Year Two: Rebels - Cara Wylde Page 0,11
not the right word. There were demons among the supernaturals, actual sons and daughters of Satan. Yes, that Satan. The one who lived and ruled over Hell. And they were nothing like the cosmic beings.
He took my hand between both his palms, raised it to his lips, and kissed my knuckles. His warm breath traveled up my arm and settled right in my chest.
“Yolanda, I won’t let you go there ever again. I almost lost you once.”
“I have to. If I don’t do it, Yig will keep living and breathing under the Academy. It will keep making more revenants, and the revenants will keep bringing it blood sacrifices. And who knows? What if Yig wakes up?”
“No…”
“I have to do something!”
“You almost died…”
“Adrian, listen to me.” I stole a glance around me, then lowered my voice even more. “I don’t have much time. Before you came in, the nurse gave me something. They’re keeping me drugged. I can’t dream jump anymore, I can’t teleport… Adrian, I can’t live like this. You have to get me out of here.”
He sighed deeply. For a long moment, he simply stared at our entwined fingers. Eventually, he let go of my hand and leaned back in his chair.
“I’m sorry, Yolanda. I want to help you. I do. But I’ve just talked to your doctor, and he says you’re not ready. He says you’re still…”
“A suicide risk?” I laughed darkly, and maybe a tiny bit maniacally, too. I cleared my throat and covered my face with my hands. This was not going great. “And you believe him? Look around you.” I motioned at the patients in the common room. “The doctors and the nurses… They’re doing this to us. They want to keep us subdued. They’re not trying to cure us.”
He seemed confused for a second. On the one hand, he could see the effects of the potions they were making us drink three times a day, but on the other hand… he knew most of the supernaturals here were rogue and dangerous. But I wasn’t like them.
“I’ll do what I can.”
“What you can? That’s not enough.”
“I’ll talk to Headmaster Colin.”
“Adrian, you have to talk to my cousin! Find Mila Morningstar. She can get me out of here.”
“She’s a Grim Reaper. How am I supposed to call upon a Grim Reaper when she’s serving? But Headmaster Colin might know how to reach her.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t helping. In truth, he was kind of right. Even if Mila was family, that didn’t mean I could reach her whenever I wanted. It was up to her to visit when she had a spare minute.
“Just get me the bell. I will summon my pixie, and she will help me. Her magic is strong.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t sound very convincing, but I was too tired to care. Maybe I should have made him promise, but all I wanted was to lie down and forget about the world. My brain was swimming in a thick, dark fog. It was getting harder for me to hold my head up, let alone think. I fell silent.
Adrian sat with me a few minutes longer. When he realized I was far away, he fell silent too, and just stared at me as I stared at the puzzle on the table, unable to put even two pieces together. At some point, Nurse T came over and told Adrian it was time for my lunch. Adrian stood up, and before he left, I felt his lips press to my forehead. I leaned into him, and he kept his lips there for a long second. I wanted to thank him for visiting me. I wanted to ask him again if he was really going to bring me Corri’s bell. I couldn’t. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, only some incoherent babble would come out, and I needed him to trust me that I was getting better, not worse.
Even as he moved away, leaving me there with the nurses and the patients, in this desolate place that was going to break my mind more instead of putting it back together, the ghost of his kiss lingered on my skin. And I knew it then. That kiss had sealed the memory of his visit into my brain. I wasn’t going to forget.
CHAPTER FOUR
I must have lost more time.
I was lucid again, standing in the middle of the courtyard, and it was drizzling. It was still fall, since it hadn’t started snowing, and it was so cold that