“Shhh, I know, we'll figure it out, just—”
Guard Rock hopped over our clasped hands, jabbed his stick into a hole in my cloak, slid it through my spilt blood, then vaulted from my chest before anyone could grab him. He slid lightning fast in a painted circle around the three of us, pencil tip dragging a circumference in the paint.
“What the ever-loving f—?”
But Guard Rock's circle completed before Constantine's question, and Guard Rock hopped inside.
I saw Bellacia and Roald, Stuart and Marsgrove, Julian Dare, and all the mages they had brought with them, and all the ones still trapped inside their cages. And behind them, with my vision freed, I saw what Stavros would do to the facility. I held out a hand, turned, and flipped the entire Basement into the bright sunlight of Gliar Peit, erecting a figure eight dome to surround both sites, holding it in stasis, but the magic was slimy, muddy. Thirty minutes, Bella, Marsgrove, I sent, then pressed the storage paper containing Vincent Godfrey Jr. and his men into Marsgrove's hands, along with the activation spell. Godfrey has tales of who hired him. I'm certain you will be able to pry those out. Free them, free the others, and grab what you can.
Guard Rock stabbed the tip of his pencil into the circle and flipped us into another world.
Chapter Twenty-three: What Was Lost
We landed in a tangle, and as if the jolt of landing broke the last of Stavros's carving, a second waterfall of emotion crashed, igniting the embers of dead connections and leaving me gasping like I had been drowned.
I grabbed Constantine and my fingers scrabbled for any bare skin I could find, pushing cloak and shirt aside for unhampered touch, face digging into a warm throat like I was going to nest there.
“He took it, he took it, tried to take all of it.”
“Shhh.” Constantine's arms wrapped around me, and a bare palm pressed against the back of my neck. Relief so strong that it felt like he would choke on it pushed against me. “I have them.”
I shuddered and let the ghosts of the connections in his fingers settle over the top of all that was broken, lighting destroyed pathways everywhere on me—like a trunk that had survived a forest fire, but all its branches had burned.
The embers started to fuse back together, slowly at first, then lightning fast, leaving me gasping with the mass mess of feeling and connection.
I pushed away and my hands fell against a marble floor a moment before I threw up.
A vapor of distorted paint spewed from me in an ugly mist.
“He's not in there,” Axer said from my right shoulder, his magic running through me, searching every crevice in my chest. “And you can't collapse, Ren. Not yet. I'm sorry.”
The floor sucked the mist down. Magic zipped along the imperfect marble pattern like a freight train migraine that was incoming on a train with broken tracks. Flickers of magic touched against the points where my fingers touched marble. It was strange, but it felt like the magic in the marble was surging up and fixing broken points of magic inside me.
“I know.” I let my emotions run wild for a moment, acknowledging all of them—especially the horror, terror, and crushing anxiety of losing everyone—then pushed them gently into the background. I could feel Constantine holding back the tide of the connections with difficulty, letting through just small bits of feeling from the others to not overwhelm me. I could feel the boys both trying to hide all that they felt as well—letting the other absorb any overpowering emotions. I let a little of my own overwhelming gratitude through to their circuit, then let that emotion rest in the back as well.
I needed to be back to full strength. Deal first, collapse later.
I held out my hand to look at it, trying to bring the world back to rights as my view started swimming with magic. It would make brutal sense that I'd get a magical migraine after what Stavros had done. I shut my eyes, trying to let the magic running through the marble floor—familiar, yet foreign—finish its task.
“Stavros doesn't want to use me as a vehicle,” I said, eyes still shut. “He has plenty of those. Even when he tried to take me from Excelsine, he just shoved me into the background to drive my body where he wanted it, to secure the surroundings until he could successfully port us away. Using a person's magic means he must accept some of the person inside. He must be part of them. It's why he doesn't usually use anyone's powers when he's riding them. Stavros hates emotions. He's an empath.” I laughed without humor. “He wants to hollow... Hollow me out. Make me more useful long term.”
And Raphael... Raphael would have been an in-between experiment. To see if Stavros could manipulate the emotions of someone with so much love into something else.
“To remove my ability to feel.” I tried looking at the floor again. The zips of magic had grown stronger, like I was waking from a blind sickness and was starting to see again. “He already has what he needs for his version of Genesis Omega. I saw it, tweaked it, certified it—but for one piece. He can get it from me easily the next time he sees me, but he wants me for other things. To tweak variables in later pieces of the destruction, and for rebuilding after, in the way that he wants. We still have a chance. We just don't have enough time.”
The magic was fixing more than just my external senses. I could now feel the tension and panic in all my connections—all of them scrabbling on the other side—subtle differences between them. I closed my eyes, and brought forth the warrior side Axer had spent so long training. Soon, soon, I could fall into my reformed connections, but not yet.
Axer, permission given, softly rippled through my memories and conversation with Stavros, Constantine looking in, their magic connected.
Axer disengaged gently, fingers tapping. “We need to move fast.”
“To where?” Constantine sounded resigned. “Stavros has the containers and the trigger. It's just a matter of pulling it. Tonight, tomorrow. As soon as he heals whatever damage we did, and you know it wasn't enough.”
Axer didn't answer.
“Itlantes won't survive what Stavros is planning,” Constantine murmured.
“No,” Axer said, his own raw emotional reaction held back in the same way that he held onto everything that wasn't useful in the middle of battle. “It will be one of the first places he attempts to destroy. Selectively. He'll want some of the minds. Same with Excelsine. He wants to cull specifically. That will save some, and not others.”
I could feel it, even though he held himself so tightly in control—the devastation that he knew could happen. Some of his family would be destroyed, and he'd have no chance to physically say goodbye.
My heart ached for him and my thoughts strayed to my parents and our friends at Excelsine. Returned emotions threatened to overwhelm me and tears welled in my eyes.