A presence.
As if someone is listening.
“Zora,” I repeat in a projective greeting. “It’s me… I was inside your body a few days ago. I was able to see the Underworld through your eyes. Could you feel me at all?”
Ever so gently, I feel something probing back. As if prodding my very essence to test around my edges to discern if I’m real.
Then I’m zapped with something that doesn’t quite hurt, but does make me stumble a few feet backward. Almost like a repellant of some sort.
There’s a warning within it… to stay away.
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” I say urgently to whoever is listening, my sister hopefully. I probably should have started off with that now that I think about it.
The response I get is overwhelming. A booming female voice echoes in my head, rattling my brain. “I am afraid of nothing. Who are you?”
I almost cry out in relief because that voice, as ominous as it came to me, is my voice. She sounds exactly like me.
“I’m your sister,” I say, reaching out my hand to press it against the cave wall to feel a little grounded. “Your twin. Identical to be exact, but my hair is red while yours is white.”
She doesn’t say anything—doesn’t probe or send a shock to ward me back—but I can tell she’s still listening.
“I’m in the Earth realm. You were born here and stolen by the Dark Fae, and they left a changeling in your place. I was born shortly after.”
Utter silence, but she’s still there.
I take in a breath. “I just found out about you not too long ago. Somehow, I managed to see you in a dream, and then I felt you—”
“I don’t believe you,” her voice blares so loud inside my head that I have to clap my hands over my ears. It’s a futile gesture, though, because the sound is only in my mind.
She starts to recede, and I call out in desperation. “Wait. Don’t go. I need to explain everything to you.”
“Stay away from me,” she orders, her voice softer but so resolute that I feel she might be lost to me forever.
“Zora… please,” I call out in desperation. Somehow, I instinctively know to pull on my power—the angelic kind—and try to pull her closer to me.
I’m answered with what feels like a bolt of electricity entering into my head and sizzling all the way down my spine, seemingly frying every nerve in its wake. My legs go numb and give way, and I tumble to the cave floor.
And then… she’s gone. It’s an emptiness inside of me that lets me know she’s not coming back.
“Finley.” Someone grabs my shoulders, giving me a shake. It’s Carrick’s voice that says, “Snap out of it.”
My eyes are open. I hear Carrick, and, in the background, I hear other voices—Rainey, Myles, and Zaid. Yet, I still see the cave all around me, the cold floor chilling my body, and my extremities still tingling from the shock Zora gave me.
“What the hell was that?” Carrick snarls, and I know he’s not talking to me, but probably Zaid or Rainey.
And I don’t want him to be mad at them because this was my choice. My desire to defend them has me receding from the cave. The library starts to come into focus, and I realize I’m on the floor in front of the fireplace with Carrick holding the top part of my body in his arms.
I reach up, touching my hand to his face, and his eyes come to me. “I talked to Zora.”
He blinks in astonishment. “How?”
“I don’t know exactly. I just thought of her and the Underworld, and I reached out.”
“And you had a conversation?”
I try to sit up a little, and Carrick helps me. Feeling starts to return to my legs as I say, “A short conversation. I explained I was her twin sister. She wasn’t happy to hear from me.”
Carrick stands, hauls me to my feet—gently, of course—and leads me back over to the conference table. I look over at the fireplace where I’d been lying on the floor and ask Zaid, “How did I get out of the chair and on the floor?”
“You were pacing, and while you weren’t saying anything, the way you were moving your hands and your facial expressions told us you were having a conversation with someone.”
“I was in the caves,” I murmur, sitting in a chair that Carrick pulls out. He sits beside me, and the others take seats as well. I notice Myles’ ridiculous leather outfit, but I don’t have it in me to even tease him. “It all felt so real, but I knew I was still in the library. I felt really grounded back here.”
“I’m glad of that,” Carrick mutters. “Because that was a foolish stunt to pull.”