Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“Then we have to kill him.” Even as I said it, no emotion was evoked inside of me. Shouldn’t I have cared? He was my half-brother.
“That’s not a question. What is the question is Gus—what she’ll do when we kill Vespar, if we can trust her or not.”
I closed my eyes swiftly, feeling a stab of pain in my heart. He was right. Gus would go crazy if we took away her other half. She’d go mad, and she’d go dark, really dark. I bit my lip because I realized that Vespar wasn’t really the one we were avoiding, it was what we’d have to do about our sister, my sister.
I felt another tug on my stomach and opened my eyes. Kellan was watching me. He was always watching me. This time he asked with his eyes if I was all right, and I nodded, closing off my emotions, pushing them down. We’d do what we had to do, and then I cleared my throat and asked with a raspy voice, “How much farther?”
He nodded outside. “We’re here. This is where we’re staying.”
We had parked outside a small white house. Trees surrounded it, not allowing for a lawn. As I got out of the car, I heard the sounds of a small river close by. I walked around the back of the house, stepping carefully around the trees. Their roots had started to grow out of the ground and I climbed up on one that curved higher than the rest. As I did, with a hand resting on the massive oak beside it, I saw a sparkling body of water that rested just underneath a small hill behind the house. A waterfall filled it from my right, splashing onto smooth rocks that glistened underneath the water.
Kellan climbed up beside me and rested an arm behind me, placing it on the tree next to mine. I leaned back against him and asked, “What is this place? It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a sanctuary.” He touched my shoulder and turned so we looked at the house. “The house is protected. The only things the human eye can detect are the trees. No human can see the house, and no tree will fall onto it in a storm. They’re magically entrusted, too. This spot is where the oldest and toughest trees live. They’re alive, Shay.”
I turned, wide-eyed, to him. And he grinned. “Not in the manner like they can talk to us, but they know they’re here to protect the house. They’ll hide it from anything we want them to. They draw their strength and knowledge from the water.”
“Let me guess. It has magic in it, too?”
“A little.” Kellan tapped my forehead and chuckled. Then he wrapped his hand around my waist and wooshed us from the trees and in front of the house to a small porch wide enough for two sets of feet. The door seemed to grow in front of our eyes until it reached to the top of the roof and separated into two doors. Kellan reached for the handle and waited. The door handle vibrated, turning underneath his hand. It stopped suddenly and the doors opened, as if the house decided we could enter. A breeze from the sudden movement rushed back against us and my eyes widened in surprise when I saw inside. The house was small from the outside, but the inside was grand.
Kellan waited on the porch as I wandered inside, gazing upward. Stairs wrapped around the house, leading to three levels inside. Then I moved back outside and saw there was only one level from there. I shook my head and went back inside. Kellan followed this time, and the doors whisked shut with a loud bang behind us.
I walked around the living room, trailing a finger over a glass bookshelf. “This entire place has magic, doesn’t it? The house included.”
“It’s a sanctuary for us, built to withstand darkness and good. It knows that creatures such as ourselves, who have both in them, need safety here.” He placed two bags near the steps. “This was given to me by my mother, only she knows of its existence, other than you and me now.”
My eyes fell on my book bag, and a sense of wonderment came over me. “You planned this last night, didn’t you? You knew Vespar would do something, and you knew we’d have to leave. You had every intention of taking me away with you, but…” Why did we go to the school?
“I went and erased our existence with the school. I left Vespar’s, but made Gus disappear, too. Your father will find Vespar’s name, but no one else. He won’t find you. That’s all I’m concerned about right now.”
My eyes lifted to him. He was watching me, gazing at me with an emotion in him that I’d never seen or felt. I’d felt possession, obsession, fury, laughter, but this was different. There was a tenderness laced with it. And a different realization occurred to me. “You’re not afraid of the messengers, are you?”