Snakeroot (22 page)

Then a much more terrible question filled her mind.

Who am I?

His mouth covered hers and Adne couldn’t breathe. The desire heating her limbs fled, chased away by a cold hollowing of her bones.

With the little air left in her lungs, Adne screamed.

• • •

“Adne! Adne!” Connor gripped her shoulders.

Adne flailed, trying to free herself. She could still feel the other man’s weight, taste his breath.

“Adne, please!” Connor’s voice was on the edge of breaking. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

His voice still whispered to her, tempting her.

Remember me.

Amid her violent struggle, the sound of Connor’s voice reached Adne, breaking through the mesmerizing tones of the stranger’s words.

That voice. She knew that voice.

Adne went limp in Connor’s arms.

“I’m Ariadne,” she whispered.

“What did you say?” Connor gathered her slumped body against his chest.

The fog of the dream began to melt away and Adne saw Connor clearly. The horror in his eyes made her chest cramp.

“I—” She looked away from him. “It was nothing. A dream.”

“That wasn’t nothing, Adne,” Connor said. “I thought you were having a seizure.”

“It was a nightmare.” Adne groped for a lie. “I dreamt I was drowning. It was horrible, but it wasn’t real. I’m okay now.”

Connor didn’t answer. He held her tight and Adne could feel the rapid beating of his heart.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Adne said. She hesitated for a minute. “Maybe I should go.”

Connor tensed. “Is that what you want?”

“When was the last time you got a decent night of sleep?” Adne asked. “I’m pretty sure I’m making you miserable.”

“You could never do that,” Connor replied, but he sounded pretty miserable.

“Look.” Adne wriggled out of Connor’s arms and off the bed. “I’m not going to be able to sleep for a while anyway. Not after that dream. But there’s no reason for my nightmare to keep us both awake.”

Connor watched as Adne donned a robe.

“If you’re not going to sleep, where are you going?” His face was drawn.

Adne shrugged. “Maybe to the kitchen. To make some tea.”

She could tell that Connor knew she was lying, but he didn’t press her for the truth. Maybe he was afraid of what she’d say. She was.

Adne walked back to the bed and brushed a kiss across Connor’s cheek. “Get some rest. I’m sorry I kept you up.”

“Adne—” Connor grasped her wrist.

“Don’t touch me!” Adne jerked her arm free with much more force than she intended.

Connor stared at her, disbelief washing over his features.

“I didn’t mean . . . ,” Adne began, but she couldn’t find any words sufficient to finish.

Hating herself for it but equally desperate to get away, Adne turned and hurried out of Connor’s room.

When she was in the hall, she began to run. It wasn’t Connor she wanted to flee from. It was the voice that had been whispering ever since she’d woken. Quiet but insistent, it spoke whenever she looked at Connor.

He’s not the one you belong to.

Adne reached her room and flung the door open only to find that in her absence someone else had taken up residence. The woman, who was on her hands and knees, picking through the items in a wooden box, shrieked in surprise when Adne burst into the room.

“Sarah?” Adne stared at Sarah Doran in shock. “What are you doing here?”

Sarah paled, her eyes full of panic. She looked at the open box and then at Adne.

“Please, I have to . . .” Sarah closed the box and held it to her chest. “I don’t have a choice.”

Sarah’s eyes cast wildly about the room, reminding Adne of a terrified animal caught in a snare.

Keeping her voice calm, Adne approached Sarah slowly. “Just tell me what’s going on. I’d like to help.”

Sarah laughed and it was an unnerving sound, tinged with desperation. Adne wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Sarah had suddenly attacked her. Then Adne recognized the wooden box Sarah clung to.

“Sarah,” Adne said slowly, “when you were looking through that box, did you find what you needed?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed as if she suspected Adne was trying to trick her.

Adne walked over to the bedside table and opened its drawer. She withdrew the pendant, holding it up for Sarah to see. “I wear this sometimes,” Adne said. “So I don’t keep it in the box.”

“Please.” Sarah scrambled to her feet. “Please give it to me.”

