Page 40 of Bonds of Magic (Vesperwood Academy: Incubus #3)

NOAH

H ave fun in Pointe Claudette tonight .

Cory’s words rang in my ears as I pulled up to the Balsam Inn later that evening. What the hell had he meant? How had he even known I was coming here tonight?

It was cold when I got out of my car. The temperature had dropped back down to January lows, and there was a bite to the air. Not a night to be outside longer than you could help it.

I crossed the lot, the gravel mixed with months-old ice, frozen in rough gray smears. The wood stairs creaked as I walked up them, that particular noise wood only makes in single-digit temperatures.

I opened the door and scanned the bar. A couple was playing pool on the far side of the room.

Tom was behind the bar, as expected. And Lew was absent from his usual table—again.

I didn’t want to admit it, but that was a relief.

Even though we were never together , I still felt like I was avoiding an ex.

Well, he deserved better than me anyway. Maybe now he’d look for it.

I walked to the bar and watched Tom pull a cherry pie with a towering pile of whipped cream out of the pastry case. Two slices had been cut from it and the cherries glistened an unnatural red under the neon lights of the bar.

“Want a slice?” he asked. “It’s a couple of days old. Figured I’d take it home, but if you want any…”

“I’m good,” I said, waving away the offer.

Tom nodded, then moved to pour me a beer, but I waved that away too.

“You on some kind of a diet?”

“Nah, just not here for a beer.”

“You barely finished your beer last time you were here, and tonight you’re not gonna drink at all?” He gave me a sidelong look. “Lew ain’t here, you know.”

“I know.”

I hadn’t realized how set my pattern was until I’d broken it. I’d never come to the Balsam Inn for just a beer. It was always to wait on Lew to show up. If Lew got there first, I never drank a thing.

How predictable. How pathetic.

“Out of town,” Tom continued. “For a few days. And the spare room’s been rented anyway.”

“About that,” I said. “Do you know who’s renting it?”

He looked at me like I’d asked if the sun rose in the east. “‘Course I do, boy. I’m the one that rented it to her.”

“So it’s a her.”

Tom frowned. “That mean something to you?”

“It might. Can you tell me her name?”

“I certainly can,” he said. “But I won’t, unless I’m convinced you’ve got a good reason for asking. Do you?”

“I’m trying to get in touch with her. Need to ask her something.”

“You’re trying to get in touch with a woman whose name you don’t know?” Tom arched an eyebrow. “I thought your taste ran more to fellas than gals. Am I wrong about you?”

“No, it’s—I mean, I’m actually—no,” I stuttered. I wasn’t here to give a lecture on bisexuality. “That’s not why I want to see her.”

“Then why do you?”

“Jesus, Tom, what’s with the third degree?”

“She’s a paying customer. That’s an invasion of privacy, the way I see it.”

I heaved a sigh. I hadn’t expected this much resistance. But now that I thought about it, I hadn’t given Tom all that many reasons to trust me over the years. And it seemed too late to start now.

“Nevermind,” I said. “I’ll go up and knock on her door.”

“Knock all you like. She won’t answer.”

“Why? You plan on calling her room before I can get up there?”

“Nope. She’s out. Stopped in half an hour ago and said she had some errands.”

“Errands,” I scoffed. What kind of errands could a person be running in Pointe Claudette? There was nowhere to run errands to . “Well, maybe I’ll go up anyway. Take a look around.”

“And break down my door in the process?”

“You think you can stop me?”

“Maybe not,” Tom said equably. “But I’m sure that if you think about it for a minute, you don’t really want to go jeopardizing my relationship with your school. Which is what you’d be doing, if you damaged my property.”

I glared at him. He looked back, a slight smile on his face, no sign of temper. I pounded a fist on the bar.

“Dammit, Tom. Someone could be in danger. This is important.”

“I’m sure it is,” he said. “You just have to decide how important.”

I glared some more, but he was unmoved. Mentally, I tallied up the possible information I could glean from this woman’s unoccupied room and compared it to the tirade I’d get from Isaac for putting Vesperwood’s relationship with Tom in trouble.

Tom wasn’t a witch, but we did call on him for favors now and again.

“Fine,” I said. “I guess I’ll be going, then.”

“Have a good night now,” Tom called. “Thanks for stopping by.”

It wasn’t worth trying to sneak upstairs now and pick the lock on the door. Tom would be watching. I’d have to find this woman another time.

