Chapter Eight

Cole looks at us and smiles, "So, when we got back last night, I got Asher to pull out all of the books he had in his room and put them in the front room."

"Why do I feel like there's more to that?" Erin asks, sipping her coffee as we follow Cole into his room, and he secures the door behind us.

"Holy shit," I exclaim, as my eyes land on the piles and piles of books all over the front room. "Did he even have any room for him in his bedroom, or was it just books?"

"How does he even have this many?" Erin asks.

"The library likes him apparently and doesn't mind how many he takes because it knows that they're well looked after," Cole explains.

"Maybe we should've taken him with us yesterday," I mutter.

"Yeah, but that was the Goddess, not the library," Erin reminds us as we still stare in shock at the sheer amount of books in front of us.

"I'm going to need more coffee," Cole suddenly announces, and I thrust my mug at him for a refill.

"I don't suppose that he gave you a vague idea of what the book that had the spell in looked like?" I ask.

"Or even a spell to find the book that has the spell we want in it?" Erin adds.

Cole shakes his head, "Nope, well, he said there was a spell locator spell, but he couldn't remember what book that was in either," he rolls his eyes, "We've had words, and he's agreed to write down any books, that he finds useful spells in so that if this happens again, we've got some kind of reference that means that we can find the spell quicker."

I can't help but smile as I reply, "That's a smart idea."

"I don't even know where to begin," Erin states as she stares at the massive task in front of us.

"Yeah, I'm beginning to think that the guys have a much easier job today," Cole says as he hands us each a fresh coffee.

"They definitely do," Erin agrees, "alright, I suggest that we pick a pile each and then work our way through it. I'm optimistically going to hope that we find the spell fairly quickly."

"I guess that's really the only way that we can attack this," Cole replies and then looks at me, "now would be a really good time for you to have one of your magical intuition feelings."

I raise my eyebrow and smirk, "Sorry guys, but I've got absolutely no flashes of intuition on this, not even a niggle."

"Damn it," Cole replies, looking incredibly disappointed.

"Could you maybe just try and see if you can kick-start it into finding the spell?" Erin asks hopefully.

"Sure, but I don't think it's going to go how you hope it will," I reply.

They both just look at me, hopefully, and figuring that it couldn't hurt, I focus on my magic and ask it to help find the spell that will put an attacker to sleep and render them unable to continue fighting. I expected it not to turn up any results, but what I didn't expect was to effectively come up against a brick wall.

"Erm, well, it"s not just a no; it's a hell no. My magic outright refused to cooperate," I reply with a slight frown.

"Has it done that before?" Cole asks.

"Nope, not at all."

"Huh, well, I'm sure it"s nothing to worry about. Try to summon your air?" Erin suggests.

I call on my air magic, and I feel a tiny slither of that Darkness tag along with it, and what I intended to be a slight breeze is actually a tornado in the middle of the room as it simultaneously lifts the three of us up.

"Shit," I curse, the wind swallowing the sound.

I quickly pull the thread of magic back to me, happy that the dark thread listens as well, although I'm unsure whether it"s listening to me or just copying my other magic.

Everything falls still and silent just as quickly as it escalated.

"What the fuck was that?" Erin asks as she fights to right her hair.

"Did you mean to do that?" Cole asks me.

"I have no idea what that was, and no, I didn't mean to do it," I reply honestly, although something still makes me stop from telling them about the Darkness within my magic. I'm going to have to be extra careful that I don't let the Darkness escape with my usual magic when I do a spell. Focusing on my magic, I encourage it to wrap around the Darkness, encasing it and hopefully containing it.

"Well, it's not a great sign that your magic is playing up, but it's probably reacting to the threat of Kronos. Everything is kicking up a notch, and your magic can most likely sense it," Cole suggests while Erin just nods encouragingly, clearly agreeing.

I have to admit that his words do make me feel a bit better.

"If that's the case, then that means that it"s even more important than we thought it was to train," I point out.

"Definitely, for now, though, let"s clear up the mess that your tornado made and then get to work," Erin replies this time.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I say to Cole as I wince at the books now strewn everywhere and not in the neat piles that they once were.

Cole chuckles, "No worries, everyone's magic goes hinky every now and then. I'm sure that mine will do so at some point, and then I'll be the one apologizing."

"Well, at least it won"t just be me then," I reply.

We spend the next hour straightening everything out, and I'm ridiculously relieved that none of the books seem to be damaged. I dread to think about what the library would do if one of its books got torn or something similar. I don't think I ever want to find that out.

