Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,80
them like they were crud on his shoes.
When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. Thomas Jefferson’s words inspired fresh anger and determination inside me. I just knew these pixies could help us, if only they were given the chance. Infuriating didn’t even begin to cover this situation. And now, I had to wait for Victoria to come along and bite my head off for breaking her lockdown rules. Two meetings with the head huntswoman, a Purge of pixies, two missing magicals, and I hadn’t even reached a full week at the Institute yet.
Why couldn’t they see that the pixies weren’t the enemy? The only monster I’d ever met who reeked of evil was Leviathan, but the rest… They had their quirks, sure, but they weren’t the under-your-bed, hiding-in-your-closet, bloodthirsty villains they were made out to be. Those who knew them best and longest all understood that: Tobe, Nathan, and me. Genie had even told me once that her mom and fellow hunters used to have ceremonies to thank the creatures for their service. They were grateful, respectful.
“Did you do this, Leviathan? Did you scramble my brain when you gave me this curse?” I all but shouted. “Is this what you wanted me to see? Is this how you wanted me to feel?” I had no other explanation for my no-matter-what instinct to protect the pixies. Was this his attempt at strengthening our bond? Had he left secret messages in my head for me to find along the way so he could prod me around to his way of thinking? Before I could Purge, I’d loved visiting the beasts in the Bestiary, but I hadn’t given much thought to what they did or what they gave. I’d seen them the way everyone else did—as fuel for a greater cause. All that had been turned on its head when I’d held that she-pixie in my hands. No… before that. When the griffin bowed, and then when it squawked sadly, like it didn’t understand why I was trying to capture it.
There’s so much you don’t know. So much you don’t understand. I aimed my furious thoughts at the hunters, and everyone whose minds were so narrow that they couldn’t even contemplate a different perspective. Heck, there was so much I didn’t know and didn’t understand, but I was, at least, open to learning. Truthfully, my brain didn’t feel scrambled at all. It felt clearer than it ever had; I just feared where that clarity had hailed from.
I sat at my desk and held my head in my hands. Just when I thought I was swinging one way, something else pushed me back in the other direction. And I was tired of being jostled from pillar to post, not knowing if my thoughts were my own or if they’d been jammed in there by Leviathan. What else had this curse done to my body without my knowledge? Only he had the answers, and he was a world away.
My head lifted at the sound of the door opening, and Victoria strode through a moment later.
“Persie.” That one word struck terror into my heart. “I didn’t think we’d be having a chat like this again quite so soon.”
I sat up straighter, to be polite. “Neither did I.”
“You flouted my rules. What else did you think would happen?” Her voice sounded strained, her black eyes hard as onyx pebbles.
“I… just wanted to help. I caught five pixies, didn’t I? That’s not flouting, that’s assisting.”
Victoria ran a stressed hand through her hair. “Be that as it may, the situation calls for obedience. I told you to leave it to the experts. I’m not keeping everyone in their rooms for my pleasure, Persie. I don’t give instructions like that without thought.” She walked to the desk and leaned against it. “While you were out hunting, against procedure, five more people went missing. That brings the total to seven. One of those people could’ve been you, Persie. If someone had checked your room and found you weren’t there, that could have caused problems. We might have wasted valuable resources and effort trying to find you when you were fine all along. This isn’t a game, Persie. This is serious, and you have to let the experts handle it.”
Five? My stomach lurched, but my resolve didn’t waver. There was absolutely no way the pixies could have taken seven people. I’d found the creatures squabbling over rotten fruit, for crying out loud. They weren’t bothered about snatching personnel—they just wanted to go