by Jayla Kane
“I’m hoping to practice that at dinner,” she said, a harder edge to her voice, and I nodded when we locked eyes. We couldn’t be more explicit about the dangers and opportunities this dinner offered out loud, not when we hadn’t searched the house for hidden cameras or mics. Or more goddamn magic. Rae, even if you can’t read their minds at dinner, we can at least get a sense of what they know from what they ask. Don’t push yourself. Don’t become a target, I thought. Please.
I think I might need to touch one of them, she said, turning away to run her eyes over the spines of the books adjacent to her face; no books below that would have anything we could use. The older books were all higher up. I clenched my fists and stalked over to the other side of the room.
Don’t touch Lucas. Non-negotiable.
Behind me, I heard her exhale. Yuck. I really don’t want to. But I… I was hoping I might be able to touch Mina.
What if she can hear what you’re thinking?
We’ll have to practice that shield some more, she said, and I couldn’t help but relax a little bit at the thought of being able to touch her again, however briefly. I listened to her voice in my head, calmly and deliberately cataloguing the book titles as she went through them, and turned towards the shelves again, focusing. We needed more information, and there had to be some in this house. Even if it wasn’t in such an obvious place, this was the easiest way to start looking.
An hour passed by, and I knew we needed to wrap it up. “Rae?”
She shook her head, stepping down from the sliding ladder next to the shelves and walking over to me. “Nothing. Your dad really liked James Patterson a lot, though. I’d forgotten.”
“Yeah,” I said, and smiled down at her without thinking about it. She blinked up at me, her thoughts guarded, and I realized I’d grown a little too used to being able to see inside her head. I felt the smile stumble without the reassurance of her words—kind or otherwise—and she reached out and touched her finger to the back of my hand.
I don’t understand how quickly your moods change, Jake.
It’s no mystery, I said. I don’t think they do. Or at least, the foundation is always the same.
How do you mean?
I slipped my hand under hers, palm to palm, and felt my whole body start to relax when she allowed her fingers to wrap around my wrist. My hand was so much bigger I was gently holding her forearm, but the connection was good. I could hear her. She could hear me. No static, this time. I mean… I probably seem completely bi-polar right now, but I think I’m just sorting through a lot of what’s always been there, I explained, shrugging. I’m not really this… Changeable.
You definitely come across as very… Up and down.
I’m sorry, I said, and she frowned.
And yeah—I’m never going to get used to that. You were crap at saying you were sorry even when we were kids.
Sorry, I said again, and we both let out a little laugh, watching one another. What can I say? Time has humbled me.
Alright, Raven said, and then nodded. Okay. I’m going to put down my shield—I only had it up a little bit, so we could talk.
Like a garage door? I quirked an eyebrow at her, and she laughed out loud. The sound rang around the room and rippled through my skin, making my chest swell.
I guess, she said, still smiling, and then, slowly, I felt her shut it again. Almost physically. I realized I was reaching out for her thoughts and scraping against… A solid wall. Ice. Crystal, glittering ice, but more opaque this time—I couldn’t even see the movement of the images in her head now. Nothing.
Think about something, she urged me, and I took a deep breath, pushing the more forbidden thoughts deeper down.
I chose an image of her from when we were twelve, playing Risk on the floor in this very room, the board spread out and rain pouring down outside. We had a heated debate about the rules before—
“You cheated!” Raven stamped her foot, her cheeks reddening as I laughed long and hard at her reaction. “You were such a cheat.”
“I wasn’t,” I said, looking down at her, knowing how I felt must be beaming out of my face. Where was my wall when I needed it? “We discovered that, Miss Keller, in spite of your protestations.”
Just because something isn’t explicitly stated—
Um, that’s literally not how games work—
“You’re such an asshole,” she muttered, but there was a big fat grin on her face, one I hadn’t seen yet in all the times we’d spoken since… Since… It faltered, then disappeared. “It’s okay,” she said, then winced. “Jesus, why do I always make excuses for you?”
