Page 21 of Fortune Fae Academy
A faint, melancholy song lingered on the horizon, sending bumps sprouting over my naked skin.
The Web spoke to me like this sometimes, but it had never been this strong, or this audible.
The fae below seemed blissfully oblivious of the whispers just out of reach. It was as if the Web spoke of some lament I couldn’t hear.
Some warning that could turn into a prophecy if I were stronger.
If I had been more like Zeke.
With an uneasy sensation throttling my insides, I almost didn’t notice the dark shadow.
The orange sun had been blotted out. When I turned to see the cause, my heart dropped.
The waterfall wasn’t falling anymore, at least notdown.
It rose up and up like a geyser, angry and spewing with newfound rage.
Then it arched, coming straight for me.
Cursing, I scrambled down the cliff’s steep slope, tripping over rocks and slipping on wet moss before I caught my balance.
I realized too late that my hands were empty, and I frantically searched the way I’d just come. The wall of water wasn’t heading for me—it wanted the card.
It crashed down onto it with the force of a thousand mountains, shaking the ground and nearly sending me tumbling to my death. Rocks scraped my unprotected skin as I fumbled, but there were plenty of vines and branches to grab on to.
Finding my footing in the mossy, wet ground, I braced myself as water rushed past me. Its cool current was almost gentle, as if it wanted to toy with me for being so afraid.
Can’t handle a little water with the Web?it seemed to say.
When the water drained, the card was still there and it gleamed with silver.
I hadn’t awakened some sort of water magic.
I’d awakened Dust.
“I did it,” I breathed with a sense of disbelief. With shaky steps, I approached the card and snatched it up, finding that the missing back now held a three-dimensional Tunnel.
One that wound with threads of the past.
And it sucked me in.
So beautiful…
I marveled at the incredible expanse of the Web. The intimacy of it and the wonder.
But most interesting of all were the patterns.
Patterns I’d never seen before, but each one told a story of its timeline.
Some were beautiful works of art interloping through one another in magnificent arcs.
Others were snarled, angry clusters, but held unique patterns all the same.
“Zeke, look at this one,” I said, reaching out to touch a piece of the cosmos that birthed an entire race we’d never even known about.
Then I remembered he was gone.
Taken from me harshly and with a stabbing of pain.
