Page 43 of Hunted

All that time ago, did she know what Fate had in store for her?

“Amara?” Tallin asked. “Cathartic as I’m sure this is, we have business here.”

“Right,” I said, shaking my head. There was a piece of paper on the desk, and on it there were many glyphs and runes, each connected by lines, and circles. I handed Tallin over to Valerian, who held him under his other arm, then I reached for the paper.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Valerian asked.

“Not at all,” I said.

He took a deep breath. “I trust you.”

I looked up at him, then looked over at Tallin. Without another word, I touched my hand against the paper… and the world around us collapsed.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

All it took was a breath and a heartbeat, and we were gone. Whisked away to… somewhere else. Somewhere dark, and cold. Outside, beyond the walls of the structure we were in, the wind howled. I heard a constant, repetitive slamming noise coming from somewhere above me. I could feel the chill of winter air.

For a moment, just for a second, it felt like we were in Arcadia again.

This place felt like home.

But then my senses righted themselves, and I opened my eyes. We were no longer in my grandmothers’ workshop. We were somewhere else, somewhere far away from there. The walls around me were made of stone, with wooden beams to support them. Looking down at my feet, I realized I was standing in the middle of what looked like a large, magic sigil that had been drawn into the stone floor with chalk.

When I remembered I was still holding Valerian’s hand, I looked up at him to find him blinking rapidly as he tried to get his eyes to focus. Tallin also looked a little disoriented, but just as mine passed, so did theirs.

“Where… are we?” Valerian finally asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said, my voice bouncing off the stone walls. The room we were in was small, a single door led out of it, but it was also entirely empty except for this sigil we were standing on.

“It looks like your grandmothers had an emergency escape plan all along,” Tallin said.

“Yeah,” I said, “But escape towhere?”

“I think the answer is on the other side of that door.”

Nodding, I let go of Valerian’s hand and approached the door. Carefully, I laid my hand on the handle, turned it, and pulled. The door opened, and beyond it I found myself looking at a modestly furnished living room.

A cozy looking couch, covered in furry blankets, sat in front of an inert fireplace. Behind the couch I spotted what looked like a kitchen, and for the second time since I got here, I found myself wondering if we were in fact in Arcadia, because I hadn’t spotted any of the trappings of the human world yet.

There wasn’t a fridge, there wasn’t a microwave–whatever that was. Everything seemed rustic, and natural, and it was so absolutely cold.I loved it. I rushed into this little cottage I now found myself in, and instantly got to exploring the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom.

Any hopes that we had somehow made it to Arcadia were dashed when I found the light switches and the bulbs hanging from the ceiling, but the chances that we were back home had been miniscule to begin with anyway, so I wasn’t terribly disappointed.

A set of stairs led to an upstairs floor, where I found another bathroom and one small bedroom, with a master bed, a mirror, and a dresser in it. The window up here was closed, but the shutters were open, and the wind was making one of them slam open and closed. I headed over to the window, opened it, and couldn’t help but marvel at what I was seeing.

Snow.

The world beyond the stone walls of this cottage was all white snow. The ground was covered in it, the trees were capped, and a flurry of fresh flakes flowed on the back of the gust of wind that whipped through the region. I took a deep breath of cold, crisp air, shut my eyes, and smiled.

“It feels like home,” I said to myself.

Tallin, who had followed me upstairs, grumbled. “Could you close that?” he asked. “I think I’ve gotten too used to the temperature at your grandmother’s house.”

I grabbed the unhooked shutter and pulled it back into place. I kept it open, though, so that I could see the outside world through the window. “What is this place?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Tallin said, “But if I had to guess, I would say this is some kind of safehouse.”

Dread sank into the pit of my stomach, as I remembered the circumstances that brought us here. I looked over at Tallin, turning my head sharply. “My grandmothers,” I said, shooting to my feet. “Are they okay?!”