The shore was empty.

  I looked along the bare coast and wondered what we were actually looking for. Of course a secret bunker wouldn't be just out in the open but there were no passages that I could see to indicate that there was anything on the sandy coast. There were no big rocks no strange alcoves. Just endless stretches of sand.

  Sand was actually something that what's new to me because I had never been to the beach. Water was something that Master Bran avoided, which was why he told me that he spent so little time on the island. He had never gone to it in the 14 years that I had been his apprentice.

  I knew that the Bokor had a hangup with water because it interfered with their magic somehow, but I wasn’t sure exactly how it interfered with them. I hadn’t taken a dip in anything substantial since I ascended, and there was a good chance that it wouldn’t affect me the same way that it did the Bokor.

  If the Touched were trying to keep their hideout safe from the Bokor, then they’d probably want it as close to the water as possible, if not in the water. My heart sank at that thought. If the Touched had somehow made a bunker underwater, then it was going to be impossible to find. I just hoped that they hadn’t done something like that.

  That left one other option: the trees. Whenever an apprentice was with a Master, they always spent the night in a tree. If we needed to store some supplies that we couldn’t carry, we’d put it in a tree. But that was what the Bokor did. I tried to think like a Touched.

  The Touched didn’t have a reason to put things in a tree, because any zombies in the area could just be commanded to stay away from their stuff. It was a nifty ability, but one that I hadn’t even come close to discovering how to implement.

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  But that meant that I needed to look for something on the ground. Or underground. I sighed as I realized that finding something in the trees was going to be just as difficult as if I had to dive underwater.

  “STOP IT!”

  I turned around and put my hand on my sword, but before I could draw it, I realized that it hadn’t been me that Theo had yelled at.

  It was the sea.

  The blonde man was hopping on one foot as he yanked at his wet boot. The water had surged just enough that it had splashed into his shoe. I fought back a smirk. I didn’t blame him for not liking wet feet, but the fact that he was yelling at the sea because of it-

  “You want it? TAKE IT!” Theo ripped off his shoe and threw it as hard as he could into the water.

  My eyes bulged as I watched him do his hopping dance again.

  “You can have the other one too!!!” The second shoe didn’t go as far.

  “Did he just throw his shoes in the water?”

  I jumped when Fyga spoke beside me. I hadn’t noticed her getting close, which I would have felt bad about, but she was an assassin. My vigilance wasn’t trained to register something like that.

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “He got them wet.”

  Fyga’s jaw dropped.

  “What are you looking at?” Theo glared at us. “You want to laugh at me too?!?” He began stomping towards us as a wave washed over his feet.

  His march was halted as the water froze, locking him in place.

  “You need to cool down.” Fyga clicked her tongue, then turned to me. “Come on, I think I found something.”

  “You’re going to leave me?” The other man wailed.

  Fyga glared at him. “I told you to cool down.”

  Neither of us said anything as she walked away. She hadn’t gotten far when I realized that I wasn’t frozen in place and started running after her.

  Theo didn’t make a sound, even after we disappeared into the woods.

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