then jog over to Congress.” I dragged the pen across the route. “They’ll meet you in front of Faneuil Hall, right here.”
He sat on his heels, his beautiful, dark eyes glossing. “You’re hurt. I can’t—”
Sirens sounded somewhere outside. “I’ll be fine.” I shoved the map at him.
“So brave,” he murmured.
What a joke. I wasn’t brave. But Afton and Nick needed his help more than I did. “Just go already.”
Arik nodded and brushed my cheek with the back of his hand and my breath caught. As he scaled the stairs, tears gathered on my eyelashes. I blinked and the tears made their escape, running down my cheeks. Before he disappeared through the doors, he looked down at me with worried eyes.
Then he was gone.
Chapter Five
I adjusted on my bed, wanting desperately to scratch the cut in my leg. It’d been thirty-five hours and the stitches stung. Thirty-five hours without sleep. Thirty-five hours since my life had been normal, and all I’d had to worry about were fencing tryouts. Thirty-five hours, and now I was on the Mystik world’s Most Wanted list. I was terrified and excited. Terrified a hunter would find Nick, Afton, or me. Excited to find out more about this other world. A world that seemed familiar to me.
Arik had gotten to Nick and Afton before the hunter could find them. He’d escorted them safely to their homes. Even though he said we were safe, saying some crazy stuff about erasing our trail, I still worried. He mentioned we had guardians watching us, but I never saw anyone who looked like they could be one. Nothing seemed certain, and I felt on unstable ground.
No matter how many times I told myself it wasn’t real, the gash in my leg reminded me it was. We were so screwed, and there was no going back to not knowing the truth.
I wiped the tears away with the edge of my sheet and then lifted my heavy eyelids, blinking at my Hello Kitty alarm clock. Kitty seemed as stunned about the time as I was. “Three,” I moaned, rolling onto my back. Cleo, my calico cat, protested as she dodged my feet.
I scooted up against the headboard and grabbed the concoction Nana Kearns had made for me from the nightstand. I unscrewed the lid off the jar and inhaled. It smelled woodsy when I slathered it onto my leg. The ointment the doctor had prescribed didn’t work as well as Nana’s gunk. Relief was instant and the itch was gone.
The memory of the ball of light on Arik’s palm while we were in the gateway came to me again. I kept replaying his actions in my mind with the hopes of discovering the secret to creating the light. I’d seen the same light in my hand before, when I was younger. It had freaked me out at first, but then I struggled to find it again.
I replaced the jar, held up my palm, and tried to remember what I’d done to make it appear. The first time was when I was four. Even though I was so young then, the memory was still vivid.
The globe had appeared out of nowhere. I’d been alone in my room, playing with a ball of light, when my mother came to tuck me into bed. She dropped her dishtowel, rushed over, and slapped the ball from my hand. Sparks flickered around me. She begged me to never do it again, warning me that if the bad people saw it, they’d hurt me.
The bad people scared me. I’d buried my face in my teddy and shuddered. She’d picked me up, sat on the bed, placing me on her lap, and chanted something.
“I bind you to our secret.” That was what she’d said. Oh hell, she’d spelled me. That’s why I couldn’t tell anyone about the magic.
I strangled my covers, trying to stop my hands from shaking. Why had she hidden this from Pop? He could have helped me. Prepared me. By not telling him, she left me vulnerable.
An image of her kissing the top of my head and smoothing my hair away from my face came to me. I begged her to tell me the bedtime story. My favorite one.
Oh my God. The story. She had tried to prepare me.
She’d always started it the same way. I glanced at Cleo and muttered, “In a faraway land, a mighty knight…” Cleo yawned and began bathing herself. I was losing my audience.