Guardians of the Boundary (Book 3 of The Conjurors Series)

Chapter 3

Panic blinded Valerie before the calm that always followed in emergencies took over, and she was able to think. "Call 911 before the poison incapacitates you. Hurry!"

Thai shook his head and sat down, opening his desk drawer. He pulled out a syringe full of yellow fluid and immediately shot it into his thigh. Valerie yelped in surprise.

Thai raised an eyebrow at her and then collapsed on his bed. "I guess I should have mentioned that the person who attacked me the other night was Logan. I've kept the antidote for Venu's poison with me ever since. Chisisi thinks she was targeting us from the first time we met her."

"You called the attacker a 'he'. Why didn't you tell me the truth?" Valerie asked.

Thai sagged on his bed. "We don't tell each other a lot of things."

"We used to," Valerie whispered.

Before her eyes, Thai's face became a blank mask, and when he spoke, his voice was devoid of emotion. "To be clear, this doesn't change how I feel about you. Logan and I may be over, but so are we."

A tickle at the back of Valerie's throat warned her that she might cry. Whatever she'd thought had been between them was in her imagination. The Thai she'd loved could never have said something so cruel. But she wouldn't let him see how much he had hurt her ever again.

"I'm already moving on. I wanted to reassure you about Tan, for old time's sake. But I need to get back to the Globe to get ready for my date," Valerie shot back, even though she and Cyrus hadn't picked a day yet.

She enjoyed the pained dismay on Thai's face before she let her mind return to her bedroom. She curled into a ball on her bed and forced her tears to stay unshed. For once, she'd had the last word, but wounding Thai didn't heal her shattered heart.

Over the next few days, Valerie was forced to relive the awful end of her conversation with Thai over and over, along with all of her worst memories, as Gideon continued to drill her mind with the prepotent crystal to make it stronger.

One morning, she noticed that they had an audience. Kellen was at the window, watching her be forced to her knees with a smug smile on his face. He wasn't much bigger than her hand, with delicate wings that belied the steel of his personality. It would be comical how much she feared the presence of such a little person if it weren't for the fact that she'd witnessed the power of his magic firsthand. Gideon followed her gaze, and his faced turned as hard as marble.

"Kellen has lost his way. He no longer embodies the Knights' ideals of power, courage, and mercy."

"He's Fractus," Valerie said. She didn't have concrete proof, but her instincts told her that was true.

Gideon's eyes were troubled. "You may be right, but he remains our Guild's Grand Master, and the Knights will follow his lead."

Kellen had disappeared from the window, but he reappeared a few moments later at Gideon's side.

"You should have more honor than to show your face here, after attacking me and my Knights," Kellen said to Gideon. "If it were up to me, you and your little protégé would both be expelled."

Gideon and Valerie had fought Kellen and several of his Knights to free Sanguina so that she could lead them to the Black Castle a few weeks ago. Valerie remembered the rage in Kellen's eyes when he had been overpowered, and had known that he wouldn't drop the matter, even after they had rescued Darling.

"Then I am grateful it was not up to you, and that the round table of Knights convened and decided otherwise," Gideon responded calmly.

"They stripped you of your title! Your word carries no more weight here than the lowest novice," Kellen said, his voice high and angry.