People flattened themselves against the walls when the “shoulderings” started to be accompanied by electrical shocks.
“I know,” Axer said. “Paradoxical thinking, given that you wanted to give up your abilities a moment ago.”
“That’s not… I’m poison,” I said, struggling. Because it was true. I had automatically reached for the cuff to save them, I still was trying to peel Axer’s fingers away. I would do anything for people I loved. And when that “anything” turned to actions that would impact the world, there was a big problem. “I’m poison.”
“You are speaking to the wrong person if you think that makes you something to avoid,” Constantine said, nearly lifted me off the floor to keep me moving—a sack of potatoes between them.
The news reports kept going.
“This is just the beginning. There is a dark history of what happens when Origin Mages are left to their own devices. When our entire existence is predicated on the goodwill and good judgment of a single person, we risk much, for what if that person falls to the dark?”
The live feed switched to a woman holding a baby. A man stepped up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders. The woman stroked the head of the baby, pulling him close against her chest and tucking her chin against the fine hairs at the top of his head. My god.
“Where will you be when your magic is taken? Will you be at home? Work? Will your children feel the choke of magic when you are unable to reassure them that everything is going to be okay? I'm here to tell you, it won't be okay—not unless we do something about this threat. Not soon, not when, now, before everything and everyone you know dies. Before she—”
Axer yanked the entire grid of magic from the wall with a curl of his free hand and everything went blank. He crumpled the magic in his fist and let it drop with a crackling thump. People screamed behind us, causing me to crane my neck back to see, as the ball of magic bucked and sparked like a firework with multiple fuses flopping around, deciding which way to shoot first. Panic erupted behind us.
“And I’m the one who gets called an asshole,” Constantine mused, dark pleasure undercutting the words.
Axer’s magic saturated everything in sight as we walked, testing and weighing strengths and weaknesses in the compound. The bravest residents continued to watch with inscrutable gazes darting between the three of us as we passed.
“Ten minutes, Origin Mage,” called one of the elders at the end of the hall, bringing my attention forward. Judgment and darkness painted her face.
The other elder—the one who had lived in Aurum before it had been destroyed—stood next to her, and she looked at me in sadness as we passed.
Such commands had always preceded unpleasant meetings. I couldn’t imagine what kind of town hall I was facing now. If there'd been a target on the complex before, there was a huge bullseye in the deepest crimson painted on it now.
Their home.
I looked at Axer's thick family threads, which were blazing hot, like they were being tested in fire.
“Your family,” I said to him, reaching out with magic, then curling it inward, shaking.
His fingers tightened momentarily on my arm. “I accepted this event long before today.”
I felt like I might lose whatever lunch I had eaten the day before. “Your family—”
“Knows exactly why I am doing this.” His gaze never left mine and I could feel the heat of it straight to my toes. “And what is at stake.”
He deliberately let go of the cuff.
Without looking away from his locked gaze, I touched the latch. I hesitated, then let my hands drop to my side.
He touched my neck, warmth gathering beneath his touch. “It’s going to be okay.”
Constantine opened the door to the turret and slipped inside.
Axer's quick, discerning gaze took in everything about my workspace even before he entered. The way the slopes and angles were slightly askew—deliberate choices—making it look ramshackle when it was anything but.
“Mbozi would never let you get away with that corner angle,” he said, deliberately light.
“Then he hasn’t the vision I credit him with,” Constantine said, tracking his roommate’s progress with dark eyes, and unleashing a packing spell for his things—hundreds of items that had been steadily collecting across my work space.
Apparently, only Constantine could call my turret a hovel. And apparently, he was leaving.
I looked down, and swallowed. I should feel relieved that he was finally leaving. Yes. I was relieved. My stomach asserted that it was as hollow with relief as my magic and my mind.
Guard Rock inched out from my cloak, then hopped to the table. He looked at the pocket containing the storage paper, then into the empty air of the turret’s ceiling—an open question in the actions. I swallowed heavily and shook my head, touching the pocket. The book was gone. And it was my fault.
Guard Rock's pencil drooped, then he straightened his rock, thumping his weapon down. Vengeance on our enemies.
I touched the top of his rock.
Behind him, Axer's gaze was firmly fixed between Kinsky's sketches and my world bending painting. He looked from them to me, fingers curling into his palm instead of touching either, eyes blazing with some sort of hunger.
“Why are you standing there?” Constantine demanded, making me jerk. His gaze was fixed on me as he piled everything movable by magic onto a flattened, open drawstring sack. “Pack. Alexander is taking you to his cursed home.”
My brows pulled sharply downward. “What?”
“When things inevitably disintegrated, as was always going to happen,” Constantine bit out, throwing himself onto a stool to reach items on the back of a worktable that couldn't be moved with a packing spell. “You would go to Itlantes to hide. We agreed.”
Axer looked down at the paintings again, fingers drifting to his chest. “We can't go there,” he said, voice even, but for a moment he couldn’t hide the flash of pain and regret. “Not anymore.”
“What?” Constantine exploded off the stool, packing spell exploding with him. The stool hit the stones. Papers littered the floor in fury.
“Itlantes has been locked,” Axer said, and the sudden fiery red glow illuminating his family threads made me nauseous again.
“Yes, my ears work just fine,” Constantine bit out. “But you expect me to believe that a government lock means you can't get in?” he demanded.
Axer looked at him dispassionately—a mask for something else. “I can get in. We can physically find our way there and under the wards, but the Department will know within the hour. And Pri—”
“I know what bloody Priority Five means.”
Axer slapped his hands on the table between the paintings and Constantine’s growing pile and viciously leaned forward. “They'll get the signatures immediately if she steps foot in Itlantes. Think.”