The days of magic are long since past, but they will come again. Searah, Kaytee and Reacca are just moving into adulthood, but as the story starts, secrets about Searah's family, her links to magic and an unwanted inheritance hang over their lives...
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It didn't take Searah, Kaytee and Reacca long to trip, slip and slide their way down to the old meeting room under the waterfall this time. Searah lit tiny balls of light, about twice the size of spirits, to float along the floor at their feet so they could see where the stone had been warn away by the trickles of water.
'Thanks again' said Searah, panting slightly from the long decent.
'Don't mention it,' waved Kaytee dismissively, 'it was our pleasure.'
'No, no,' huffed Reacca, who had been bringing up the rear and had only just emerged from the stairwell, 'you can mention it. Mention it as often as you like. Feel free to grovel if you like.'
'If you like,' Searah smiled, 'but can we wait until the hard bits over before I start the grovelling?'
'This,' gasped Reacca, bent double and trying to get her breath back, 'you can grovel for. What ever comes afterwards is going to take a great deal of favours to repay.'
Searah smiled a little wider, then looked from Reacca to Kaytee, one bent double, the other casting an impressed eye over the rough stone cavern and smooth, patterned floor of the old meeting hall. It was a few minutes before they both realised that Searah was watching them. Kaytee looked at her.
'What?'
'Nothing, it's just... How the hell did things lead to here?'
'I'm assuming you don' just mean the stairs from hell' Reacca puffed heavily.
'I'm sorry,' Searah said heavily, 'for dragging you in to all this. All you wanted was to get away from home, go to a good Collegium, have fun, get a job, have a life...' Searah turned away, trying hard to push down the tears that were welling up inside her. She tried desperately to push her mind out, to feel what her friends were feeling, to see if they were as annoyed with her as she was with herself. But try as she might, her own sense of mounting panic and dread was overwhelming her.
'Actually,' came Kaytee's voice from behind her, 'I never wanted to go to a good collegium. That was Reacca's dream.'
'I didn't want to come down here' said Reacca. 'That was, well, that wasn't anyone's dream, that was just stupid.'
'I'm sorry' Searah sniffed, tears rolling down her cheeks now, the light from the spirit nestled under her hair catching on the wet lines they left behind.
'But,' Kaytee said, coming forward and putting her arms around Searah's shoulders, 'we're both here.'
'We're both here,' piped in Reacca, 'because we wanted to be. We wanted to be together.'
'You think you could have made us come all the way to Cassiden if we didn't want to?'
'Follow you all the way back home if we didn't want to?'
