The Crumpled Mirror by Elizabeth Loea (free novel reading sites TXT) 📕

tabs on last year all dying at once will echo back to campus.” He turned to me. “I’ll be back for you.”

I heard the thunk of an elbow to a skull and the thud of Indigo crumpling to the ground. Oberon hauled Indigo across his back.

“No, wait!” I shouted, struggling as hard as I could. There was sand in my mouth, sand in my eyes, but I had to get away from the boy crushing me.

After about thirty seconds, the kid’s weight disappeared from my back and I rolled to my feet as quickly as I could, but Oberon was already all the way down the stairs that led to the beach. I coughed sand across the ground and pushed myself to my feet, hurling myself down the stairs after the pair.

There was Indigo, tossed over Oberon’s shoulder as though he was a sack of flour. There was Oberon, jogging toward the ocean.

What the hell was he planning?

I hit the beach at the same moment that the top of Oberon’s head ducked under the waves. Seafoam took his place.

I was across the beach in moments, legs burning as I retched sand. Where would they have gone?

There was no choice. Indigo was unconscious, underwater, with a murderous man who had come after us. A man who had killed our loved ones.

I was out of magic. I was out of time. I was out of patience.

I kicked off my shoes and dove.

XXXI

Don’t open your eyes underwater if you’re in the ocean. Just don’t. It hurts like hell and if you’re somewhere where a lot of ships come and go, it won’t help you see much.

But I saw enough.

Oberon wasn’t swimming—he didn’t have to. Some magic propelled him forward, as fast as he could go, toward the ledge between the shallow ocean and deeper water. There was no helping it. I’d never been a great swimmer, but I followed the pair toward the open ocean.

Out here, the waves were murky. I couldn’t see either Oberon or Indigo anymore, but I just kept swimming. Kelp washed past me, then a fish. My jacket billowed behind me, doing nothing to protect me from the chill of the Pacific Ocean.

As I crossed from the shallower ocean to the drop to deeper water, movement flashed below me. In the dismal depths of the ocean, there was...someone.

It had to be Oberon.

I surfaced to catch my breath and glanced around. There, back on the shore, a figure ran toward the waves. Maybe it was someone I knew. Maybe it was a lifeguard. I didn’t care.

I took my last glimpse of the foggy sky and ducked beneath the waves.

Down I went, slowly but surely. The ocean crushed me from all sides, and it only took a couple of meters before my lungs began to scream, but my clothes helped drag me down to the ocean floor.

I gasped, heaved, coughed. Bubbles floated past me. There, only a few meters in front of me—at my same level, about ten meters below the surface, but too far away to grab—were two men.

“Oberon!” I shouted, but the water muted my scream. As I watched, darkness beginning to cloud my vision, he glanced back and smiled.

A salute of only two fingers, and he was gone.

And with him went Indigo.

I’d gone too far underwater. My clothes were too heavy. I’d be dead soon, but not before Oberon could come back for me. To kill me, to kidnap me, to curse me. He was taking a calculated risk in leaving me to drown.

Darkness set in completely.

I didn’t feel strong hands grab my shoulders. I didn’t feel them haul me to the surface. I don’t remember my first breaths onshore, or my first taste of salt and sand after waking up.

I do remember my friends arguing above me. Voices I never thought I’d hear again: Adrian’s sharp tone, Lilac’s smooth syllables, and Ginger’s soft sternness. When I finally opened my eyes, the sun was far too bright against them, even though it was a cloudy day.

My first words weren’t anything useful or even interesting.

“Ow,” I said. “Am I dead?”

“No,” Lilac said. “Ginger hauled you out before you could die, but it was pretty close.”

The world set in around me again. The sound of cars on Highway One, the taste of salt air, the sand in my ears. And—

“Where’s my jacket?” I demanded. “Where’s my jacket?”

“I took it off to pull you to the surface,” Ginger said. “Was there—”

“My sister was in that jacket!” I exclaimed, sitting up so fast, my vision spun. “My sister was—”

“She’s delirious,” Lilac said to the others.

“No, the bottle holding my sister,” I gasped. “I have to go back, I have to—”

“You can’t,” Adrian told me.

“I absolutely can,” I shot back, pushing myself to my feet with sheer willpower.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but Indigo’s in danger. We’re all in danger. Your sister…”

“Isn’t in danger anymore,” I finished for him. There was too much venom in my tone. I had to calm down. I could get Claire out later, yes, maybe, if I could find her. Maybe Indigo could pull her from the bottom of the ocean if we all got out of this alive.

“The book,” I added. “The book was in there! And the notes, and…”

Everything worth anything was in that jacket.

Lilac grabbed my hand.

“Listen,” she said. “Concentrate. You’re no use if you’re not focused, and we need you to be useful right now.”

“I—” I started to say I couldn’t. I couldn’t focus. I just wanted to scream until all the sand in my throat was gone. I wanted to run into the ocean, or to fly, or to hit something.

I swallowed my anger and balled it up in my gut. It would be of use later.

It had been the worst week of my life.

“So what do we do?”

I was battered, bruised, scraped-up, nearly-drowned, covered in sand, exhausted, half-blind from saltwater, and on the verge of passing out, but we had work to do. Come to think of it, Ginger didn’t look