Page 29 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

Those few moments where I was falling in the sunrise were the closest I’d come to knowing peace for the rest of the day. Consciousness slammed into me, and I threw my quilt across the room before my eyes were fully open. Jonquil squealed in anger and bolted under my dresser as I fought to orient myself.

“Phone!”

I leapt out of bed to turn wildly in the center of my room. “Where’s—”

It was, of course, right where I’d left it the night before, sitting on my bedside table. I lunged for it, ignoring the pain in my knees as they collided with the table.

A missed call notification lit up on my screen.

“No!”

Jonquil hissed back at me from under my dresser.

I jabbed at the screen with shaking fingers. I’d missed it by two minutes.

Two. Measly. Minutes.

I ignored the voicemail notification glaring at me from the corner of the screen, and I hit the callback button.

My bare feet padded across the wooden floorboards as I paced, waiting for someone to answer. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I was going to practice in the mirror beforehand. I was going to put on a blazer and do my hair to feel more prepared. I was—

“Von Leer University Admissions Office, this is—”

“I missed your call!”

I interrupted the woman.

“I’m sorry, it was—”

I cut off and looked around my room for a lie. Any lie. Jonquil glared at me from her hiding spot beneath the dresser.

“My grandma’s cat. She was choking. She always eats too fast and- and you know. She’s a Persian, so she’s already pretty bad at breathing.”

What the hell was I saying?

To my relief, the woman on the other line laughed.

“I’ll be sure to put ‘cat rescue’ down in my notes,”

she said.

“This is Wren Warrender I take it?”

“Yes!”

I said. Was I talking too loud.

“Sorry. I was, you know, with the cat.”

I was going to kill Ciarán.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She sounded genuine, but I was still worried.

“This is Dr. Woodway with Von Leer University Admissions, but you can call me Carly.”

“Carly.”

I repeated.

“Nice to meet you.”

My heart was in my throat. I held the phone away from my face so she wouldn’t hear my heavy breathing.

I needed to calm down. I slapped a hand to my face, my fingers itching to pull at whatever eyelash or eyebrow they could find first, but I stopped when I saw the new mark slashed across the palm of my hand.

I’d lost another life, even though I hadn’t been under Galahad’s command when I’d jumped. Next time I died, I wouldn’t wake up.

“Wren?”

Carly asked, and my stomach dropped when I realized she’d been speaking.

“Did you catch that?”

“Sorry, the cat—”

I could’ve sworn Jonquil narrowed her eyes at me.

“My phone cut out. Could you repeat that really quick?”

If I didn’t calm the hell down in the next thirty seconds, I was going to completely botch this.

I fled to the hall, caught a glimpse of my tousled hair and oversized band t-shirt over pajama shorts in the bathroom mirror, silently mourned the interview outfit I never got to wear, and then continued to the kitchen.

“I was hoping you could tell me a bit about yourself.”

How many horrible interviews had Carly suffered through to sound as casual as she did now?

“Right. Well…”

I ripped the refrigerator door open and shoved my head inside. Mom had taught me this trick. The cold air helped. Kind of. It at least seemed easier to breathe with a container of half-eaten cottage cheese inches from my nose.

“Both my parents are Von Leer alumni.”

“Okay, but what about you?”

“I’m not an alumnus, no.”

I would’ve facepalmed myself if I wasn’t so deep in the fridge.

Luckily, Carly laughed.

“I imagine if you were, we wouldn’t be on the phone,” she said.

“Right, but don’t most legacy students get in?”

I didn’t know where the words had come from, but now that they were out, I couldn’t hold them back. Maybe part of me had already given up—on passing the interview, on getting into Von Leer, on surviving Skalterra.

“Both my parents went there, but I didn’t make it in. That’s not normal.”

“Oh, well—”

Carly stammered.

“I’m not saying you should let me in because of my parents! It’s dumb that legacy admissions happen at all at any school,”

I said quickly.

“Actually, I think it’s because of my dad. He’s never met me. I wrote my essay about him and how much he sucks, but the university likes him, so now I think I might be the only legacy to never get admission on the first try.”

It was like I was still falling off that cliff. I couldn’t stop the words as they tumbled from my mouth.