I drove back to Vesperwood, the road winding up and down the cliffs at the edge of the lake, then plunging into deep forest, curving sinuously.

My mind wandered. Was this woman after Sheridan because he owed her money too?

Or did she want him for more serious matters? And did that make her friend, or foe?

I parked in the gravel in front of Vesperwood’s carriage house. It was far enough away from the main manor that you could get away with having cars out here—as long as they ran on outdated technology. There wasn’t a single car in the lot that post-dated 1990. And all of them looked familiar.

If the woman’s errands had taken her to the school, she hadn’t come by car. But would she have, if she were trying to be stealthy?

I stood in the lot for a minute, listening to the sounds of the night. An owl hooted mournfully. It was cloudy, and there were no stars to speak of. The waxing moon was just a slightly lighter patch of sky.

I was about to head for the manor when I heard it—branches breaking underfoot, in the woods at the eastern edge of the lot. It could have been anything. A deer. A rabbit. Even a wolf or a bear. There was all sorts of wildlife up here.

I was being overly cautious. But when I heard the sound again, I turned in its direction. I couldn’t go inside without checking. Someone might be out there. Watching. Waiting to pounce.

I stepped as lightly as I could on the crushed gravel. I paused at the border of dark trees at the edge of the lot. I listened again. All I heard was silence. I was about to turn around, convinced it was a deer after all, when I heard thrashing from inside the trees.

The sound was farther away this time. Whoever was making it was on the move. But it was so loud and awkward, I was fairly certain it wasn’t an animal. Only a bear would make that much noise, crashing through the underbrush, and bears weren’t too active this early in the spring.

My gut said it was a person—and a not-very-stealthy one at that.

I ducked into the trees. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the even darker night that reigned beneath their canopy, but as soon I could see the ground in front of me, I set off in the direction of the thrashing, doing my best to walk more quietly than whoever was up ahead.

If this were someone looking for Sheridan, they were walking in the wrong direction. Unless they already had him. Dragging a reluctant prisoner through the woods would definitely make noise.

My entire body was on high alert. My heartbeat was elevated, my eyes focused. I moved with a light step, ready to dart in any direction I needed to. I was on the hunt, but there might be someone out here hunting me.

But what else was new? I’d hunted down plenty of people who would have been happy to see me dead. And I’d been in danger since the day I said no to Argus. He’d wanted me under his thumb, and if he couldn’t have that, he wanted to kill me himself. I was his number one target.

Number two , whispered a voice in the back of my mind. Don’t forget Cory .

After all, it was Cory who’d had tenelkiri after him before he even got to Vesperwood. Cory who’d almost been kidnapped by Jude. It looked like I’d fallen a spot in the rankings.

Where was Cory right now? He should be in his room, or maybe the library, safe and sound. There was no reason to think he was in trouble. To believe he was out here.

No reason—except for his habit of turning up in the most dangerous place he possibly could be, exactly when he shouldn’t.

I was gaining on the sounds in front of me, but I had to be careful. Someone making this much noise probably wasn’t very aware of their surroundings—unless they were a decoy, luring me to a predetermined spot.

I followed whoever it was for another few minutes until the sounds suddenly stopped.

I halted too, sidling up against a pine and peering into the woods ahead.

It was just more trees, as far as I could tell.

Not even a clearing. But twenty feet ahead of me, there was a large mound on the forest floor, and in the dim light, I could barely make out a human figure bending over it.

I stilled my body, scarcely daring to breathe. The figure appeared to be talking, but it was low enough that I couldn’t make out the words. Suddenly, a ball of light appeared, spinning in a circle above the mound, which turned out to be a cairn of stacked stones about three feet in diameter.

The figure bending over it was Hans.

I blinked. What was it Teresa had said about him? Skulking about the grounds at all hours of the night ? Maybe she’d been telling the truth.

Hans was still bent over the cairn, his hands moving in complicated patterns. Four smaller lights appeared around the cairn at waist-height—blue, green, gold, and red. As they appeared, he straightened and stepped back.

His voice rose, and he moved his hands in a circle, then a straight line up and down. Thin bands of shining white appeared between the four colored lights, creating a diamond, or a circle, that Hans stood outside of.

His voice rose even higher, and even I could tell that he was calling someone, or some thing . His tone was entreating, then commanding. The light above the cairn spun faster, and the four colored lights began to spin as well.

Finally, Hans called out, “ To me !” and fell silent.