Finally, with yet more fresh coffee, we each settle down and start to scan through the books, working through our own piles and hoping that it's not going to take us longer than we have to find the spell.

I find information on some creatures that I had no idea existed, including this massive worm thing that is definitely out of some sort of horror film.

No, thank you.

"Have you guys had any luck?" Cole asks us.

Erin shakes her head, "Nope, nothing. I haven't even found something vaguely close to what we need."

"I've found nothing relevant to what we need, but I have learned more in this last hour or so than I have in the months that we've been here," I reply.

"Well, at least something good is coming out of this then," Erin teases. "If it weren't for the fact that I really don't want to hurt someone innocent, I would've given up by now."

"Me too," Cole replies, scrubbing his eyes and already looking exhausted.

"Why don't we get some snacks and then get back to it? We've made a reasonably good dent into our piles," I suggest trying to be optimistic about it.

"I could eat," Erin agrees.

While we get some snacks, I check in with the guys to make sure that they're okay and just because they've asked me to.

"We're good. We're only in our second lesson but including the instructor that ran our training this morning,"Levi starts.

"Who wasn't Cain, by the way,"Jax adds, interrupting.

Levi ignores him and carries on, "As I was saying, all three of our teachers so far have some sort of jewelry, either a bracelet or a necklace with the same stone in it; none of us recognize the stone, but we're hoping that the others will have noticed the same thing and they will have recognized what kind of stone it is."

"Okay, well, in that case, it seems that our theory was right, and there is a chance that they all are wearing something that is keeping them under the control of Kronos, although I still think that there was a main object first otherwise how would they get them all to put on the jewelry?"I ask.

"Exactly, so we still need to find the main object,"Jax agrees with me.

"Do you think that if we took the jewelry off them, they'd revert back to normal?"I ask curiously.

"I think that all depends on how close they are to the original object. I think if it was taken off outside of the school grounds, then it might, but if not, then I think there's a very real possibility that they will still be under Kronos control."Maverick replies, and it"s clear that he's thought about this before.

"Oh well, that's a shame. It would have made the issue easier to deal with if we could just take off their jewelry, and they'd go back to normal,"I reply.

"It would've, although nothing is ever that easy," Hunter replies.

"No, it's not,"I reply.

"What about you? Have you guys found the spell?"Kai asks, hope in his tone.

"Nope, and we've gone through a lot of books already. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer until we can find the right one,"I reply, and you can hear the defeat in my tone despite my optimistic words.

"It's not long until lunch when we bring it back to the room we can all help out too, and if we still haven't found it by the evening, we can all carry on helping, we'll get through it a lot quicker with all of us looking,"Hunter suggests.

"Yeah, that would actually be really helpful," I reply. "Also, please bring all the food, I am starving."

I actually feel like I haven't eaten for days, and that's ridiculous because I've been eating really well. But then again, if my magic has increased in strength in reaction to the threat of Kronos, then I'd assume that my food intake will as well in order to keep up my energy to make magic. I actually read somewhere that young supes often experience a jump in appetite when their power grows, or they have a growth spurt, so it makes sense. Apparently, it eventually evens back out again, and their appetite will go back to normal.

"Of course, we'll leave you to it,"Levi replies, "Love you."

I say I love you too and get a plethora of replies before the Bond Lines go quiet again, and they go back to their lessons.

"Is everyone okay?" I ask Cole and Erin as we take our snacks back to the places where we were sitting and settle back in.

"Yeah, the guys noticed some sort of jewelry on each of their teachers with the same stone, but they don't recognize it," Erin replies.

"My guys noticed the same," I say.

"It's Tetraromanis," Cole explains, "it"s an incredibly rare gemstone that's only found in the mountains in the Dragon Realm, which, as you know, is completely off-limits to outsiders, and the dragons actually very rarely leave. Very little is known about the Realm; apart from if they really wanted to, they are strong enough that there is a chance that they could take over this Realm. They have a history of conquering Realms but they haven't done it for a few centuries now and mostly stay in their own Realm, no one really knows why."

I just stare at him, "Okay, I actually had no idea about any of that."

"I know they existed and that they were reclusive, but I had no idea about any of the rest of it," Erin replies.

"They absolutely fascinate me, but like I said, there is very little knowledge on them, and I have never even heard of one of them being in the Fae Realm. But there have been rumors that there are a few here. There are so few of them, and they stick to their reclusive nature and keep to themselves," Cole replies.

"That is so fucking cool," I reply, and I'm instantly intrigued by these dragons and want to know as much as I can about them, although I am aware that now is not the time to be doing that kind of research. I do put a pin in it though, so that I remember to come back to it later.

