Tangled

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260 Ava: Call It

"I know" Nibbling the side of my finger, my brows pull together. Why would he tell me to keep it safe, knowing it might be too dangerous?

What were the words he used again? They seemed significant.

"Ava, I need you to tell me you're not going to the Blackwood territory."

Jerking my head up, I blink at Vanessa's worried stare. "I'm not going. I'm just trying to think."

My brain's dead set on remembering what Magister Orion said.

What was it?

Call my book?

Yeah, that's it.

"The book is useless to anyone even if they find it," Marcus says, his words soft. Is he trying to comfort me? "Don't worry, Ava. It'll be a paperweight. Or, if we're lucky, they'll be allergic. Like Selene." He is trying to comfort me.

How sweet.

"That's if we assume they don't know how to open it. The knowledge has been lost to us, but there are Fae involved now, remember?"

Marcus sighs. "Life was casier without this magic shit," he mutters, almost too soft for me to

hear.

But I do.

My lips quirk. I agree with him wholeheartedly.

"Magister Orion said to call the book to me," I say, looking to Vanessa instead. Sometimes it helps to talk out my thought process. "He wouldn't have said it like that if I were to go pick it up, right?"

Her eyes squint as she thinks it through. "That sounds right. But what does it mean? Can you move it from place to place with your magic?"

My nose itches, and I rub at it in frustration. "I think that's exactly what he means, but I have no idea how to implement it." A long sigh, filled with regrets and lack of time. Time is always in short supply. "I wish Magister Orion had taught me something like that before everything happened."

Vanessa's lips quirk into a small smile. "If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets.

I stare at her for a moment, the unexpected phrase catching me off guard. Then, despite the

gravity of our on a laugh bubbles up from my chest. "I haven't heard that phrase since I

was in human school."

the teneian tore heen miling tighter and

200 Ava Call it

about the complexities of pack politics, before I discovered my own magical abilities, before the world seemed to

used to say that all the time," Vanessa says, her eyes softening with the memory.

his throat, bringing us back to the present as his eyes remain glued to the road ahead. "As much as I appreciate the trip down memory lane, we should focus. It must be important, for him to warn

of potholes, making it even harder to concentrate. "We spent most of our time on basic control exercises. Also known as the thing that would keep me from kabooming everyone within radius if I didn't get training. "I can light

Vanessa chimes in with

mention something about intent being crucial in magic. He must think I'm capable of doing this, so I just need to figure out how. Right?" Vanessa turns almost completely around on the passenger side of the bench to face me. There are no seatbelts. Well, there were once upon a time-they were all cut out at

That makes sense. Magic seems

"If I lose concentration,

skepticism. Probably because it leaks out in his voice. "So what, you just think

shrug, feeling a bit foolish.

seat to whisper, "He just doesn't have

what you can do."

hear

meant to," she chides. "Don't make her

bites back the rest of his words. "Never mind. I'll

close my eyes

concentration. A stale, acrid smell of cigarette smoke lingers in the air, tickling my nose and tempting me to sneeze. I push it

in my mind, with the silky feel its leather cover and the ornate silver clasps, tarnished by age. The way the pages felt beneath my fingertips.

260 Ava Call It

and disappeared like

what

breath, trying to center myself. The truck

Focus, Ava. Focus.

grasp them, to hold onto their meaning, but they slip away like smoke. Frustration bubbles up

need to be

my concentration. "Are

nod, not opening my eyes. "I'm trying to

softly. "We'll be

rumbles on, and I sink deeper into my thoughts. I picture the book again, trying to will it into existence. Come on, I think. Come to

I open

book in my

three of us, this ancient rust bucket on wheels, and the deserted rural road

traveling.

harder. Magister Orion said to call it to me, so it must be possible; I just have

undertaking for

my nose. It's distracting, pulling me out of my focus. I try to push it away, but it

Besides, we have a long way still before we make it

this time focusing on the feeling it gave me when I held it. The sense of power, of potential. The way it seemed to hum with energy,