Page 23 of Boundless

So, together we walked out the back door and slipped into the forest without a word.

It’s not goodbye,I reminded myself every step of the way. My eyes remained on the ground and my hands fisted tightly because I was feeling too much of too many things at once, and the magic responded. I didn’t need to even focus or call for it now—it just responded to the intensity of everything I felt, and it was constantly there, on the brink, at the tips of my fingers, ready to come out.

Then Betty began to talk, to tell my Dad what I’d told her and Fiona earlier about the noxins and imps, about acid-spitting lizards, and I was so damn thankful I could cry. The silencewas getting to me, though it was different here. The forest felt different, sounded different, smelled different—no magic and no colorful leaves and no moving plants anywhere. Just a forest.

I don’t know why the thought made me so damnsad.

We walked slowly, all of us, and we all jumped in on the conversation, though whatever I said, I said it absentmindedly. My thoughts were divided—some part of me was still waiting for Rune to pop up in front of me, having just come out of the Aetherway. Some part of me thought he might be hiding behind trees, not wanting to spook my family, and so I kept searching the branches with my eyes as well as I could.

Most of me was simply terrified of getting to those trees between which was a portal to another world that others couldn’t even see. Most of me was terrified of getting there and finding that it refused to let me through again.

“There they are.”

Fiona’s voice was like a knife through my gut. I’d been caught up on the branches, the trees, searching for Rune, trying to remember his face with clarity, so I hadn’t noticed that we’d actually arrived. Had failed to even feel the magic against my skin.

“It’s there, isn’t it? Those two trees?” She pointed ahead when a moment passed by in silence.

“Yes,” I whispered. “It’s those two trees.”

“How’d you know, little bugger?”

“They’re shaped in a weird way,” Fiona said.

“I didn’t even notice,” Betty muttered, going closer to them again slowly. “Do you think I can just walk through, or would it stop me?”

“No idea,” I honestly said. Pretty sure I’d been to these parts of the forest before Helid brought me here, and I’d never once noticed the shift in magic or the strange shape of the trees, even though I’d always been Lyall’s Lifebound.

Betty didn’t hesitate. Without a word, she went and walked right between the tree trunks.

That my heart didn’t give in that moment told me it never would. Fiona screamed a little, and my dad froze in place completely, just like me.

Betty walked through and around the trees, then came out the side, grinning. “Nothing. There’s nothing there.”

She couldn’t get through the Aetherway.

My eyes closed and I breathed deeply as Fiona screamed at her for being reckless. Betty didn’t care, though, even when my dad asked her toneverdo that again. Instead, she came close to me and nudged my arm with hers. “You could totally take me with. I’m down for somemagic,if you know what I mean.” She wiggled her brows at me playfully.

“Absolutely not.” Not ever. Not in a million years.

“I could help, though,” she told me—and she was serious. As if she hadn’t heard any of the terrifying things I’d told her the night before. As if she’d forgotten the curses and the magic and the sorcerers and the death.

“Stand back, Bet. I’m serious.” And if she didn’t, I was going to use magic on her and not even care. If she tried to sneak up behind me and into the Aetherway, I wouldn’t hesitate.

“Fine,” she muttered, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Whatever.”

It would have to do.

The Aetherway was close, its energy warm against my cool skin. I could have sworn it called my name, and as it did, the weight of the ink marking my skin became heavier.

Banished.

I was banished from Verenthia by a king. How was Ievergoing to make it to the other side?

“Nilah,” Dad said, stepping in front of me for a moment. Eyes wide and full of unshed tears.

“It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be back as soon as I can, you’ll see,” I said, driving my nails into the palms of my hands, to keep my voice from shaking. “I’ll be fine, and so will you.”

“I—” he started, but Fiona stepped to his side, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away.