See How She Fights (The Chronicles of Izzy #2)(47)

“Good morning, Izzy.” Molly lowered herself across from me.

“She might bite you if you get too close,” Conall said to her.

“Oh, I know not to fully engage her until after breakfast. I learned that back at the lab.” Molly flinched as she finished. I knew she must’ve been thinking about her mom. I couldn’t imagine how she was holding up as well as she was. I wouldn’t have been. It seemed everyone I loved had some sort of devious relative. I wondered if I had an evil twin out there I didn’t know about. I dismissed it and went back to angrily chewing my bagel. I would decimate it. At least that was within my control.

Eleanor approached our table as I set about murdering my helpless bagel. She looked drawn and exhausted. I wondered when she had last slept well. From the look of her face, it had been a long while.

“I have found what we need,” she said.

“Well, what is it?” Molly asked impatiently.

“We must find a soul walker to sever the connection.” Eleanor sighed heavily and laid her head on the table. She looked utterly defeated. “This is useless. We will never be able to stop them.”

“What is a soul walker?” I asked. The food and caffeine had finally entered my system enough to make me cognizant of the present.

“Something so rare it has not been seen since the time of the Old Ones.” Conall tilted his chair back and rubbed his hand over his head. “Perhaps we could just kill Xavier. If we can’t set the souls free, then that is a price we will just have to pay. We cannot allow him to wander this earth any longer,” he said with resolve.

“Right, but what is a soul walker? What can they do?” I had the beginnings of a terrifying revelation.

“A soul walker is a person that can separate their soul from their body and walk in alternate planes. They do not need to maintain a corporeal form to stay alive. So say a Seer is a soul walker, they can take their soul out of their body and both would still stay alive. In fact, even if the Seers body were to die, the soul would live on and be able to regain corporeal form when it transitioned back to this plane. But like Conall said, they have not been around since the time of the Old Ones.” Eleanor looked so distraught I had to say something.

“I think I am one,” I mumbled as everyone turned to stare at me in unison. “What?”

“What do you mean you think you are one? Shouldn’t you have mentioned this talent sooner?” Conall leaned towards me with such an intense look on his eye it unnerved me.

“Well, how was I supposed to know it wasn’t normal? You people never tell me anything. Okay, so Ren might have told me it was weird and during the whole back tattoo ceremony I may have gone on walkabout outside of my body, but I didn’t know that was abnormal. There. Is. No. Handbook.” I was getting irritated. They didn’t want me to know anything, they kept stuff from me, yet they expected me to know this stuff.

Stupid Guardians. Stupid old Seers.

“Have you done this?” Conall asked.

“Yes, during the tattoo ceremony when the pain started to build in the beginning I left my body. I don’t know how I did it, I just did. I was standing there, looking down at my body, and the only people that could see me were Ren and Aberto. Which I thought was strange at the time, but I got so caught up with everything afterward that I didn’t think anything of it. So, this means we can help those Seers, right?” Deflection. If I could get everyone to stop staring at me like gaping fish and get back on task, it would be a miracle.

“We have some work to do then. Do you think that you can contact Aberto again? We may need his help to prepare you for this.” Conall looked thoughtful.

“Isn’t there a book I could read or something?” I really didn’t want to see Aberto again. He was completely unnerving. I always felt off balance with him.

“No, there isn’t enough time. Conall is right, we need to do this and soon. Kennan should return either this evening or tomorrow with the men. We must be ready to move as soon as possible. You must do this, Izzy,” Eleanor implored. Her eyes begged me to put aside my feelings and help.

“Fine. But for the record, I don’t like putting my trust in a man who won’t even explain what he is. Just so everyone is clear on this,” I grumbled as Molly reached over and squeezed my hand.

“I can be there with you if you want.” Her offer to help meant more to me than she could possibly ever know.

“Thanks, but I am pretty sure this is something I will have to do alone. Isn’t it?” I looked to Conall and Eleanor for confirmation. Their simultaneous nods were all I needed.

“Shall we?” Conall motioned with his hand for me to get up and walk ahead of him. I wasn’t exactly sure where we would be heading to do this little experiment.

“Where to?” I asked.

“I believe the office would be the best place to conduct this affair.” Something in his choice of words rubbed me the wrong way.

“Sounds fantastic.”

Alright, fantastic might have been an overstatement. It sounded horrible in fact. Aberto was the last person I wanted to see. Thanks to him, I’d spent the entire night dreaming of Kennan and not resting. I missed my Guardian and I wanted him back by my side. Things wouldn’t feel right until he was there again.

We moved toward the office in a pack with the other people around the house bowing to me as I went. I was just glad that not many of the Council members stayed there often. The bowing set my teeth on edge. We made our way to the imposing, wooden doors and entered. I looked back at my friends as they waited outside the room.