“So what have you done?”

Carly asked.

I’d practiced this question with Liam, but suddenly, every club and after-school activity I’d ever been a part of evaporated from my head. The obvious answer was that I’d spent nearly every night of the summer so far in a parallel world trying to keep save two different realities and fighting monsters.

Carly probably didn’t want that answer.

“I haven’t done anything yet.”

Carly probably didn’t want that answer either, because she fell silent. Jonquil bumped against my ankles, but I suspected she was hoping I would drop a bit of leftover chicken from the fridge shelf.

“I mean, I have,”

I clarified.

“I did clubs and stuff, but that was all listed in my application, so you already know that. I haven’t done anything I care about yet. Nothing that wasn’t to pad a college application. None of that matters. What matters is what I’m going to do.”

“Oh?”

Carly sounded pleasantly surprised. I dared to come out of the fridge. I leaned against the door and played with the hem of my shirt.

“Then what is it you hope to do?”

“I’m going to become the best geophysicist to ever come out of Von Leer University. Not because of my deadbeat, world-renowned geophysicist father, but because volcanoes are cool and over a billion people, including us, are living somewhere that a volcano might wipe them off the face of the planet, and someone needs to monitor them.”

“Good news for you, then,”

Carly said. I looked down at Jonquil, and she stared back expectantly.

“We have one of the top volcanology tracks in the country, though it sounds like you know that.”

“I do,”

I said quietly. I’d practiced so hard with Liam. He would be so disappointed.

“In that case, Miss Warrender, would you be free for an in-person interview?”

Carly asked. I stood straight up, nearly kicking Jonquil.

“In-person?”

I demanded. I spun around to face Gams’s magnetic calendar she kept on the fridge.

“Yes! I mean, yes. Definitely. I could do that.”

“The school year starts in a few months, so earlier is better. How’s—”

“The fifteenth.”

I jammed my finger against the calendar. Gams had penciled in the day I was visiting campus with Liam. Maxwell Brenton’s talk was on the evening of the fourteenth.

“I can do the morning of the fifteenth. It’s a Friday. I’m going to be over there anyways.”

“The fifteenth it is! How does ten—”

“It works perfect,”

I cut her off.

“Sorry. And don’t worry. My grandma’s cat is staying home, so I won’t be delayed by any food-related Persian incidents.”

Carly’s laugh was forced, but I didn’t care.

I’d moved on to the next interview. It would’ve been better if she’d told me I’d gotten in then and there, but I couldn’t blame her. After the night I’d had and the interview I’d given, this was absolutely the best I could’ve hoped for.

She hung up, and I fell back against the fridge, running my hands through my tangled hair.

I could breathe again. It had worked out. It had cost me a life in Skalterra, but I’d managed to escape Ciarán, and I’d somewhat passed my interview despite being two minutes late and accusing the school of nepotism.

I unfurled my fingers to look at the new scar on my hand.

It had been worth it. Maybe. I still had one life left, and according to Galahad, we were getting close to the Second Sentinel.

I would survive both Skalterra and my next interview.

I would make sure of it.

Jonquil wove between my feet on the stairs to the shop. I danced around her, and she beat me to the bottom step. She pawed at the door with her tail held high.

“Stop pretending you’re excited for me,”

I sighed at her.

“You just want my grandmother.”

I opened the door, and Jonquil chirped as she ran out. Gams looked up from where she was sweeping a spotless floor that I was sure she’d been stress-cleaning all morning.

“Well?”

She threw the broom across the empty shop in her enthusiasm, and Liam ducked to avoid it at the ice-cream station.

“I got an in—”

“You got in?”

Gams squealed.

“I got an in-person interview,”

I corrected her. Her cheeks turned ruddy, and her eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

“What’s that mean?”

she asked.

“They’re going to make you do another dance for them before they accept you?”

I shrugged and looked to Liam. Unlike Gams, he beamed.

“They did that with me too, when I was trying to get off the waitlist.”

“When?”

Gams spun to face him as he came out from behind the ice-cream stand to return her broom.

“I don’t remember that!”

“You gave me extra time off last summer for it,”

he laughed.

