Free The Chilling Change Of Air (Elemental Awakening, Book 3) by Nicola Claire Page B

more precisely I was losing him, his image flickering like an interrupted signal.
    "No!" I cried, getting up onto my knees and reaching for him. "Stay!"
    I may have hated what he'd done, what he'd known and never shared, but he was still family. Still my Gramps. And he knew more than I did. More than we all did. Alchemist or not, trusted or not, my grandfather had answers and I damn well wanted them.
    "Casey!" he yelled. "I'll send someone to you. Be brave, sweetheart. It begins now."
    The wind had entered a crazed stage of whistling and a high pitched crying that pierced the ears. It sounded unnatural, yet you knew it was the sound of air whipping through air at great speed.
    "What begins?" I shouted back, clasping his almost incorporeal hand.
    "Genesis," I thought he said, right before he disappeared.
    I woke sitting upright in bed drenched in sweat. The room was empty. Just me and the sound of rain on the window pane, the curtains closed, but a weak light illuminating the edges. Dawn was coming and Theo had left some time during the night.
    To go to Isadora?
    I slumped back down on the bed and let out a wretched sigh. Then rubbed my face trying to stimulate my brain into assimilating what had just transpired. Theo and I were at an impasse, but this new Stoicheio and whatever my grandfather had tried to warn me about were more important right now.
    I threw the covers back and climbed off the bed. I was in no mood to deal with any of this, staying curled up in a ball beneath the sheets sounded just right. But action was better than inaction. If I stayed here, I wouldn't fall asleep again. My grandfather's dream visit revolving inside my mind. The threat of Pyrkagia ever present; a few hundred kilometres between us and them did not make anything safe. The knowledge that the Aeras would want an update, or maybe they already knew and were waiting impatiently for me to follow through with my agreement to get in touch when Air Awakened.
    And let's not forget Theo. My Thisavros .
    No, staying in bed was definitely out.
    I crossed to the bathroom and looked inside. Well appointed, tiled in creams and browns, rain shower-head, glass walls, and fluffy white towels. I could have been staying in an upmarket hotel. Trust the Pyrkagia to make sure their accommodation was top notch.
    I found new toothbrushes under the sink, razors and soaps, all manner of creams and perfumes. All sorts of necessities a woman could want. In Theo's room. Either Aktor had brought these in after I ended up here, or he'd been covering his bases. Unfortunately those bases could have been for Isadora and not me.
    I took what I needed and stepped into the shower, realising this was the first decent ablution I'd had in apparently four months. I had washed at Pyrgos, though; the doctor didn't like working on a specimen that was unclean. Understandable, it could have compromised his experiments.
    I started laughing as the water touched my skin. A slightly unhinged sound, so I tamped it down and concentrated on making myself human again.
    Of course, that just made the weird laugh return. I was grateful, though, that the tears didn't follow. But my chest hurt again. Would it never stop?
    Wrapping a towel around my hair and another around my body I walked out of the bathroom frowning, realising I didn't have a thing to wear and I'd have to traipse down the hallway like this to my old room, and wade through the water soaked furnishings hoping to find something reasonably unharmed to put on.
    But sitting on the bed was an outfit. Laid out carefully, pressed, in perfect condition, exactly my size. And definitely hadn't been there when I entered the bathroom.
    I smiled. Aktor was the most efficient butler in the whole wide world.
    I donned the underwear, feeling pampered with all the satin and lace, then slipped on the fine navy tailored trousers and fitted cream silk blouse. Running a comb through my hair, I decided to leave it to dry naturally and then went in search of