Phoenix Academy - Lucy Auburn Page 0,39

with frustration. I worry he's going to shift and go out of control. "Ari is probably stuck in Hell. She might... she might even be dying as we speak."

With a leap of his panther body, Xavier shifts back into his human form, his black braids falling in front of his shoulders. Unlike David he's able to keep his clothes on as he shifts, though they're now streaked with rain, mud, and leaves from his prowling through the wild underbrush. His brown skin is damp with wetness which almost hides the frightened tears streaked down his face.

He tells the other two, "Something just occurred to me while I was searching for her scent—which I couldn't find anywhere. We know that Mage Auerbach was watching her body, and unlike us she only came to the Spirit Realm as her soul. What if she's back at the academy right now? Maybe her spirit went into her body."

Reggie snaps his fingers. "Fuck, man. You might be right. Where's my phone..." He pats his blazer pocket and triumphantly pulls his smartphone out—only to scowl at the sight of its cracked screen and smashed case. "Damn. Must've gotten smashed at some point in our little adventure. X?"

His twin has already pulled his own phone out and shakes his head. "You know I hate upgrading, and mine wasn't waterproof. When we were in the lake..." Eyes fluttering closed, he shakes his head. "After everything, I can't believe I didn't really tell her how I feel. It didn't count when we were drugged—we basically implied that wasn't real. Then she got us out anyway. I just..."

"I have my phone." David looks shocked as he pulls it out of his borrowed blazer, and frowns in Xavier's direction. "I must've put it in your pocket at some point. I don't think it made it into the lake. Let's see if it turns on."

They all watch with bated breath as David pushes the button. Meanwhile, my mind is reeling. I know that my body must be back at the academy—it makes perfect sense. But as they've been talking, I've been quietly observing the trees around us. The sky is clearing up and the sun is shining between masses of grey clouds, revealing more of the waterlogged landscape around us.

I'd assumed that we were spit out in some random part of the mortal realm. For all I knew we're somewhere in Japan, though the topography and species of trees seemed more firmly North American. What I didn't realize is that we landed somewhere far from accidental.

We're nowhere near the Phoenix Academy campus.

But we are very, very close to the spot where I died.

The spot where I was brutally murdered. Right after my mother was killed in front of my eyes, and shortly before my sister was slaughtered, her body taken far from me, where I was never able to say a witch prayer and guide her spirit on. That same spirit hasn't been spotted in the Spirit Realm since—even by my mother, who should've been able to find her.

My sister's body could be very close.

And my own burnt body... the one I was reborn from... its ashes no doubt scatter these woods. So do my mother's ashes. Now that I'm thinking of her, I instinctively reach out with my naturalistic senses, and find them still active in my spirit form. I can sense her physical aura nearby. It hasn't been completely washed away by time or rain.

She's still here, in her own way.

It hits me like a brick wall. I want to see my mother. I want to be with her. I got so little time with her spirit in the Spirit Realm, and there was no moment to just relax. Ever since she died I've been careening from one emergency to the next, without any time to breathe between. It still hasn't hit me that she's really gone.

The need to go back, to stand in the place where she died and let it wash over me, is suddenly and inexplicable. I feel it like thirst in the back of my throat. It's all-consuming.

I barely even looked at my blood staining the wood or truly let myself process my own death.

"The phone needs a charge," David says, drawing my attention back to the current moment. "It tried to turn on then blinked off again. I don't even know how many days passed while we were down there, but obviously enough. X, did you get any whiff of civilization around here at all?"

"There