back of my neck. “I probably sound whiny as hell.”
“Considering what you’ve been through in the past twenty-four hours,” Silas replies, “I think you’ve earned the right to whine a bit.”
“Thanks.” I give him a weak smile. “I was just hoping this wouldn’t involve tangling with Edith again.”
“I take it she’s the other witch shifter?” Josie asks.
I nod, sighing. “Smart. Crafty. Hella powerful, too. And gorgeous...”
“She’s no you,” Hunter blurts. I meet his ocean blue eyes, and a flush creeps across his pale face, but he doesn’t look away. “I mean it,” he adds quietly. “We all do.”
That’s enough to make me want to cry. Even as borderline-useless as I am right now, they still care about me. It almost doesn’t seem fair. “So what do you propose we do?” I ask Josie once I’ve gotten my emotions under control.
“Get away from the Academy, for a start,” she replies. “I’m weak, but I should be able to jump us to the mainland, at the very least. I have an apartment in the countryside, away from prying eyes. By the time you’ve collected the DNA, I should be recovered enough to perform the procedure. We can plan on meeting up there.
“What about Edith?” Silas asks, crossing his arms. “She’s going to be a problem.”
“You’re telling me,” I mutter. “She’s clearly on the wrong side. There won’t be a way of getting her to go willingly, that’s for sure. And she’ll probably have Academy agents with her.”
“There’s also the matter of where she is,” Hunter points out. “We don’t even know where she got off to after she turned you in, Boots.”
He has a point, as much as I hate to admit it. Considering how far we’ve seen the humans’ influence extend over the past few weeks, she could very well be on the other side of the world, and we would have no idea. I can already feel despair creeping back in, and it must be written on my face, since the others exchange a look of concern.
“Hey,” Silas says, putting a hand on my shoulder, “we’re going to fix this, Boots.”
“Are we?” I ask quietly. “I mean, are we, really?”
“Boots-” Landon begins.
I cut him off. “Look around,” I say, making a frustrated gesture at where we are. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. We’ve only got a few allies, and next to no resources. We don’t even have a place to stay. And the Academy’s only going to get stronger.”
“That’s exactly why we need you back up to par,” Hunter argues. “You’re the biggest weapon we have against them, and they know that. Why else do you think they’ve wanted you out of commission for so long?”
“But what if it’s not worth it?” I ask, running a hand through my hair. It hurts to even verbalise the fear. “I mean, we don’t even have a guarantee that we’ll be able to get my powers back. What if we just end up wasting our time on a wild goose chase when we should be strategising against Hawthorne? What if he actually succeeds in his experiments while we’re fucking around with my powers?”
“It’s not ‘fucking around’ if it means solving your problem,” says Landon. “If anything, this is a detour we should be taking. We can use it to gain allies, maybe even find out where some of our friends are.”
I purse my lips. Truth be told, I haven’t given much thought to my other friends since being taken by Hawthorne. The last I saw of Hazel, Xander, and Ruby, they were vanishing in a burning apartment building while being dogpiled by Academy loyalists. For all we know, they could be dead by now, or worse…
Hardly daring to ask the question, I turn to Josie. “I know you’ve been sort of out of commission,” I acknowledge, “but have you happened to hear anything about Hazel Van Buren or the Murakami twins? I know they’re not technically students here, but…”
Josie sighs and shakes her head. “I wish I could tell you they were safe,” she says. “I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground — not much else to do when you’re trapped in your room 24/7 —but the only mention I’ve heard of them is from the higher-ups who’ve passed by on my floor, and a few of the students who have dared to pass on some information.”
“What have they said?” asks Hunter.
“From the sounds of it, they aren’t here,” Josie replies. “Rumour has it some of the Board members are getting