"It is, but my point in mentioning them is that it's confusing how so many of these gems have ended up here and in possession of the teachers," Cole points out, getting us back on track.

"Someone either has a nearly impossible connection to a dragon that is smuggling these gemstones out or, even more impossibly, they can get in," I reply, as the wheels in my head start turning, and the implications make themselves known.

"That's a big deal," Erin says and then adds, "but he's a God, so wouldn't that make sense as to how he got it?"

"It could," Cole replies, "but there's something I've noticed not just about Kronos but Nyx too; they can appear in dreams and visions, but I think they are very limited in how they interact with us. I mean, otherwise, why hasn't the Goddess just turned up in our dorm room and explained everything? Introduced herself properly, and why hasn't Kronos just outright killed us? Why does he have minions."

"All very good points, but like you said, Kronos did fight Kai," Erin replies.

"Yes, but Kai held his own pretty fucking well, and I think it's safe to assume that Kronos wasn't prepared for that," Cole argues back.

"It's an interesting hypothesis, and it would explain a lot," I start when one of the books thumps to the floor and its pages start flicking rapidly.

When the pages finally stop moving, we all share a look.

"Someone should probably read that," Erin states, not making any move toward the book at all.

When Cole doesn't move either, I sigh and head toward it. The book is pretty fucking big, so instead of picking it up, I just kneel in front of it.

"According to this, there are only a handful of situations where a God or Goddess can physically be on the plane, and it comes with limitations." I read.

"So, I was right," Cole grins.

"Yeah, yeah." Erin replies and then adds, "Is that all it says?"

"Erm, yeah, wait, no, hang on, it"s changing," I reply, the shock evident in my tone, as my eyes widen and the ink on the page moves and twirls as it reforms. It's pretty fucking spectacular to watch, and I feel Cole and Erin come to stand behind me as they watch too.

"Whoa," Erin mutters, "we've been in this world for a while now and seen some incredible things that I, for one, used to only think of as fiction, but despite that, I think that I'm fairly used to it until something like this happens and I'm awed all over again."

"I know what you mean. Sometimes, something will happen, and I'll have to pinch myself to remind myself that it's real." I agree.

"They've stopped moving," Cole says, and even though we can read it ourselves, he reads out loud, "Kronos has a contact in the Dragon Realm, one of his followers."

"Wow, okay, that was straight to the point and not what I'm used to at all," I reply.

"Wait, Kronos has followers in the Dragon Realm?" Erin questions.

"That's going to be a big fucking problem. I mean, no one can get in there, and I'm beginning to think that this is what it's all been leading up to, that our end goal is to take out Kronos or at least loosen his grip on the supernatural's and the control of the Order. Right from the very beginning, we've been up against the Order and, therefore, Kronos." I reply.

It"s fucking terrifying to think that's our destiny, he's a God, for fuck sake, and we're not, not even close. We may be more powerful than some, but that doesn't mean that we'll be able to go up against a God and his hundreds, possibly thousands of followers.

"That's insane. We can't do that," Cole replies, echoing my thoughts.

"You won't be alone,"Nyx's voice vibrates around the room.

On the one hand, it's reassuring to know that it won't all be on us, on the other hand, she's pretty much just confirmed that I'm right and taking down Kronos is our end goal.

"That's not in the least bit reassuring," Erin says, clearly having heard the Goddess as well and summing it up well.

"Well, fuck." Cole adds.

"At least we won't be doing it alone?" I question, somewhat uncertainly.

"Yeah, it would be nice to know who these other supposed people are so that maybe we could start planning now or something," Cole replies.

"In time," the Goddess replies, and then adds, "you'll like them."

"Well, at least there's that. I should fucking hope so though, since we're effectively going to war with a God and his followers," I reply sassily, and Cole's and Erin's eyes widen at the way I'm talking to the Goddess.

I don't expect her to reply since our conversations are rarely very long, so it surprises me when she does.

"Not a war like you're thinking, daughter,"her voice echoes around the room, and the amusement is evident in her tone.

I decide to take advantage of the situation and of having her here and ask, "I don't suppose you want to help us out and tell us which book the spell we need is in or even just tell us the spell?"

"Oh yeah, sure,"she replies, sounding far too casual for how you'd imagine a Goddess to be. She then adds, "It's in the blue one by the . . ."

"Nyx!"a male voice in the background yells.

"Shit, sorry, Sage, I forgot I'm not supposed to tell you. Good luck,"she replies.