“Tell me why you need these things,” Adne said.

Shaking her head, Sarah whispered, “I can’t say. But you must give it to me.”

“You can say, if you truly want this.” Adne dropped the pendant into her palm and closed her fist around it, hiding it from view. “I’ll make it easier for you. You’re taking the box to Logan Bane, aren’t you?”

Sarah gave a little gasp.

Adne walked over to Sarah. “Have you made arrangements to meet him somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to betray you.” Adne took Sarah’s hand and laid the necklace in her open palm. “I won’t tell anyone about this, but I need you to do something for me.”

Sarah’s hands were trembling. “What?”

“You’re going to take me with you.”

“I can’t do that,” Sarah said.

“Yes, you can.” Adne folded her arms across her chest. “And you will. Or you’re not leaving the Academy.”

“Don’t think I won’t fight you.” Sarah tensed, as if anticipating an attack.

“I’m sure you would,” Adne said. “But that’s not what I want. I need to talk to Logan. You know where he is, or at least where he’s going to be. I’m not going to interfere with whatever your business with Logan is. I have business of my own.”

Sarah’s gaze searched Adne’s expression, seeking some means of escape. Finding none, Sarah nodded in resignation.

“Where are you meeting him?” Adne asked, trying not to show how relieved she was that convincing Sarah to take her along hadn’t been harder. It wasn’t terribly difficult to see why Sarah had conceded so soon. Beneath her veneer of strength, Adne could glimpse how broken the woman was. Sarah Doran had very little fight left and Adne guessed she was being driven mostly by desperation.

We’re not so different.

“A town house in Boston,” Sarah told Adne. “I have an address.”

“Boston?” Adne frowned. “And how are you planning to get there?”

“I hadn’t decided—” Sarah lifted her chin, defiant despite the glaring flaw in her plan. Or the lack of a plan altogether.

Desperate. We’re both desperate.

“Well.” Adne smiled sadly. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m a Weaver.”

SABINE FELT AS
though she were in the middle of a demented game of hide-and-seek that had gone on for far too long. She couldn’t find Adne anywhere and she’d been looking for hours.

When Adne hadn’t shown up to guide the tour she’d been assigned, Sabine had simply stepped in and taken over. But given their misadventure the previous day at Haldis, and what Sabine had subsequently learned from Ethan about Adne’s bizarre behavior at the training session, Sabine thought it best to find Adne and make sure she was okay.

But Adne seemed to have vanished. Connor grudgingly admitted that Adne had left his bed in the middle of the night and hadn’t returned. The Striker was in as sour a mood as Sabine had ever seen. Whether he was smarting from Adne’s rejection or the debacle of the mission, which Ethan had also relayed to Sabine, Connor proved less than helpful in Sabine’s search.

After hunting through the Academy and asking all of Adne’s acquaintances if they’d seen her, Sabine came up with nothing. She even returned to Rowan Estate on the off chance that Adne had somehow ended up at the mansion or in the gardens. But Adne hadn’t made an appearance at the Keeper estate since Sabine had left earlier in the day.

Though Sabine wondered if she should just let it be, as a sullen Connor had suggested in a much less pleasant fashion, she felt somewhat responsible for Adne. Not knowing what else to do, Sabine finally went in search of Anika, despite the fact that the hour crept close to midnight. She’d considered going to Tess, but Sabine had a nagging feeling that Adne’s disappearance was a sign of things to come. Very bad things that Anika would need to know about.

When Sabine knocked on the Arrow’s door, apology ready to be delivered before her request for help, Anika answered not cross nor groggy-eyed from being woken, but fully dressed and alert.

“It’s not a good time, Sabine,” Anika said.

“I know,” Sabine replied. “But something’s happened and I need your help. I think.”

“You think?” Anika frowned.

A movement behind the Arrow caught Sabine’s eye. Anika wasn’t alone.

“I mean, I know I need your help,” Sabine said quickly, “but I don’t know what the protocol is when it comes to a missing Searcher.”

“Missing?” Anika’s brow knit together. “You’d better come in.”

