Tangled

Unshift 260

Unshift 260

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."

from the teneian tore heen miling tighter

200 Ava Call it

thing can bring back memories of a simpler time, before I knew about the complexities of pack politics, before I discovered my own magical abilities, before the

time," Vanessa says, her eyes softening with the memory. "She

glued to the road ahead. "As much as I appreciate the trip down memory lane, we should focus. It must be important,

known as the thing that would keep me from kabooming everyone within radius if I didn't get training. "I can light a candlestick if you need me

Vanessa chimes in with

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

makes sense. Magic seems to be

nod, latching onto the idea. "If I lose concentration, I lose control. So it's

Marcus' head can't hide his skepticism. Probably because it leaks out in his voice. "So what, you just think really hard about the book and

shrug, feeling a bit foolish. "Maybe?

"He just doesn't

what you can do."

can hear you, Healer

chides. "Don't make her feel bad when she's trying to

trying to-" he bites back the rest of

close my

of cigarette smoke lingers in the air, tickling my nose and tempting me to sneeze. I push it all away, focusing on the task

in my mind, with the silky feel its leather cover and the ornate

260 Ava Call It

disappeared

That's what

myself. The

Focus, Ava. Focus.

dance in my memory, swirling and shifting. I try to grasp them, to hold onto their meaning, but they slip away

I need to be

voice breaks through my concentration. "Are you

opening my eyes. "I'm trying to

she says softly.

the book again, trying to

I open

in

ancient rust bucket on wheels, and the deserted

traveling.

to me, so it must

massive undertaking for a new

It's distracting, pulling me out of my focus. I try to

giving up. Besides, we have a long way still before

when I held it. The sense of power, of potential. The way it seemed