Ascending the Veil Read Online Free PDF

when I talked with him. Wait, he did see someone though! He didn’t say it was Michael. Maybe he didn’t know it was him.
    Sebastian, “Jesca, what is it?”
    “I asked if they had seen anyone too and Ezra said yes. He said that the beings appeared to be human, but he didn’t want to risk anything by communicating with them. What if Michael is there somehow?”
    I didn’t want to say anything about my thoughts on Michael being there, but I couldn’t hold in my concern where Ezra and Nate are concerned. Neither Sebastian nor Balthazar say anything to rebuke my concern, which fuels the rest of the team’s chatter about our fellow guardians being at risk. Sebastian and Balthazar remain silence, I’m sure thinking over the brief conversations and little information Xander and I were able to share with them. Xander cuts through the chatter, shifting in his chair, he leans in, and cuts the chatter off with a commanding voice, “You, as well as I, know we need to get to them. Test these devices you have by opening another wormhole that could link with Andromeda’s black hole to reach them.”
    Balthazar sits back and crosses his arms. “And how do you know that could work?”
    Xander looks at me nervously, then back at Balthazar. “I don’t know the details. Nate told me that we needed to traverse to them and that you and Sebastian would have answers.”
    Woah! Wh y didn’t Xander tell me that he and Nate spoke about that? I wonder what other things were discussed. I cross my arms over my chest, wary about what went on between them in this conversation and what he is not telling me.
    “Really, what else did he tell you , Xander?”
    Xander does his best to ignore my question keeping his eyes on Balthazar, but I see his jaw grinding steadily, a telltale sign that he is hiding something.
    Passing over my question, Balthazar adds forcefully, “And risk you landing somewhere totally different, another world even, from where they are? No, not going to happen. We need time to open up these devices, look at algorithms and coding to see if the Sondians embedded a code specifically for this place, wherever it is. Do you know what the odds of being torn apart in a black hole are?”
    Nick mumbles, “Zilch, zero, nola, nada, een, nul.”
    Aggravated, Balthazar raises his voice over Nick’s, “We need to send a probe first, not a guardian!”
    That comment gets my attention. “My father and the man I am linked to are trapped in a world that could kill them and you want to send a probe? All that will do is set off more bells and whistles for the beings in that world to possibly attack them. Ezra said he is concerned already. We don’t need to send something else to raise more flags for these beings unless that something can fight back.” I didn’t want to add my thoughts about Michael, but my patience is gone. “What if Michael somehow got over there?” I scoot my chair back roughly and start to pace. “We can’t find him. What if he passed through the vortex in the forest?”
    Elisha tries to calm me, “We would have seen him , Jes.”
    I shake my head, “We were all distracted. He could have slipped through.”
    I close my eyes and pinch my nose as I pace trying to grasp for any memory of that night.
    Then, like a curtain in my mind parting, but only for a moment, the image of Nate holding me before disappearing into the wormhole. “We will find each other again.”
    The curtain in my mind’s eyes shifts.
    Nate slowly fading away in the dream I had thi s morning saying, “You need to…”
    As quickly as the curtain parted and swayed for me, revealing fractured memories, it seals, obstructing anything else from coming through.
    Damn it, he was going to tell me what we need to do to get to him! I need to what? I stop pacing and try to concentrate on getting back into my head.
    Fixated on the memory, I almost miss the soft, feathery whisper words brushing against my ear. “You need to find us, Jes.”