Free Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis Page A

Schneider had been right: he’d been in too much of a hurry. Throwing himself into the Dunelands wouldn’t do any good. He’d just figured he could finally do something—but he should’ve paused, should’ve thought.
    Why the blackouts
now
? What had changed?
    Two doses too close together.
That
was what had changed.
    This time nothing about Nolan’s smile was faked. “I think,” he said, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears, high-pitched and unusually fast, “yes, thinking back, maybe I had less seizures after that. After I took the extra dose.” He kept his eyes wide open. He didn’t want Amara to yank himback in now. He studied Dr. Campbell’s face for a reaction, something in her eyes, her mouth, to show she believed him.
    He had to sound convincing. He licked his too-dry lips. “I might be wrong. I’m probably imagining it. I don’t want to …”
    â€œNo, this is good, Nolan. This is great! It’s the first time we’re seeing a difference.”
    Nolan had swallowed a pill at lunch, just an hour ago. The moment he stepped out of the doctor’s office, a grin growing on his face, he slung his backpack around to his front and hunted for another.

mara had to tell Maart what she’d heard.
    Maart was gathering water, and Amara had asked Jorn for permission to wash her clothes, which were crusted from blood where the arrows had hit her. “Just stay near enough that I can call you,” he’d said, and she’d bolted outside, down the road leading into the woods. Under torn branches and dirt and leaves everywhere she looked, tree roots had burst through, displacing slabs of stone. She couldn’t tell how much of the mess was from the storm and how much from neglect. No one took this path, Jorn had said, not now that Teschel was one of the few islands with an airtrain.
    Amara jogged around a fallen tree blocking the path. Enough earth clung to the roots to fill half the granary. The storm had been brief but intense, as backlash always was.
    A punishment from the spirits, some people said, for abusing their power. Others said the spirits simply put the world back in balance after mages knocked it down and drained it dry.
    The end result was the same: storms and quakes and a hundred things more. If those were punishments, all the smaller,immediate instances of backlash—water frothing, flames flickering, bugs spasming, and plants wilting—must be warnings. The ministers didn’t care to listen.
    â€œMar?” she called aloud once near the creek. Despite the post-storm chill, sweat pricked at the base of her skull and pooled by her hip, where her sidesling rested. Overturned earth warned her of boar, and when bushes nearby rustled, she tensed, relaxing only when a tall shape stepped out.
    â€œWe need to talk,” she signed.
    Maart lowered the buckets he’d been filling to the ground and ran his fingers over her arm, spreading a tingly-hot feeling. He kissed her forehead, then stepped back. They needed room to sign. “About your blackouts?”
    She told him what she’d overheard. What it meant. “We have to find out what they’re doing,” she said, her hands fluttering. “How long they’ve been working together. We have to tell Cilla.”
    â€œ
Cilla
is your priority?” The way he signed the name bordered on revulsion even as his face stayed stony.
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what Jorn’s doing or why. All right?”
    She shook her head and looked past him at the forest—leaves dripping with rain, the sky still dark overhead. Early winterbugs scurried in solid clouds between the trees. Storm-damaged mushrooms the size of Amara’s head bulged from the ground and bark.
    â€œYou can’t stay for her,” he signed.
    â€œWe’ve talked about this.” She stepped away. Her boots sank in the mud.