Page 12 of Xantera
As soon as my skin makes contact with the object, I yelp.
An electric current seems to shoot through me, there one moment and gone the next. I toss it onto my bedspread where I can observe it without touching it, a frown tugging on my mouth as I stare at it in the red-tinged light of my bedside lamp.
I don’t remember feeling that same electricity when I touched it the first time to throw it into my pocket. But I grabbed it by the chain then, and this time I swear my fingers skimmed the vial itself. Was the shock just a figment of my imagination, or…?
I touch the vial again, and that same electric shock flits through me, as if trying to connect with my pulse and make it skip a beat.
“Whatareyou?” I marvel quietly.
The answer scratches at the inside of my brain. I have a very distinct feeling my old instructors taught us about these kinds of things in our history classes, that similar objects were used as decorative markers of power and prestige. Selfish. Greedy. Excessive.
So why do I want to put it on?
I close my eyes and throw my head back into my pillow, thinking, thinking, thinking.
Diggory had it around his neck, I’m sure of that. He was clutching at his throat when he ripped it off, and while the folds of hiscloak may have been hiding a majority of it at the time, I would have noticed it on him in the Healing Center. Which means he found themafterhe ran away—both this strange object and a cloak.
Maybe he really was just crazy. A lost cause.
Or maybe if I mimic his last action, something will click in my brain to prove that he wasn’t.
Opening my eyes again, I sit up and grab the object by the chain. Careful not to touch the vial, I raise my hands slowly over my head.
Selfish. Greedy. Excessive. The words clang through me as the vial gleams right in front of my face, its golden bracket winking in the lamplight.
Then a familiar howl erupts from the distant night, jolting me from my trance.
And I let the chain drop around my neck.
One second, my heartbeat is my own.
The next, another heartbeat latches onto my pulse, a new, foreign presence sprouting in my blood.
Someone has found the necklace.
If it’s one of the Twelve—that third one specifically, here to taunt me—I’ll make sure my revenge on him is extra sweet.
What is wrong with me?A female voice fills my head: gentle and warm, like a sunray stretching out to caress you. It’s too rich, the timbre too colorful, to be a Guardian, but I know she must feel our connection, too. Must be aware of the electric tether now connecting us from either side of the Wall.Maybe I’m goingcrazy too,she thinks.
I wait.
Whoever this woman is, I need a second to figure out my tactic. If she doesn’t have a rebellious spirit like the other one, then how can I use her? I need to find the advantage.
It feels alive,she thinks,but it can’t be. It’s not real.
And I just can’t help myself.
Actually, it is, I reply angrily. For too long have the people of Xantera thought of me as a distant threat, a near-myth always prowling beyond their horizon of reality. I’m real. And I willnotfade away.
Her gasp shoots through me, almost like she’s stolen the oxygen from my own lungs, and her thoughts go haywire.
I try to sort through them as I seek shelter from the chilly evening air.
No, that was my imagination. Take it off anyway. I don’t even know what it is. No, it had to be Malcom through the wall. Yes, it was Malcolm.
Who the hell is Malcolm?I ask.
Her response is a muffled scream followed byGet it off! Get it off!
