She couldn’t move him. She couldn’t walk away.
She glanced up at the dark windows of the house, fighting the hol ow in the pit of her stomach, knowing what she had to do.
Her hand trailed from his chest. She climbed to her feet.
“I’l be right back.”
His lean hand curled, warm and possessive, around her ankle. “Don’t leave.”
Her heart lurched. “I’l be right back,” she repeated and ran.
Lara peered through the leaded glass insets at the side of the door. Even through the swirled and textured glass, she could see the hal was empty. The doorbel ’s echo faded away.
Simon didn’t come.
Her heart hammered. Why didn’t he come?
She tried knocking and heard — final y! — the headmaster’s deliberate tread descending the stairs. The foyer light switched on, making the colors in the window bloom.
Simon opened the door. Just for a moment, something flashed in his eyes. She felt hot and awkward, as if she’d been caught running in the hal. Or kissing a bleeding stranger in his back garden.
She fought the temptation to smooth her skirt, to check her buttons. Stupid. Simon had more important things to worry about than what she did or with whom. And so did she.
She must have roused him from bed. He was stil wearing the long, loose pants and shirt most nephilim favored for training and sleeping. The wide-sleeved shirt hung open over his naked chest. His long, narrow feet were bare.
“Lara. This is unexpected.” His usual y smooth voice was roughened with sleep.
She averted her gaze, uncomfortable with this unfamiliar, intimate view of the headmaster. She real y should have cal ed first. “Yeah. Um, sorry. I need your help.”
“What is it? What can I do for you?”
“Me?” Surprise made her squeak. “Nothing. I. It’s Justin.”
Simon went very stil. “Justin.”
“Out back. Please. Hurry.”
“Lara. ”
“He must have. ” Escaped was too strong a word.
“Walked out. I found him trying to get into your storm cel ar.”
Did she imagine it, or did some of the tension leave Simon’s shoulders? “And you came to tel me.”
She nodded.
“Very good.”
His approval made her flush.
“He is there now?” Simon asked, already moving, gliding down the steps, silent as the air.
She hurried after him. “Yes, he can’t walk, he can barely talk. ”
“He spoke to you?”
The sudden sharpness of his tone made her blink. “Wel, not real y. The heth. And his head. ”
Simon rounded the corner of the house and stopped.
Lara watched him take in the scene with one glance, the gaping cel ar door, Justin’s body on the stairs. His eyes were stil closed, his chest moving. Thank God. The residue of magic drifted over the ground like the smel of gunpowder on the Fourth of July.
Lara rubbed her arms, feeling the charge like static against her skin.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 61
“You may go,” Simon said. “I wil deal with this.”
At the sound of his voice, Justin turned his head. His gaze slipped past Simon and stabbed her, his eyes dark with accusation.
For no reason at al, she began to tremble.
“It’s al right,” she said quickly. “Everything’s going to be al right now.”
“Stay there,” Simon ordered. “He may be dangerous.”
“He’s not, he. ”
Simon stooped, his back to her. She felt a change like a drop in temperature or a shift in the atmosphere, and Justin slumped.
Simon cradled his head before it hit the ground.
Her heart rol ed over in her chest. “What did you do?”
she whispered.
Simon glanced over his shoulder, brows raised.
Oh, right, like she wouldn’t recognize his magic whammy.
But maybe she wouldn’t have a day ago. Or even an hour ago. Maybe the spel she had worked on Justin had made her more sensitive. Or maybe it was his kiss.
“I relieved his pain,” Simon said.
“You knocked him out.”
Simon shrugged. “He wil be easier to move this way.”
He was the headmaster. She trusted him. She did.
She watched as he brought his cupped hands to his mouth and blew softly. Mage fire kindled in his palms, a globe of silver light, cool and unconsuming. He released it to float above his head, tethering the light with a word.
Simple magic. She could do it herself, most of the time.
But Simon Axton had other magic, other powers, painstakingly accumulated or recal ed over the years of his very long life.
He raised his arms in command and Justin’s body levitated, hovering over the cel ar threshold.
In silence, Simon waded into the shadow of the stairwel, nudging Justin ahead of him like a man on a raft. The mage fire fol owed. Lara watched, anxious and uneasy, as the stone wal s swal owed the descending light.
“Where are you. Aren’t you taking him back to the infirmary?”
“He’l be safe here.” Simon’s reply was muffled by the ground. “Quiet.”
Quiet, yeah. Like a grave is quiet.
She scrambled through the canted door, ducking her head to avoid the rough-timbered ceiling. There was a nasty moment going down the steps when she thought about snakes and spiders and things that lived in holes underground. But then the passage opened into a smal room, cool and musty, with shelves along one wal and a couple of bunks on the other.
Simon was already lowering Justin’s body onto the bottom bunk. But she had time to notice — just before his head hit the pil ow — that it was already dented. His shoes were under the bed.
She sucked in her breath.
Simon turned at the sound.
Their eyes met.
He must have seen her working things out. The bed. The shoes. The heth. The knife. And Justin, sprawled across the threshold to the cel ar, half in, half out.
She wet her lips. “He didn’t walk out of the infirmary.”
Not on his own. They’d brought him here, Zayin or Simon.
She saw that now. He must have woken alone, in pain, in the dark. No wonder he’d tried to escape.
And she’d dragged him back like a barn cat with a bloody mouse and deposited him at the headmaster’s feet.
“How,” Simon asked softly, “did you discover he was gone?”
Her mind stuttered. She raised her chin, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “I couldn’t sleep.” He would know why, he’d found her, he knew everything about her. “So I decided to check on him.”
“Your sympathy does you credit.” A pause, while they both looked down at the man on the bed. “Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of your judgment.”
Pain squeezed her head. She could not think. She could not breathe. “He shouldn’t have been left by himself.”
Simon’s lips thinned. “Apparently not.”
“I found him,” she said. “I can stay with him. Let me help, we have a connection, I—”
“Your connection is your problem. You are too close to this matter to see clearly where your responsibility and your loyalty should lie. Perhaps you need to take some time for reflection.”
“I know you’re disappointed in my performance as Seeker,”
she said through stiff lips. “But please, I have the cal ing. If you give me another chance. ”
“Seeking is a gift,” Simon said. “Even if I wanted to, I could not deprive you of your vocation.”
She exhaled in relief. “Then—”
“However, I can and wil determine your other duties at Rockhaven.”
Her other duties?