And Virgil at last: “To Quies and the sleeping darkness she guides us through at the end of all things.”
“From the Deep we seek to raise thee,” Keiran continued. “With this ritual, our word becomes oath; let it bind us to thee. Let us pour our magics into the river and see them flow.”
His eyes found Emory’s again as he shucked off his coat, began unbuttoning his shirt. Emory glanced nervously at the others, all of them undressing quietly in the moonlight.
Virgil was the first to strip down to his briefs. He ran to the river, followed closely by a shrieking Nisha in dainty lace undergarments. When they hit the water, Emory gasped. Impossibly, she felt the shock of that cold water against her own skin. Virgil dragged Nisha beneath the surface, and Emory staggered back slightly at the feeling that settled over her: a sudden hush, pressure on her eardrums—the muffled weight of the river above and below and all around her, as if she’d been submerged herself.
Sound returned once Virgil and Nisha emerged, laughing and sputtering, and Emory realized she could feel what they felt, every sensation, every breath. It was as if all of them were linked by an invisible string, their souls and bodies bound under the bright eye of the gibbous moon by whatever magic had been imbued in the synths.
As the others headed into the water, Emory’s attention darted back to Keiran. He hung back, watching her intently. Slowly, he peeled off his shirt, the moonlight limning his bare torso. He worked on undoing his pants next, lifted a brow at her as he did.
An invitation, a challenge.
One she felt entirely up for, curiously devoid of fear.
She slipped out of her clothes down to her undergarments, heart pounding wildly, breaths coming in quick, short bursts. She shivered at the cold wind that bit her skin. Keiran’s gaze traveled down the length of her, dark and deliberate, and she realized the nebulous cloud around him was his aura, the kind Soultenders dealt in. The impression it gave her was one of desire, and she knew hers responded in kind. They gravitated toward each other like starved celestial bodies. They didn’t touch, letting the breeze run like silk in the inch of space between them.
If this was how this strange magic felt when they weren’t even touching, Emory could only imagine what it might be like if they did. She couldn’t muster the energy to chastise herself for the thoughts that crossed her mind, to focus. Keiran smiled knowingly. He laced his fingers through hers, and all her nerve endings stirred, tingled, awakened. She craved more, wanted to erase the distance between them, but Keiran pulled her toward the river, and together they dove into a world of muted silence and murky darkness.
Emory held her breath—and when she exhaled, realized she could breathe underwater.
Protective magic. Wards like the kind that Wardcrafters could wield.
It felt different than when she used her Tidecaller magic. That was like opening a door to let the different powers of the lunar cycle rush through her, familiar and somehow part of her. This felt… strange. Intimate. Like she was drawing power from someone specific. Like she could feel the person the synthetic magic belonged to, their very being coursing through her blood. It was almost intrusive, yet somehow all the more thrilling for it.
Keiran reached a hand up toward the surface, calling forth the light of the moon that filtered through the water. He began to glow like a faintly burning star, illuminating the depths so that all of them could see the tiny fish darting between their legs, the rippling algae below, their own limbs kicking about to stay suspended here beneath the surface.
Keiran swam over to the person nearest him. He wound a hand behind Louis’s head to draw him near, laid the other on the Healer’s bare torso. Emory watched with curious intent as Keiran rested his forehead against Louis’s in a gesture that was somehow both tender and sensual, like Aestas herself. Light pulsed from Keiran’s hands, and when he pulled away from Louis, the Healer was aglow with his own light. Tendrils of it swirled around his chest, his arms, snaking around his fingers as he brought them up to his face in wonderment.
And Emory could feel Louis’s awe through whatever bond was linking them. The light was power, transformation, abundance, healing; it was everything the moon’s entire spectrum embodied, and it lifted Louis’s soul as well as her own. His aura turned to gold and silver, beautiful and serene.
Keiran kicked his way over to the next person and paused, glancing back at Emory expectantly. He wanted her to mimic him. To wield the Lightkeeper magic he was using as her own.
And why not? She held the key to it, did she not? All she needed was to set it into the proper lock and open the door.
Emory called forth her own burst of light, letting the moon’s might wrap around her. Her breath hitched at the comforting warmth of it. The sheer power of it, sensual and vast and true.
Her eyes flickered to Keiran again, studying the way he drew closer to Ife. They wound their hands together, and Ife broke into a smile as Keiran transferred the light to her.
The inner workings of the magic came to Emory almost instinctively as she watched them. She turned to Nisha, who swam closest to her, her long, dark hair flowing gently around her. Emory brought a shining hand to the base of Nisha’s neck, holding herself afloat by snaking her other arm behind the girl’s back. She willed a plume of light to transfer to her, and Nisha’s lips parted in a soundless laugh, bubbles of air rising from her mouth as the colors around her shifted to an elated white gold.
Emory felt as gleeful as Nisha did, and all the more powerful for it. She swam away from her and caught sight of Keiran a few feet away, wrapped in what looked like a sensuous embrace with Lizaveta. The girl’s red hair moved like a dancing flame. She brought Keiran’s head down into the crook of her neck as his light hit her body, a beatific smile on her parted lips.
Emory felt a tinge of jealousy as she wondered how close they actually were, but it paled against the faint reverberation of Lizaveta’s delighted shiver, which Emory felt through their bond.
A hand glided over Emory’s arm. Virgil pulled her in closer, longing etched on his face, desire for this power they all shared. Emory laid a hand on his chest, and as she made the light flow toward him, she couldn’t help but want more. More of this magic that made her feel formidable, indomitable.
A glimmer of mischief appeared in Virgil’s eyes, as if he could hear Emory’s every thought. His chin dipped to where Lizaveta glowed. His intent was clear: If Emory wanted more, she could have it. Could amplify her own power.
Yes, Emory thought, reaching blindly for Lizaveta’s power.
The amplifying magic surged into her, but it didn’t feel like taking anything from Lizaveta, she realized, just as using Lightkeeper magic didn’t feel like taking power away from Keiran, either. She wondered if she needed to draw the magic from someone else first at all—if she needed to be in contact with a user of that specific magic for it to flow through her—or if she could call on whatever magic she desired, as her title suggested.
The light around her and Virgil flared brighter with the surge of amplification, like a supernova in the making. Emory directed it toward the others, amplifying their own light. Great threads of gold and silver and faintest blue and purple wove between the eight of them, making tangible things of the curious bonds that linked them. The colorful auras around them shimmered brilliantly, drawing soundless gasps from each of them as they observed their glowing limbs in the water. The threads of light rearranged themselves, shooting up toward the surface of the river in a great burst of power.