I don’t know, I thought, scrambling for that red wall I’d had before, the one I’d sensed barring her from me after she absorbed so much of my anger. I needed it. Right now. Because in spite of all my efforts I knew exactly what I wished the reason might be.
“What are you doing?” Raven was frowning up at me, studying my face. “What is that?”
I pushed at her, timidly at first, then felt her own wall pulsing back against mine, as if our thoughts had membranes over them, and saw her eyes widen. “Is it working? Can you hear me?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, and then she furrowed her brow and stared into my eyes, her fingers wrapping tightly around my wrist. My head started to hurt—right in the center, a tiny, sharp blade was poking me, digging, digging deeper and deeper—
I didn’t recognize the sound that came out of my mouth. Pain like I’d never felt before spidered through that membrane, cracking it so viciously I felt my hand drop as I winced and yanked away from her involuntarily. “Fuck! Jesus Christ, Rae, baby—”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” She looked horrified. Once we broke contact I was just left with a throbbing head-ache, the pain duller every passing second. I instantly grabbed her and pulled her against my chest.
“That was fucking awesome,” I grinned into her hair, unable to stop the rush of excitement in my voice as I wrapped my arms around her. Warmth and tenderness flooded through me, her apologies instantly transforming into energy. My head stopped hurting immediately and I pulled back so I could see her face. “You are a bad-ass, Rae. I mean, you always were, but that was… Intense.”
“Really?”
“Yes, baby,” I said, still grinning unabashedly, and then I realized what I’d just said and back-pedaled as uncertainty flooded her, dimming the light we exchanged. “My bad,” I said, shaking my head. “I was just excited.” You just shielded yourself and busted my brain open, Raven, I said, trying to distract her from the words that escaped me. Come on—tell me that’s not fucking cool.
Cool is now how I’d describe it, she said, letting me go and backing away. Not too far, only a couple of feet, but it suddenly felt like miles. The energy we’d exchanged dissipated immediately, leaving me cold. My head-ache was gone, though. We should probably get ready for dinner, she said, and I nodded, letting the moment drift away. Hopefully, she’d be able to read Mina and Lucas without having to touch either of them, but at least I was pretty sure she would be shielded herself.
And if things went south, I would be there, and I could definitely afford to burn off a little of my own power. Maybe if I’d… Exercised, or whatever, earlier, I wouldn’t have just embarrassed myself. I was still figuring out exactly what that tightrope walk required.
Fuck it. Eventually, with powers like hers, she was going to see everything I didn’t want her to. It was only a matter of time. Not that I was some brain-shield-building master, but if my other powers were any indication then I could probably do a decent job of it. I wondered why, considering I had elemental powers, and then thought that might be the bond between us again—the Sineater and Magi bond. She was watching me carefully, and I stared at her for a second. “So maybe we should talk about this really quickly—Raven, I have a feeling you can hear a lot more now?”
She nodded. “Yeah—I can filter it better, too, and sometimes images—” She abruptly stopped, reading my expre
ssion. “I’ll stop. For now.”
“Please,” I said, giving her a half smile. “I’m proud of you—I knew you would figure this shit out. But… I’m not comfortable with you just rifling through my brain whenever you happen to give it half a thought. I mean,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets and struggling to find the words, “not that there’s anything like, surprising or too weird in there, I just—”
“You don’t have to explain,” she said softly, and I bit my lip.
“It would be easier if I could keep that wall up, but honestly, it takes some work. And right now I’ve got nothing.” I shook my head at her, unable to keep the grin off of my face. “You did a number on me. Nice work.”
Raven didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm, and I remembered that the whole reason we were in here was to figure out how to free her from this witch bullshit. She sighed. “I hope it’s useful.”
