Free The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3) by K.C. Finn

was her Kindred Soul, and Lily fancied that she was being foolish, letting suspicion and secrets ruin what they’d found together. It was a slow-burning revelation, one that brought a smile to Lily’s face that felt truer than any she’d felt in uncountable days.
    And it was whilst that smile was forming that a strange creaking noise echoed high above her. Lily barely registered the sound as it resonated within the audience’s applause. What she did see, however, was the way Novel’s pale ear gave a twitch, his eyes rushing to the very same place in the rafters that he’d spotted whilst she’d been standing there in the wings with him. A half-second passed, perhaps less, before the great crashing noise came down overhead, and Novel took flight with the barest flick of his heels before Lily could even look up in surprise.
    The impact hit Lily with the same force as the illusionist’s magic had on the roof, knocking all the wind of out her lungs as Novel smashed into her stomach. His hands were clamped to her hips as he bulleted them both farther back into the theatre’s recesses, almost to the place where the dressing room corridors branched off on the far left-hand wall. It was like a car screeching on its brakes, the way they came to a sudden stop just shy of colliding with the damningly solid wall, but Lily had little time to notice that near miss of injury. She was far too focused on the other near miss: the one Novel had just saved her from.
    The creak and the crash had been made by a stage light the size of an armchair. The huge contraption had fallen into the exact space where Lily had been standing, seconds before, and now it had burst straight through the floorboards and wedged itself deep in the ground there. Lily clung to Novel’s shoulder, their hearts pounding with the same terrified rhythm. They both stared at the spot where she would have been crushed to death, if not for the pricking of the illusionist’s keen ears. Lily swallowed with the driest throat of her life, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the collapsed light as she tried to make her trembling lips form the words she wanted to say.
    You knew, she thought, feeling Novel’s tight grip that now bruised her hips with its ferocity. You looked up there before. You knew. You knew.
    It would have taken her far too long to get the thoughts straight in her shock, but Novel spared her the trouble as he pulled her close. His lips brushed her ear with heavy, stunted breaths, and he whispered fearfully when he answered her unspoken thoughts.
    “I’ll tell you what’s happening,” he promised. “I’ll tell you tonight.”

Seven Years To Go
     
    It was another round-table gathering, though the mood in the kitchen was nowhere near as curious as it had been when Jazzy had revealed her Second Sight gifts. After the October show at the Theatre Imaginique, it was as if nobody wanted to know what had caused the mammoth light to crash, or the widespread panic and fleeing of the audience that followed it. In the wake of the theatre’s major disaster, everyone around Lily looked exhausted, and Lily herself was fairly certain she was only breathing because shock was still powering her brain.
    Like the choking fit in the cafeteria, and falling down the stairs in Bradley’s first lecture, Lily’s heart was hammering with the fear of near misses. The more of them that happened, the less it felt like a coincidence, and now she was pacing the space between Eva’s stove and the fridge, her feet striding sharply, as if she was merely waiting for the next bout of chaos to occur. The eyes of the entire assembled troupe – minus Salem, yet again – were fixed on her, as if she could provide the answers they sought for the unprecedented calamity the light had caused, and Lily felt the weight of their expectancy even when she looked away.
    Novel should have been there to explain. He had promised as much, no less than an hour ago, but Lily hadn’t seen him since