For a century I watch, until one day I feel a tug inside me. It is like a pronged arrow in my gut, and it yanks me along. I fight, but it is stronger than me. Quicker and quicker it pulls, until the stars fade into a cloudy sky. Until an ancient, slatted dock rushes beneath me and a distant, golden door appears ahead. I try to gain purchase on the dock, try to slow this hurtling speed . . . but to no avail. The door zooms closer and closer. . . .
I am through, and I am in a world I never knew existed. I have a body—it wraps my soul around bones and traps it within skin. I do not like it, and though years will pass, I will never learn to like it.
Yet I am able to forget for a time, for the boy who called me through is fascinating. His laugh, his jokes, his mind—they are alive, and it captivates me.
I revere him. Even when he starts to shut me out, I love him. He is all I have, and though he commands me away, I cannot stop what I feel.
But then I meet her. She confuses me. Her laugh is just like his. Her wit and her heart—like his, except brighter. She tells me my love is dead, and I hate her for it . . .
Until I do not hate her anymore. One day I awaken in a city of lights and magic to find that she is no longer my bane but my beacon. Where I had thought myself neutral and indifferent, I have fallen onto a side. Her side.
And perhaps this is the worst part about being alive and trapped in a human form.
I do not know what I want, much less how to get it. There is something writhing inside me—something that aches for fulfillment.
I had thought it was the Old Man—I had thought fulfilling that command would solve everything. Make this hunger go away.
It didn’t.
Now she is all I have, and that knowledge crushes me . . . yet also keeps me from drowning.
But I do not belong in this earthly realm, Eleanor, and if you die now, then I can never go home. Please, I will not let you do this to me or to yourself.
Come back to me, El. Come back to me.
I snapped into myself. Me—only me. No Oliver, no magic. It was my brain and my body . . . and it was shrieking at me to breathe.
Because I couldn’t. I had pulled in so much magic, there was no space for my lungs to expand. My ribs were bowing beneath the pressure in my chest. I had no feeling in my skin—no sense of sand, no touch of wind.
“Give it to me,” Oliver murmured. His words brushed through my hair, and he hugged me tighter to his chest. “Cast it into me, El, like any other spell.”
Take it, I thought, sinking into him. Take it, Oliver. Sum veritas.
A howl like a tornado burst from my mouth. A wave of magic pulsed out of me, so strong, it lifted me off the stone step and boomed outward. I watched it rush forward in a great wind of power. Down the pyramid, it swept up sand and wind and daylight. The airship swung dangerously, and its shadow gusted over the earth . . . until the wave had moved on. Until it had reached the rows of far-off trees and finally vanished.
My legs turned to pudding beneath me. I fell into Oliver . . . and then together we collapsed onto the rock.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sky was brilliantly blue behind Oliver’s head. My chest quaked, and each breath was like fire, each blink acid.
His lips trembled as he gulped in air. His eyes shook, trying to stay latched on to mine. The wind twined through my hair—and through his—and sand collected on the pyramid steps around us.
But I could not look away.
He was so much more than I had ever thought or understood. So much soul—so much pure emotion. Each of his hurts was an agony and each tenderness a blistering flame. No human was meant to feel what he felt, and no body was made for it.
But worse—what scared me—was that I had changed him. I had irrevocably made him into a person he did not wish to be.
Slowly, his eyelids shuttered, and a flicker of a thought whispered through my mind. And now I have changed you.
“Eleanor!” Joseph’s voice seeped into my ears, distant and fuzzy. He was shouting for me from the other end of the pyramid. “Eleanor! Help!”
I wet my lips and tried to swallow . . . but I was still falling into Oliver’s eyes.
“Eleanor!” Joseph bellowed again, and this time he added: “Oliver!”
My demon looked behind me. Our moment slipped away. Like a punch to the gut, my breath burst out. I rocked back and gaped up at the sky.
I was changed. His thoughts and his feelings were inside me. Even if I didn’t want them, they flailed in my lungs and in my skull—
“Eleanor! Oliver! Help!”
Oliver staggered to his feet and set off in a listing jog toward Joseph, Daniel . . . and Jie.
Jie.
My throat closed off. The world reeled and blurred, my blood rushed in my ears, and I had to grab at the stones to get upright. But I dragged my feet, and soon enough I reached the others.
Jie lay on her back, her head in Joseph’s lap as he stroked her hair—over and over, he petted her forehead and murmured soft words. Daniel knelt beside her, his voice hoarse. “I’m sorry, Jie. I’m so sorry.”
And Jie simply lay there, as pale as a corpse and with blood gathering in the stones. Bits of flesh and bone flecked her clothes, her skin, the ground. . . .
So much blood. So much damage.
“Heal her,” Joseph said, his eyes locking on Oliver. “Please—you must heal her.”
“I . . .” Oliver’s hands opened helplessly.