When Noah announced me as the winner, I spun around to see Tiffany, closely resembling a drowned rat, with an evil look in her eye.
If our feud had died out before, it was well and alive now.
The next three months passed rather monotonously. Shea and I trained with Noah and Lincoln to win Fight Night, and one weekend a month, we went out into the depressing war zone—though Lincoln seemed to always give me the boring safe things to do like deliver water to an army camp.
Shea and I had awoken to a rat in our room a few weeks ago, but since no one else in the school had a rat problem, we figured it was Tiffany. Now it was Monday and I was in battle class, trying to think of all the ways I could kill her and make it look like an accident.
Shea and I were practicing drills when Noah walked in. She grinned, stepping away from me to greet him, but when we saw his face, my stomach dropped.
Something was wrong.
The normally handsome, wink-happy Lothario was sweating, and he looked like a puppy had died. “I need Brielle and Shea to come with me,” Noah told our professor, who nodded curtly.
My best friend and I followed him out of class. When we reached the hallway, he checked to make sure we were alone, then spun around to face us.
“What is it?” Shea reached for him.
“Lincoln’s been taken.” Those words left his mouth in what seemed like slow motion.
Lincoln. Taken. My brain was refusing to process it. The room swayed a little as my heart hammered in my chest, pumping my body full of adrenaline. Shea reached out for me as I finally found my voice.
“Tell me everything. When? By who? What efforts are we taking to find him?” I was in warrior mode now, pushing all emotion to the side, and being practical. Lincoln had taught me as much. A weeping girlfriend wasn’t going to find him.
Noah grimaced. “We were out on patrol in Inferno and the Tainted Army came out of nowhere. Pulled up in a van and called Lincoln by name. The next thing I knew, they threw a smoke spell, and I heard tires screeching. Lincoln was gone. I went airborne to follow the van, but they have some advanced-level magic hiding him.”
I was going to be sick. Tainted Army. Those assholes from the Tainted Academy had known Lincoln by name, and it had bothered him. Now they were out there fighting for the demons? Enslaving humans for them? It made me sick.
I started to pace the short hall. “Raphael. Michael. What are they doing?”
“They put a rescue team together an hour ago, but our Light Mages can’t find him. Even Claymore is at a loss.”
Oh my God. I couldn’t do this. A stifled sob left my throat then as my tough girl fa?ade cracked.
Shea put both hands on my shoulders. “We’ll find him. If the Dark Mages are hiding him, there must be some other way to track him.”
I’d forgotten Sera was with me until she vibrated on my hip.
‘I can’t find Lincoln, but I can find his sword. If he’s still got it with him, we’ll find him.’
Hope burst in my chest at her words. “Noah, did Lincoln have his sword on him when they took him?”
Noah’s forehead crinkled but he nodded. “Yeah, he had it.”
‘I can trace another person’s infinity weapon so long as I’ve met that weapon.’
I didn’t understand it, but Sera had certainly ‘met’ Lincoln’s weapon hundreds of times.
“Sera can trace his infinity weapon,” I told them and started running to the parking lot.
“Awesome. I’ll tell Michael!” Noah shouted after me, then whipped out his phone.
We made quick work of getting to the parking lot where Darren was at the wheel of his SUV, Blake sitting shotgun. I quickly told them the news, and Noah, Shea, and I squeezed into the back. Then we were off.
The entire drive, I repeated one thing incessantly: Lincoln’s okay, Lincoln’s okay. He had to be okay. I couldn’t even conceive of a world where Lincoln was lost or dead. I felt physically ill, my hands shaking from adrenaline.
When we arrived at the base camp within the war zone, we exited the car quickly, making our way to Michael and the twenty-man battalion that stood with him.
“Brielle!” Michael sounded cheery.
Mr. Claymore and Raphael were both with him.
“Is it true? Sera can track Lincoln?” Raphael asked me, pride gleaming in his eyes.
I nodded.
‘I just need a bit of archangel blood. Preferably Michael,’ Sera told me.
My eyes bugged.
‘What! You never told me that!’
‘Well how else am I going to find his weapon? I need some powerful blood to work my magic,’ she said matter-of-factly, like that made total sense.