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."

tore heen miling tighter and

200 Ava Call it

a simpler time, before I knew about the complexities of pack politics, before I discovered

used to say that all the time," Vanessa says, her

to the road ahead. "As much as I appreciate the trip down memory lane, we

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 a

chimes in with

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

makes sense. Magic seems to

idea. "If I lose concentration, I lose control. So it's the bedrock

Probably because it leaks out in his voice.

feeling a bit foolish.

seat to whisper, "He just

what you can do."

can hear you, Healer

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

the rest of his words.

my eyes and

old truck rattles and shakes, every bump in the road threatening to jostle me out of my concentration. A stale, acrid smell of cigarette smoke lingers in the air, tickling my nose and

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

260 Ava Call It

disappeared

what

deep breath, trying to center myself. The truck hits another pothole, and I grit

Focus, Ava. Focus.

shifting. I try to grasp them, to hold onto their meaning, but they slip away like smoke. Frustration bubbles up inside me, and I push it

need to

my concentration. "Are you okay? You

nod, not opening my eyes.

softly. "We'll be

into my thoughts. I picture the book again,

whenever I open my eyes-nothing

book in

bucket on wheels, and the deserted rural road

traveling.

to me, so it must be possible; I

undertaking for a

I wrinkle my nose. It's distracting, pulling me out

long way

held it. The sense of power, of potential. The way it seemed to hum with energy, as if it was alive somehow. I reach out with