Persie Merlin and the Witch Hunters - Bella Forrest Page 0,66

what would I say? How would I even broach it? It wasn’t something you blurted out over dessert.

I have to take the leap. I have to tell her how I feel. I could deal with the rest later. Or maybe it would all come out organically anyway.

“Genie, there’s something I have to tell you. Two things, actually,” I said, doing a practice run of what I might say in the hopes of making my choice clearer. “I’ll start with what I hope will be the good news, and then I’ll tell you the bad, and I’ll give you as much time as you need to figure out if I’m the sort of person you could—” A sudden brightness in the lenses made me stop. Two concentrated flashes of light, emerging from the wispy, purple trails, getting closer by the second. Puzzled, I took the lens away from my eye… and my blood ran cold. Barely a few yards away, a seething mass of shadow and red mist barreled toward me, with two fiery red eyes fixed right on its target.

Me.

Nineteen

Persie

“What happened to ‘rest is the best medicine?’” I wheezed, jogging along the path by the church with Genie at my side. At least, I hoped it looked like jogging. I got the feeling it was more like a lolloping trot, used when pretending to run after a bus that had already closed its doors and was pulling out of the stop.

Genie, taking the exercise in her superhuman stride, flashed me a grin. “So is the great outdoors and fresh air in your lungs.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, since I can’t breathe.” I paused and put my hands on my hips, bending forward to try and make the pain in my chest go away. There had to be easier cardio out there, right? “And this isn’t what I had in mind for an unexpected free period.”

Our usual post-lunch lesson with Naomi had been cancelled due to an explosion in her lab, giving us two hours to use however we liked. Most of our classmates had gone to libraries to study or their rooms for a quick catnap, with a few choosing to catch some daytime TV in the rec room. But Genie had dragged my behind out into the wilds, after I’d asked Victoria for permission, to help boost my stamina. I supposed I’d asked for this by complaining about my fitness levels, but the thought of watching trash TV or taking a couple of hours to add to my sketches would’ve been a much nicer distraction from recent events. On the other hand, between the agony in my shins and the burn of every muscle in my body, I hadn’t thought about my kidnapper once. So, maybe Genie had a point.

“It’s the perfect day for it. Not too hot, not too cold.” Genie lifted her head and closed her eyes, drinking in the atmosphere. “Count yourself lucky I didn’t haul your ass out here yesterday, or you’d be a shriveled raisin right about now.”

A burning sensation seized my throat. “How can this be healthy?” I groaned as I gasped for air. “I feel like I’m dying.”

“It’ll get easier,” she promised.

“But humans must only get a certain amount of breaths per lifetime, right? What if, by running and gasping like a woman in freaking labor, we’re lessening our potential lifespan?” I’d thought about this a lot, mostly to try and get myself out of physical activity.

Genie laughed. “I like to think the overall health factor counteracts that.” Her expression clouded for a moment. “It’s funny, having to think about how short my life might be. When I was born, it was with 500 years ahead of me. Now, I’ll be lucky to get eighty more.”

“Doesn’t that make life seem more precious, though?” I turned to her, my breath returning to some semblance of normality. “With 500 years, you’d have no impetus to do anything in a hurry. Learn a new language? I can just do that in the next century. Learn how to play an instrument? I’ll do that when I’m 300. Fall in love, have kids if you want, read an entire library? Nah, maybe fifty years from now. Everything must’ve moved so slowly down there.”

Genie retied her silver hair, fastening it into a tighter ponytail. “I suppose that’s how we got so backward. There was no reason to change, and Atlantis is still stuck in that mindset, I guess. But it’s weird to think that being twenty here means