Read Online Fear's Touch: A Darkworld Novella (The Darkworld Series) by Emma L. Adams - Free Book Online Page A

to see me now.
    Raw panic washed over me.
    Five more minutes ticked by. I counted the seconds, anything to take my mind off what was coming. Sixty seconds and then another sixty.
    One. Two. Three…
    “Claudia!”
    Cyrus crouched down beside me. Glorious relief broke through, and I gasped.
    “Jude,” I said.
    “I knew it!” said Berenice—I could only see her heeled shoes. “What–what did he do?”
    “I can’t move.” I struggled, again, pointlessly. It was like running headlong into a glass wall. “He’s gone to get his bosses. I’m going to be arrested.”
    “No, you’re not,” said Cyrus. “I can fix this.”
    Sweet, blessed relief. I almost cried.
    “I need all of you to focus,” he said, and a heavy footstep by my leg told me Howard was here, too. “Use your connection. You can see Jude’s spell, the damned thing’s
everywhere.
”
    “Yeah, and do what?” said Howard.
    “Attack it,” said Cyrus. “Wait, we should move her. In case those other guys come out.”
    I couldn’t exactly protest, so I let him carry me into the little alley between the common room and the lodge. He put me down gently, but my back still hurt like a mother.
    “Right now.”
    He continued giving the others instructions. I tuned out; not being able to feel somehow made my own thoughts seem so much louder than usual. But after several minutes, I felt the paralyzing feeling start to recede. My hands tingled. I wriggled my fingers, my toes, lifted a hand, and then the other. Bit by bit, movement came back to me.
    “You okay?” said Cyrus.
    I nodded, and this time, nothing stopped me. “Yeah. I think.” I got jerkily to my feet, sighing in relief that everything seemed to be in working order. “Thank you. All of you.”
    “I take it back,” said Howard, who was looking at me in awe. “You’re not a shit teacher. You’re mediocre.”
    Cyrus laughed.
    “Um, priorities?” said Berenice. Her face was still pale and her eyes red and puffy. “Jude. He’s gone back to his bosses?”
    “Yeah.” I stretched, wincing as my spine protested. At least I hadn’t done any lasting damage. “We’ll never catch up to him if he got the bus. Any ideas?”
    “One,” said Cyrus. “Come on. We’re going into town. I’ll tell you on the way. We have to hurry.”



n the bus to town, we found seats right at the back. Cyrus explained in a low voice that his guardian had given him the contact details of a person who could help out if there was any kind of emergency.
    “Obviously, I can’t really bring him into it. The other
venators…
well, a lot of them don’t like him. Plus, we’re unregistered, and that always causes problems. But this person deals with these situations a lot.”
    “Who
is
this person?” said Berenice, who didn’t look convinced.
    “She calls herself Madame Persephone,” said Cyrus. “She’s a fortune-teller, and she’ll meet us in Blackstone square.”
    “Fortune-teller?” Howard snorted. “Like that crap’s gonna help us.”
    “I wouldn’t judge her just yet. My guardian really respects her, and he’s not the trusting sort at all. He—well, we’ll see when we meet her.”
    “How do you know she’ll meet us there?” I hadn’t seen him text anyone or anything.
    “I don’t know. My guardian said…he said she’s always there. I have no idea.”
    Howard shook his head. “I don’t trust it.”
    “Well, it’s all we’ve got,” said Cyrus.
    I filled him and Howard in on the details about last night, since I hadn’t had a chance to earlier. By the time we reached town, Howard was saying he knew Jude was up to no good all along. Given that he’d never met the guy as far as I knew, I wasn’t so sure. But it made me feel better to have people on my side.
    I just hoped this fortune-teller would be able to help us because I was deep in shit this time.
    Today wasn’t market day, so the square was fairly quiet. Just a few shoppers sitting on the stone benches or on the edge of the