And that—
My skin started to buzz—
Everything stuttered a little bit after that, didn’t it?
Because I could do that. If I wanted to. If I thought hard enough.
Couldn’t I?
Randall looked at me sharply as I took in a—
(The colors whirled around me, a spinning corona of light that pooled between my cupped hands, so bright I almost had to look away. It began to cascade downward, like a waterfall, the drops of light spreading along the ground, pulsating slowly. The forest faded around me. The sky above darkened. Everything else faded away.
I thought, It isn’t fair.
And then something hooked itself into my head and heart and pulled.
The air sizzled around me.
The lights grew brighter, and I had to—
There was a flutter of wings against my palm, the barest of touches as the bird came back to life.
I took in a—)
(And there I was, standing in the throne room, my beloved on a stone slab, eyes closed, skin pale, and he was young, and I closed my eyes and opened them and then he was old, and it didn’t matter, because I would lose him, one way or another. The star dragon had told me there would be loss, Vadoma had shown me the same, and either Ryan would fall at the hands of an enemy or he would be pulled away by the hands of Death when he was old and gray, and I would be stuck here, young and almost immortal, watching almost everyone I loved dying around me while I survived.
I thought, It isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair.
But it wouldn’t have to stay that way, would it? Because I had brought the bird back. I’d brought it back, and all it’d taken was the life of the earth around me, the trees and the grass. They’d been blackened, but it’d been a small price to pay for a life, and it would take more, sure, it would probably take a lot more, but it’d be worth it. Even if I blackened the whole of Verania, it’d be worth it because he would be at my side. No matter how many times he passed through the veil, I could call him back again and again and again.
I took in a—)
—great, gasping breath.
“Sam,” Randall said, and even though he couldn’t know what I was thinking of, couldn’t know the memory that ran through me like lightning, the tone of voice suggested he knew something. Randall was powerful, but he wasn’t omniscient. But the problem was that he was eerily prescient, and that didn’t bode well for me.
“I got it,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m here.”
His gaze lingered on me for a moment longer, searching for what, I didn’t know. Somehow I was able to look him directly in the eye, not allowing myself to be the first to turn away. My skin crawled, but I held his gaze because he didn’t expect me to.
It only lasted a moment longer. He looked back at Morgan, who was sweating profusely. “Compress,” he said again.
I squeezed Morgan’s shoulder, glad for the distraction. There were more important things to focus on, and maybe if I was lucky, Randall would forget all about it by the time we were done.
Granted, I was never lucky about stuff like that, but at least it’d give me some time to make something up. I could bullshit with the best of them. It was a talent I’d picked up a long, long time ago, and it had helped me out of more situations than I cared to remember.
But that didn’t matter right now.
Now was about my mentor, and the fact that he was about to do something I didn’t think was possible.
Morgan compressed.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the fire began to writhe frantically like it knew something was coming. It whipped back and forth, and those little pulses of light became larger and larger, the ripples shooting across the surface until the outlines of the bubble became evident. I almost moved forward to touch it, wanting to feel the strength of it under my fingertips, but Morgan grunted, and I stayed by his side.
The arcane symbols were more pronounced, and even though I recognized some of them, I couldn’t make out what they meant. They were combined in ways that made no sense to me. This was a level of magic far beyond my comprehension, and the best I could do was to push into Morgan, the green and gold mingling and twisting through him. It felt… odd in a way it’d never felt before. It was like we were surging—
There was a loud crack, and the bubble shrank by half, compressing the fire inside of it.
Morgan’s shoulder tensed under my hand.
He closed his fingers further.
The bubble shrank again, the sound harsh and grating.
The fire had no place to move.
I had to squint my eyes against the brightness of it. The heat.
Another crack and it looked like the brightest star in the night sky, small and oh-so far away.
I pushed.
I felt Randall do the same.
Morgan closed his hands into fists.
The room shook around us, the ground tilting beneath us, and then—
The light burst, a shock wave knocking us off our feet.
That most certainly did not feel good against the bruises that already covered my body. “Gods,” I muttered without opening my eyes. “I am spending far too much time on my back recently.”
“You slut,” a voice said from the other side of the room. “You told me that Ryan was a big fat bottom. Why are you on your back? You know reverse cowgirl is racist.”
“You told him what?” Ryan growled.
I sighed as I opened my eyes. “I was drunk.”
“You lying sack of crap,” Gary said. “You were sober. Completely and utterly sober.”
I sat up.
Mama’s office was in disarray. Paintings hung crooked off the walls, books knocked off the shelves. Those little wooden spheres that Feng had hidden in the room were lying on the floor, fuses unlit.
Everyone had been thrown to the floor. Tiggy was helping Gary sit up in the hallway, brushing his mane back out of his eyes. Justin sat propped up against the wall near Mama’s desk. He looked slightly dazed but otherwise unharmed. Mama was spitting mad as she pushed herself to her feet, glaring down at one of her stilettos where the spiked heel had been broken. Letnia adjusted her eye patch, staring at the blackened form that had once been Feng. Morgan was brushing his hand over his beard, and Randall was brushing his hand over his eyebrows, trying unsuccessfully to bring some order to them.
Ryan was on his hands and knees, shuffling toward me. He had a small cut above his right eye, and I felt a dark twist of anger at the sight of him having been hurt. It was such a small thing, but I didn’t like it when he bled. He seemed to do that a lot. It was unacceptable.
“It’s fine,” he said, knowing that look on my face.
“It’s not fine.”
“Now you know how I feel every time you get thrown into a building or decide to explode things such as yourself. Which, by the way, why do things always have to explode with you?”
“It looks cooler that way,” I said.
“Right. Of course that’s the reason.”
“Please, you like it when I do magic.”