Free Spirit Ascendancy by E. E. Holmes

feel myself blushing for her. She was always so dignified, so put together.
    Savvy staggered to her feet and ran to the closet at once, throwing it open and rummaging through the top and pulling down a knitted afghan, which she tossed to me. Carefully, I tucked it around Annabelle. Her eyelids began to flutter rapidly.
    “We’ve got to get her out of here,” Finn said. “But first, move back Jess.”
    “Why, what are you—”
    “Just do it!” Finn said.
    I moved back from the bed as he grabbed on to the footboard with both hands. With an almighty tug, he pulled it away from the wall, out of the borders of the casting circles on the floor. The moment the bed broke through the boundaries of the casting, Annabelle shot straight up into a sitting position, gasping for breath as though she’d just emerged from icy water.
    “What… what are you…?” She stared around in panic. “Stay away from me! What do you want? Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!”
    “Annabelle, it’s okay, it’s me!” I said, starting forward. But Annabelle screamed at the sudden movement, lashing out with her hands as I made to sit beside her.
    “Annabelle, look at me! It’s Jessica! It’s Jessica!”
    I watched as the animal terror faded from Annabelle’s expression, as she took in my features, and I watched the light of recognition flare up in her eyes. Her hands, slapping at me a moment before, grasped desperately for my shirt, pulling me toward her as she broke into a torrent of crying. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling the blanket more securely around her shoulders, which looked much frailer than when I’d last seen her.
    “They found me. They found me, Jessica,” she sobbed brokenly. “The Necromancers. And David. Oh, Jessica, David is… he’s…”
    “I know,” I said, fighting back my own tears at the thought of Pierce. “I know all about it. It’s okay, just try to calm down. It will be okay. You’re safe now.”
    But that wasn’t true. I knew that we were suddenly all in terrible danger. I looked beyond Annabelle’s heaving shoulders to Finn, who had pulled his phone from his pocket and was snapping photo after photo of the casting marks on the floor where the bed had been.
    “I thought Lucida said no phones!” I said. “They can be traced, Finn!”
    “This is another burner,” Finn said, taking photos of the walls now. “Lucida gave one to each of us while you were delirious from the burns. No one can trace this, and even if they tried, I will dispose of it before they have a chance to track us down.”
    “Why are you even taking those pictures?” I asked. “What good will it do now, we’ve already gotten her out!”
    “I want to look up these runes, and try to find out what this casting is. We’ve just broken through a very powerful casting without understanding what its nature is. That is an extremely foolish thing to do, and we’re lucky there have been no consequences. Yet.”
    “Yet?”
    “I’m not ruling out the possibility that we may still have hell to pay for what we’ve done here,” Finn said.
    “And in the spirit of that possibility, can we please get the hell out of here?” Savvy asked. She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, throwing anxious glances at the door.
    “Savvy’s right. They could know the moment we’ve broken the casting,” Hannah said. “They could be on their way right now!”
    “I’ve got what I need. Let’s get out of here,” Finn said.

5
The Blind Summoner
    I PRIED ANNABELLE’S HEAD gently from my shoulder, where it was still buried and shaking. “Annabelle? We’re going to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
    It took a moment for all of those words to sink in, but when they did, she sobbed even harder, shaking her head. “I don’t th-th-think so.”
    “That’s okay, don’t worry about it,” I said. “This is Finn. He’s the Caomhnóir for our Clan. He can carry you, if you’re comfortable with that.”
    Annabelle looked at