep standing. One of my toes still might have been made of wood.

Yet…I had done it.

The last room, the final step, and ahead of me on top of a mirrored glass table—not dusty in the least—sat the Augundae Imperium, a squat and square and gold artifact everyone wanted to get their hands on.

From what I could see of it, anyway. My eyes weren’t working quite right and I lifted my hands to rub at them. Unfortunately for me, my hands didn’t move from where they hung limply at my sides.

Uh oh.

Being this close to the Augundae Imperium, magic zapped through me, and I recognized the power deep in my bones, power from some collective memory of all Fae, of anyone who had ever come into contact with the ancient item.

An object designed to siphon power from any source.

The room wasn’t large by any means, rectangular and empty except for the table and a locked door to the left. Gritting my teeth, I regarded the tiny box causing so much trouble, secured by invisible bonds. Bonds I would have to break to get it out of here and into Barbara’s hands.

Dammit, I’d done too much already. I’d gotten to the last leg of the journey only to be stopped in place by my own fragility.

Well, transforming into four walls and a door will do crazy things to a person, I told myself. The pep talk fell flat this time, too.

It really didn’t look like much up close. In fact, if I were full human without the ability to feel the magic flowing in waves from the Imperium, I’d think it a simple jewelry box. Like something I’d find in an antiques store and take home for a good polish. Besides the interesting gleam of the metals and runes making up the artifact, there was little else to draw the eye or advertise its importance.

Stepping closer—read: shuffling—I approached the Augundae Imperium on leaden feet. I didn’t need to have all my senses working at optimum capacity to sense the layers and layers of spellwork protecting the artifact. Somehow, I would need to crack through them one by one in order to make it out of here. Better Fae than me put the spells in place and I shuddered at the thought of how much work it would take to break them all.

Except I’d damn near knocked myself out by walking through walls to get here. I couldn’t come this far only to fail.

I summoned up a spell that should allow me to penetrate the first layer of wards but nothing happened. Had I used up all my magic just to get to this point? All right, Tavi. So close.Think.

Scratching my head, I stared at the Imperium, not sure what to say or do. I stopped where I was and closed my eyes, folding my body down onto the floor more from necessity than anything else. Crossing my legs, I drew in a deep breath. Held it for five seconds released it.

So close, my mind said again.

Okay, so I was stuck in a room with no power to crack the wards. No power to steal the Augundae Imperium and good luck getting out of here in my current condition. What were my options?

Center yourself.

That’s what Nurse Julie had tried to teach me when we went over the ingredients of the potion designed to hide my shifter half. It had been a day of many lessons, things she’d learned over the years to aid her in her journey, similar to my own, lessons of knowledge she now passed down to me.

I heard her voice in my head.

You have to learn to push past the fatigue. The dizziness. Your shifter side makes you inherently stronger than most halflings. Fae magic comes from the earth, from our blood because we are a part of the earth. That’s why it takes such a toll on your energy field when you work big magic. Let your wolf guide you through the exhaustion; let her strength become your strength. Meditation will help you.

I wasn’t any good at meditation.

You had to have a certain amount of patience with meditation. Patience required time, which I didn’t exactly have in abundance either. But recalling the memory raised a good point. My shifter half was strong, the combination of my Fae and wolf genes making me more powerful than your average bear.

Too bad I couldn’t drop my glamour to see if I could harness more power from my shifter half. I didn’t exactly have a clove of garlic in my pocket, did I? Meditation wouldn’t help me there.

Still…it was nighttime. A stray beam of light from the full moon would break the glamour in a snap. And I remembered seeing a window in the previous room.

Nothing in this one. There were no windows, and wards I couldn’t break barred the door. What I was contemplating was a gamble. A huge gamble. What if I couldn’t make it through the wall to break the glamour in the first place?

But I clearly wasn’t able to get to the Imperium this way. It left me little choice.

Struggling to my feet, I walked to the wall and went back through with the remaining dregs of my faerie magic. The moment I regained my real form on the other side I slid to the floor, stomach heaving. My throat burned as bile rose and I had to force myself to swallow it down, to get my muscles to work when they wanted to give up.

My arms struggled to raise me, my elbows trembled with fatigue, and with a groan I dropped. My cheek hit the floor.

Terrible idea. This had been a terrible idea, especially when I glanced up to see the window boarded shut. Meaning I’d have to break through.

It normally wouldn’t be a problem for me. Tonight, I fought for every inch I moved forward, dragging myself toward the window and using those boards to haul myself up to a standing position. I only needed a little bit of light to break the glamour.

The wood was solid and strong, two layers keeping the window blocked, the first layer straight across and the second crisscrossing over that.

No spell in the world would work for me right now, not with my energy at zero. It didn’t matter how strong my bloodline was.

My fingertips scraped against the wood until splinters slid into my skin. Tugging the first layer of wood, I managed to pry a single board off the iron nails. The second layer was worse. At first the boards didn’t want to budge. I worked hard at the corner of one piece, the one closest to the sill, leaning back and using my body weight as leverage.

Nothing happened.

Judging by the age of the wood and the length of the nails, these planks had been in place for a long time. But I didn’t remember seeing any windows boarded up from the outside of the castle. It begged the question: Why do this? Perhaps someone had spelled the castle to look normal from the outside as another layer of precaution with the Augundae Imperium hidden inside?

These were useless questions and none of them helped me open the window.

Finally, sweating and annoyed, I managed to pry one of the boards loose, giving myself enough room to twist my hand through. I angled my wrist outside into the moonlight shining from above the school.

Success!

A wave of cold washed over me, chilling me to the bone, and I didn’t need to have my eyes open to know how my skin rippled and shifted. The feeling had me bending at the waist against a slight hitch of pain, muscles twitching, my insides rearranging themselves.

I hated this part.

The moonlight destroyed my glamour and I felt my wolf rise to the surface, once again in control, my vision sharp and my hearing better than ever. She brought with her a surge of energy. Enough so I went back through the wall, still dripping blood and basically crawling, but I harnessed the strength coming from my shifter half and I could stand without help.

I was whole. I was myself again.

Stronger than the average bear, I reminded myself, and rubbed my hands as I turned to face the artifact.

Having the glamour gone gave my body a fighting chance to heal itself from the abuse. To strengthen me using this half of my genetics which I’d been forced to hide. I straightened my spine, everything aligning the way it was supposed to as I stretched for a brief moment.

The Augundae Imperium…at last. I stared at it, getting my breath back, my body healing with each passing second.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Couldn’t wait to turn it over to Barbara and negate her threats, regardless of what she intended to do with it. That wasn’t my concern. My concern was simple survival, and right now that meant graduating from the academy and escaping into Faerie. If this was the only way to stay on my path, well, so be it.

I was almost home free. Wouldn’t it be awful if someone walked in right now? I thought with a low chuckle, hands on my hips as I studied the artifact.

The door knob began to jiggle. The lock clicked and the door swung open.