Read Helpless (Blue Fire Saga) for Free Online Page B

normal people. Leesa shook her head and smiled wryly. Everyone had a cell phone nowadays—how had she managed to find a boyfriend and now a mentor without one? She wondered what the odds of that were. Probably about as small as a girl from San Diego coming to Connecticut and hooking up with a volkaane boyfriend and a waziri mentor, she thought.
    Dominic had said he would come by after she was done with her classes, which had resumed today after being cancelled for two days because of the record-breaking snow. The area was slowly but surely recovering from the blizzard. The roads on and around campus had all been plowed and salted and were now drivable even without snow tires. Walls of snow six feet high or more lined most of the streets, making drivers feel like they were driving through roofless tunnels.
    Leesa wondered how much snow would have to melt from the roads and sidewalks before Rave would be able to come visit her. It had only been three days since she’d seen him, but she missed him a lot. She had gone much longer periods without seeing him, but there was something about knowing he couldn’t come that seemed to make her miss him more.
    She got up and limped over to her side window. There wasn’t as much to see in this direction, but she’d been avoiding looking out the back window, because it looked down on the snowman in the courtyard. Every time she saw the thing it made her think of the Necromancer.
    From here, she could see most of a big parking lot off to the left. The lot was about half full with cars; on a normal day it would be packed. The snow had been pushed into several giant piles at least fifteen feet high in the corners of the lot. A group of kids were enjoying themselves playing King of the Mountain on the biggest pile. The snow made a wonderfully cushioned surface for falling and sliding.
    A soft knock sounded at her door. She opened it to find Dominic standing there, dressed in the same clothes as always. Leesa had learned that his passive magic kept them clean and neat. That was one trick she couldn’t wait to learn—bye bye to laundry!
    She stepped aside to let him enter.
    “Is everything all right?” Dominic asked as he took off his jacket and draped it over the back of her chair. “You seem a little bothered.”
    Leesa wondered if he was talking about something in her expression, or if he might be reading her vibrations.
    “I’m fine. I was just thinking about how my most recent vision ruined our snowman for me, and I was wishing you and Rave had cell phones, that’s all. Nothing too important.”
    Dominic smiled. “I can see why you’d wish that. Sometimes I wish I had a phone, too.”
    “Why don’t you, then? Your magic doesn’t short them out like Rave’s, does it?”
    Dominic sat down on Leesa’s desk chair. “No. In my case, it’s strictly for safety. I prefer to remain off the grid, as people call it. I cannot afford to do anything that might leave a trail someone could follow back to me.”
    Leesa hadn’t thought too much about how a lone wizard made his way in the modern world with all of its myriad inter-connectivity. Rave had his clan and their settlement to fall back on; even Stefan had his coven and their hidden cavern. Dominic had no one and nowhere. She sat down on her bed.
    “If I can ask, just how far off the grid are you?”
    Dominic leaned back on the chair and crossed his legs. “One hundred percent. As far as any government or agency anywhere in the world is concerned, I don’t exist.”
    Leesa sat down on her bed. She thought about all the things that could identify or locate her: driver’s license, social security number, cell phone and internet service, high school and grammar school records, college registration… even her bank account, small as it was. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could get by in today’s world without any of those—especially since Dominic couldn’t risk using any of his active magic.
    “That’s amazing,” she