“Riley drove me.”

Liam’s words were a little reassuring. So it wasn’t a second interview because my first one had gone so awkwardly. It was normal.

“I set it for the weekend we’re already going to be there,”

I said.

“It’s in the morning.”

Gams pressed her lips together and held her head high.

“Then I suppose this is good news. I’ll call Siobhan.”

She marched to her workshop door with Jonquil on her heels.

“Siobhan?”

Dread gnawed at my stomach.

“No, we don’t need another party.”

“Can’t hear you, dear!”

Gams called as she closed her workshop door behind her.

“Too busy calling my friends to brag about my granddaughter!”

I curled my fingers into fists at my sides as I stared at the workshop door.

“I really don’t want a party,”

I said. Liam laughed and grabbed my wrist to pull me in. It was our first hug since the awkward one we’d shared on the paddleboard, but after carrying me upstairs so many times now, it probably felt normal to him to be so close.

I froze for a moment, and then let myself sink into his chest, but kept my arms at my side. His apron smelt like waffle cones, and I rolled my head to the side so I could hear his heartbeat through his sternum.

“We can leave after we get our burgers,”

he promised.

“I know a place that has pretty good ice-cream if you want to go for dessert together.”

I craned my head back to smirk at him.

“Yeah, I know the place you’re talking about. I heard the guy that scoops the ice-cream is a tool.”

“A tool?”

He laughed again, and I let my head drop back against his chest.

“I’m delightful.”

I heaved a sigh, breathing in the scent of fresh waffle cones and men’s deodorant.

“Was that true?”

I asked.

“Did your phone interview result in an in-person interview?”

“Yes, Wren.”

He adjusted his arms to give me a reassuring squeeze.

“You did great. I don’t remember there being a fitness test, though. What was all that slamming upstairs?”

My cheeks grew hot, and I pushed away.

“I was frazzled. It worked out.”

A customer came in through the front door, and Liam grinned at me as he retreated to the ice-cream station.

“What?”

I glowered, but my annoyance was mostly fake. The way his grin widened told me he knew that.

“Nothing,”

he said.

“I’m just proud of you is all.”

Liam kept his promise to sneak away from Siobhan’s Tavern with me that evening. While we hadn’t let Gams in on the plan, she caught on quick and made a show of standing up and asking me to go check on Jonquil. I stooped down so she could kiss my cheek on our way out.

Liam and I finished our burgers, as well as a couple of ice-cream cones from the shop, on Gams’s sagging couch. He pet Jonquil where she curled between our laps as he told me about Von Leer, which architecture classes he’d be taking in the fall, and how he and his aunt had finally come to an agreement on what flower arrangements to order for Riley’s memorial.

“It doesn’t really matter, though.”

He shrugged.

“He’s coming back, and he’s going to be mortified his parents wasted money on plants because they thought he was dead.”

I rolled a fraying bit of blanket between my fingers as I thought.

“It doesn’t have to be a waste,”

I said.

“Are there any hospitals nearby? We could donate the flowers after the memorial is over. Do you think Riley would like that?”

Liam ran a hand through his dark blond curls.

“I think he’d love that,”

he said.

“He’ll still hate that the memorial happened at all, but this will help.”

I stood up and stretched. It wasn’t that late, but Galahad would be calling soon.

“Headed to bed?”

Liam straightened up on the couch.

“Figured I should, just in case.”

“Just in case you fall asleep?”

he clarified.

“You promise you have that under control? I know you said you were seeing a doctor, but—”

“I’m fine.”

I gave him a smile, but his tiny frown stayed in place.

“But, you know what? I think I’d feel better if you slept here. Gams is always out late playing cards with her friends.”

Liam had slept on Gams’s couch before. I knew he didn’t like being at home without Riley, and he settled back into the cushions.

“You sure?”

he asked, but Jonquil was already making herself comfortable in his lap.

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Keep the nightmares away, would you?” I asked.

“Of course.”

He grinned.

“See you in the morning.”

“See you in the morning,”

I repeated.

The scars on my palm itched as I exited down the hall to my room.

He’d lost his mom, dad, and cousin.

And I was only one death away from him losing me too.