Chapter l457

Chapter 0457

After receiving Bridget’s warning, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t risk running into Nicholas, which meant avoiding the places we usually went together. Instead, I ended up in the library with Veronica.

Veronica didn’t seem surprised to see me when I joined her. She didn’t even really greet me.

As I sat down across from her at the table, the books piled high around her, she lifted her head, looked at me, and said, “I’ve made progress with teleportation.”

“You have?”

“I understand enough that I have been making attempts at it.”

She’d been researching so hard for so long, I was beginning to wonder if the secret to Hawk’s teleportation would never be uncovered. Yet here Veronica was, telling me that she had been trying it? I was stunned.

On top of the books stacked beside Veronica sat an apple. She reached for it now and then placed it on the desktop in front of her.

“Hold open your hands,” she said.

I lifted my hands and kept them palms up and close together.

Veronica put her own hands around the apple. She was concentrating hard. A line appeared between her brows. Her mouth was a hard line.

Then, without a sound or a warning, the apple disappeared from Veronica’s hands and reappeared on top of my own.

It had taken but a moment. In one blink, it had moved from there to here.

This distance was only a few inches. A foot or two, at most. Yet to see it even happen at all was a difficult thing to wrap my mind around. Objects didn’t move like this. Yet this one did.

Veronica exhaled, winded. She leaned back in the chair, clearly tired from the ordeal. But after a moment, she straightened once more and held out her hand for the apple. When I gave it to her, she placed it on the table again and sliced it in half with a knife. She sighed in relief when she saw the inside.

I leaned over the table to get a better look. It seemed like a perfectly normal apple to me. Red skin, yellow inside, with the seeds in the middle.

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+15 BONUS

“Were you expecting something different?” I asked.

“The first few attempts… scrambled things,” she said.

I was afraid to ask what she meant by that, but I had enough of an understanding to know she shouldn’t try transporting any living thing, including herself, for a good long while.

“For Hawk to be able to transport himself and Jane in that moment.” She sighed. “He must be very strong at magic. I’ve exhausted my reserves just doing this.”

“He’s had more practice,” I said in encouragement.

“Yes. And he’s likely had a tutor.”

“Someone helped him?”

“They would have had to,” Veronica said. “Not everything is written in the books. The scrambling…” She rubbed at her forehead. “I succeeded with something as simple as an apple, but two entire people? I cannot imagine the concentration required, nor the skill…”

I shook my head. “You are amazing, Veronica. Look at what you’ve accomplished through your own efforts. I don’t think you should start teleporting people anytime soon, but I won’t let you diminish what you’ve actually accomplished here.”

Veronica smiled just a little, a secret little thing she likely meant to keep to herself. “Thank you, Piper.”

Veronica continued to slice the apple. Then she lifted one of the slices and bit into it.

“Testing?” I asked.

“Lunch,” she replied.

I laughed a little. She offered me a slice and I took it. It tasted like an everyday apple to me.

“Now,” Veronica began, once she had finished chewing. “While I always appreciate your company, I doubted you came up here to watch me move an apple.”

I sunk my head low. I wished I could say that I had come up here just for that. I was starting to feel like I only ever came to see Veronica when I was trying to hide. That was unfair, and something I needed to rectify in the future.