The Breath -Sixth Whale Book 1

*15*

 To say Lily wasn't pleased to see the earnest face of the young wizard would be something of an understatement. It's not that she wasn't grateful to Donnie, it was just that he reminded her ever so vividly of the worst moment of her life. At night she could still hear the screams and smell the burning of the funeral pyres. Then there was the continued punishment that followed. The door to her family home had been graffitied, and once the Witchfather rescued the other, repainted by the former followers of Ofrin. Everything about the past few days was simply too much to bear. The weight of surviving had been crushing her, and even though there were more who had faced the mob it still felt different, like she was somehow apart from them. Perhaps because they made her so angry, she went out with ignorance and blind trust, but they left knowing what would happen. She also knew she looked and felt terrible, the constant nightmares and meant she was getting virtually no sleep and the bags under her eyes were darker than she thought possible. Her eyes themselves were still red from the near-constant flood of tears. 

The door slammed shut in Donnie's face. He reached out to knock again but thought better of it. She'd looked like she'd been dragged through hell and Donnie felt partially responsible, if he'd acted sooner he could have saved more than just her. He slumped a little and feeling dejected he returned to the Cabin. Donnie was overall feeling lost, at the guild he'd been constantly kept busy, and now he didn't know what to do with himself. It was both liberating and disconcerting. If only the others knew what it was like away from the guild. The thought crossed Donnie's mind in a flash. What if they could? What if he could help them? He wasn't the only one who didn't enjoy the guild. Perhaps In Thandre's new paradise, there would be a place for those wizards that wanted to escape too. The question was how to alert the ones who wanted out, without alerting the loyalists. All he had to do was get them into the barrier for now but getting them that far without alerting the secrets arts department was going to be difficult. 

What he was most desperate for, was freedom and a sense of purpose. He had been shackled to the guild and now he was free. He just knew that others needed that opportunity too. With some more determination, he decided to talk to the witchfather about the more technical aspects of smuggling out unwilling wizards. If not now then once the witches had relocated. They'd have to discuss it inside though and he'd have to be certain they talking in a blind spot, for fear that the guild might discover any plans. Just because he wasn't watching anymore didn't mean someone else wasn't.

Having nearly run through the streets he returned to the Cabin to find it completely empty, unknown to him this was because most of the usual inhabitants were several feet beneath him. Although they didn't stay there for long. With a pop of the portal closing Thandre, Shae and Vern were now standing at the cave formerly known as the forest docks. Vern and Shae felt queasy after the trip and Thandre didn't blame them, he wasn't used to having passengers and tame magic rubbed up against wild magic in a most unpleasant way. Which would go a long way to explain why Shae had started vomiting behind a rock. Vern wasn't looking so hot either, but he was doing a far better job of keeping his breakfast.

Thandre decided they all needed to wait a few minutes to recover from the trip before they started checking over the ships. Thandre had built the fleet as a gift to Derys, they were used to help wizards escape the guild for a long time and after Derys's death, Thandre had dived deeply into the project, then as the halves grew and the cover of the forest dwindled it was no longer something that could be done secretly. So he'd let it end, he never tried to find another way, and there was a twinge of guilt. Like he was in some way responsible for them. Once again Thandre found himself longing for something long gone. Above him, were part of the Halves were almost spilling over the edge of the island a shoot was trying to break its way through the foundations of a house.