we find her, we can’t let her leave this place alive.”
Chapter 26
Preston
“Let’s head to the Dearly Departed’s dorms first. See if she’s left any clues in our room,” Hadley suggests as the rest of us look to her for leadership. It’s still baffling to me how much she’s changed since all this has started. A lesser woman would have caved in on herself, succumbed to the grief, hidden behind the pain. But not my Hadley. No. She’s grabbed her situation by the fucking balls and made it her bitch.
I can hardly believe that I get to call this woman my girlfriend.
“Preston, snap out of it!” Auston calls, snapping his fingers in front of my face as he gestures with his other to the ground, where Caius has opened up a portal.
“We could just fly there,” Brax growls as he stabs an attacking Reaper between the eyes with a lack of emotion that terrifies me.
“Or we could get there in a fucking instant. Not all of us have wings,” Caius counters as he grabs Hadley and leaps inside. Karston shrugs and follows them, then the rest of us jump in.
I force my stomach not to regurgitate its contents at the horrible twisting and nauseating feeling I get when going through these fucking things. When this is all over, I’m making a vow to never, ever set foot in one again.
The moment my feet touch the ground, I fall to my knees and dry heave, my body trying to expel anything from inside of it like I’m fucking possessed. Around me, cabinets open and items crash to the ground.
“Anything?” Hadley asks, and I glance up to see her going through Layla’s—I mean Lilith’s bedding.
“Nothing here,” Auston grumbles, storming out of the bathroom. “Unless a hairbrush would help in some fucked-up way.”
“A hairbrush…” We turn towards Caius, his eyes wide, lips parted, mind whirling. “That’s it. Give it to me.” He beckons to Auston, who quirks one light eyebrow at Caius but then hands over the hairbrush. Karston pulls me to my feet as we wait for Caius to tell us what the hell is going on.
Outside the dorms, the sounds of battle ring out. Every scream, every shout, every squelching sound of a weapon invading a body has me jumping and wincing. This fighting…it’s mindless. Pointless. And many will die because of one person’s fucked-up jealousy. Because that’s what all this boils down to…Lilith, the Fate of Envy, is so consumed with jealousy that she can’t even think of anything else. It completely consumes her.
Caius plucks a hair from the brush, and I almost puke again, seeing the grotesque dark strand dangling from between his clenched fingertips. Why don’t women ever clean those damn things out, anyway? Is it like a secret competition to see whose hairbrush can accumulate the most hair and still work? So gross.
Caius rolls the hair between his palms as something crashes into the window, creating spiderweb like fractures in it.
“Hurry!” Hadley shrieks, peering outside, her head jerking from Caius and back towards the window. Braxton rushes to her side, sword drawn, and Caius closes his eyes, uttering words too low for me to hear. But the implications are clear, and his power rumbles through the room like potent thunder, vibrating the lungs in my chest.
When Caius opens his eyes, he tosses his hands open and a glowing, green snake slithers to the ground. I scream and jump up on the closest bed, and Karston draws his dagger.
Caius throws up his hands in a placating fashion. “It’s okay! The snake is part of a locating spell I’ve conjured. Since Lilith is the Envy Fate, the spell took the form of her sin. We need to follow it, not hurt it.”
I pull my hands down from where I was covering my eyes and see that he’s right—the snake is an illusion and not trying to attack us.
Auston moves to the dorm door and wrenches it open. “Then let’s follow the fucking thing.” Caius flicks his fingers, and the snake begins to move, slithering along the dorm room floor and out the door.
“Weapons poised,” Brax calls behind me as I follow Auston out. “Be prepared for an attack.”
Caius pushes to the front, walking next to Auston, who’s following the snake closely. It slides down the hall and out the door, moving through it as a Ghost would. We rush behind it as it crosses the open grounds of the Academy. Around us, students and teachers are still engaged in battle,