Page 128 of The Stone Initiation
“I don’t know,” Chlobe said softly. “The one that was on you”—she looked over me, her expression almost wary—“It could have killed you, but it didn’t.”
Ice gripped my nape. “Why would it want me?”
The lights flickered and the room went dark.
“Jude!” Bertie came running down the corridor. “Power went down.”
“Don’t panic,” Jude said. “The wards are mystical. They’ll hold.”
“No, it’s,” Bertie gasped and leaned forward to brace his palms on his knees, “the power…” He sucked in a breath and coughed.
“Spit it out, Bertie,” Jude snapped.
“It went out just as I…I sent the… message.”
Jude’s eyes widened. “Did the message go through?”
Bertie straightened. Hand going to his chest.
“Bertie did the message go through?” Jude demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
A shrill ringing shattered the silence following Bertie’s statement.
Jude hurried to the counter and snatched up the phone. “What?” She went still and silent listening. “Okay.” She looked over at us and hit a button on the phone.
A cultured male voice drifted out of the speaker on the phone.
“Hello all. My name is Ignus. I’d like to apologize for the theatrics, all the argh and grrr. In hindsight the grotesques may have been overkill, you see, we were expecting you to be accompanied byactualguardians.”
Sharniza’s lip lifted in a soft snarl.
“What do you want?” Evelyn said. “If you’re working for the graynites then you know they have no use for omegas.”
“Oh, I know perfectly well. But it isn’t the omegas we came for.” My scalp pricked as every eye turned to me. “We came for the halfblood.”
CHAPTER54
WILLOWMAN
The blood samples are clean. The results are the same as what we have on file. There’s nothing in Walker’s saliva to suggest any anomalies.
I’m stumped.
I’ll need to go deeper, but I don’t have the equipment here. I’ll have to send the samples to HQ for deeper analysis, but if they run them through their database it might reveal that Cameron is Serath’s mate.
We can’t risk that, which means a trip on my part, because there is one other place, one other person who may be able to give us the answers we need.
I’d downplayed my concern so as not to cause the girl panic, but I have questions and I need to satisfy them.
I reach up to grab the cooling case where the samples need to be stored, and my hand brushes something smooth and cold.
What? Why is there an orb up on that shelf? It should be in a box with all the other orbs I haven’t used yet. But this one crackles with power.
Familiar power.
A signature for a warping.