Sabine entered the Arrow’s quarters and Anika closed the door. Without Anika obscuring her view, Sabine was surprised to discover that the second person in the room was Tristan Doran.

“Sabine.” Anika was still frowning. “How did you come to know that Sarah Doran is missing?”

“Sarah is missing?” Sabine shook her head in surprise. “I didn’t know that. I’m here because I can’t find Adne. No one seems to know where she is.”

“Adne is missing?” Anika rocked back on her heels. “Are you sure?”

Sabine nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Do you think that Sarah and Adne could be missing for the same reason?” Anika asked Tristan.

“I don’t know,” Tristan said. The man’s face was haggard. He looked worse than Connor had.

“Do you have any idea where Sarah went?” Sabine asked him.

“She left a note.” Tristan opened his palm to reveal a crumpled piece of paper. “It’s not particularly helpful.”

Sabine took the note from Tristan and smoothed it open.

I had to try. Please forgive me.

“‘I had to try’?” Sabine murmured, mostly to herself, but Tristan sighed.

“I have a few guesses,” Tristan said. “None of them are comforting.”

Sabine nodded. She could guess too. Sarah Doran hadn’t been reluctant to broadcast her hopes for bringing Shay back from his life as a wolf. But how she thought she might accomplish such a thing was difficult to say.

“You don’t think she’d go up onto the mountain and try to snare him?” Sabine asked.

“I think that might be a best-case scenario,” Anika replied. “I sent a team up to Haldis to see if that’s what happened, but Sarah isn’t ignorant—she knows how Shay’s transformation occurred. If she wanted to undo what’s been done, she’ll pursue specific channels.”

“Magic,” Sabine said quietly.

Anika nodded and Tristan’s jaw clenched.

“But it’s not possible,” Sabine continued. “Right? Bringing Shay back is not something Sarah could actually do.”

“No,” Tristan said. “She can’t. But she won’t accept it. I’ve tried to convince her so many times to let it go. I tried.”

Anika put her hand on Tristan’s shoulder. “We both tried.”

“Sorry for being behind the curve,” Sabine said. “But if there’s no way for Sarah to bring Shay back, then what are you worried she’s doing?”

“It’s the ‘trying’ that presents a danger,” Anika told Sabine. “Sarah has been spending a lot of time at Rowan Estate.”

“I know.” Sabine nodded. “I’ve seen her there.”

“We’re worried she may have taken some books from the library,” Anika said. “The collections at Rowan Estate skewed heavily toward the occult.”

“Sarah can’t bring our son back,” Tristan said quietly. “But if she uses certain spells to try, even in vain, there could be terrible ramifications.”

“But the Rift is closed,” Sabine said, more to comfort herself than to argue with Tristan. “Doesn’t that kind of mitigate the damage any Keeper spells can do?”

“To the world, yes,” Anika answered. “In cases like this, harm doesn’t usually extend beyond the caster.”

“Oh,” Sabine said, feeling foolish. Of course they were trying to protect Sarah from herself. “But maybe that’s the connection between Adne and Sarah. What if Adne went along to try to keep Sarah safe?”

“And how would a young Weaver manage that?” There was more spite in Tristan’s question than Sabine liked, but she let it go.

“You don’t know Adne,” Sabine told him. “She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

“Sabine’s telling the truth,” Anika agreed. “Adne’s an exceptional young woman. But as much as it’s comforting to imagine that Sarah’s not alone, I’m not certain they’re together. Are you aware of any relationship having developed between them?”

“No,” Sabine admitted. Adne hadn’t talked about Sarah Doran, but then Adne hadn’t been inclined to talk much about anything lately.

“For now I think we have to treat the two cases as distinct,” Anika told her. “Thank you for bringing Adne’s absence to my attention. I’ll assign a team to pursue the matter.”

Realizing she’d just been dismissed, Sabine nodded and showed herself out of the room. No sooner had she opened the door than Sabine ducked to avoid being struck in the face by a red-faced Striker, who’d been about to knock on the door.