“How could it not be?” I took another deep breath, unsure of how to comfort her—I could with my body; I knew how to do that. I’d made plenty of girls feel better that way, and even Raven… But I’d fucked that up. Completely. But I could hug her, I knew that made her feel better… But not right now, from the obvious impatience on her face. “Rae… It’s okay to be good at this. It doesn’t obligate you to keep doing it, if we can find a way to get you back to normal.”
“You won’t… You won’t be mad at me?”
The words were almost out of my mouth before I could stop them, the crush of worry on her face was so overwhelming—baby, no, I would never be mad at you for that—and then her expression hardened and she crossed her arms, stopping me in my tracks. Luckily, as it turned out.
“I hate how much slack I cut you. It makes me furious with myself,” she said, and I bit my tongue. Nothing I could say would make that better. “Why the hell do I do that?”
She seemed like she was waiting for an answer. I raised my eyebrows, hoping she was politely refusing to read my mind, and shrugged. “You’re a good person? You’ve forgiven me a little more? We have a long, crazy, fucked-up history and you understand me better than anyone?”
Raven huffed out a sigh and stared up at the ceiling. “I think I need to borrow more of your anger, though,” she finally said, then met my eyes. “I really need to protect myself from this situation. I’m here, in your house, eating your food—” Her eyes widened. “Where are we sleeping?”
“No,” I said, shutting her down immediately, and not, for a change, for selfish reasons—well, not entirely selfish reasons. “I know we have a lot of rooms, Rae. I’ll take the floor. You take the bed. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Do we even know if you would—”
“I won’t sleep, if that’s what needs to happen,” I said, and she stared at me, worrying her lip between her teeth.
“We really need a fucking spell,” she finally said, grimacing, and I frowned at her, not following her line of thought. “We need a protection spell,” she clarified, “for your room.”
I scanned the higher shelves and thought about it. “I could look up there? Really quick? Before we—”
“What if we searched together?” I must have looked as confused as I felt, because she burst out laughing and reached out for my hand again. I was only too glad to offer it. “I mean… Could we do that? Leo said witches work spells together, right? So could we like… I don’t know. Try to sense magic in this room together?”
“I think we need to be more specific,” I said. “I’m pretty sure this whole place is packed to the gills with witchy bullshit of every variety.”
“Anna is not a ghost, Jake,” she muttered, then cracked a smile at me. “Okay. It is a little weird that we’ve never seen her anywhere else.”
“Right?” I blinked at her, and she laughed out loud at my face. I must have sounded like a complete conspiracy theorist. “And where the hell does she live? She must walk home, because she doesn’t have a car, but have you ever—”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Raven said, still giggling at me; my heart stuttered, and I wrapped my fingers through hers, holding tight to the warmth that went back and forth between us, the quiet pulse of joy I felt rippling out from her palm. “So… Why don’t we… I don’t know. Look, I guess, but with our minds.”
“Hmm,” I said, shaking my head. “You know that new age shit was never my thing.”
“Just try,” she said, feigning exasperation as I smiled at her reluctant laugh, and we held on tighter and closed our eyes. I let her guide me—I couldn’t help it, really, because whatever force she’d used to crack my shield earlier had rendered it temporarily useless and I was completely at her mercy, at least mentally. I felt her probing the room, reaching, and sent a push of power—my power—through the bond, strengthening her search. And then, we both felt it—I could tell because her energy flashed with warning, chilling me. My eyes flew open and I stared at her face. “There,” she said, her eyes opening; her pupils were huge. It was terrifying.
“Raven,” I whispered, but she shook her head, as if she were waking up or coming to, and pointed at the corner of a bookshelf, one of the highest ones in the room.
“I could only recognize it because it felt a little bit like your shield,” she explained. “But it’s something else—it’s guarded, somehow.”
“Huh,” I said, looking at where she’d pointed. We would have gotten to that spot eventually. I let go of her hand and walked over, wondering if I should try to get the books down with magic. I decided I didn’t know what was guarding them, and it would be better to get a closer look; it took me about thirty seconds to scale the wall. One foot on one shelf, one on the other. Hand over hand. I still couldn’t see what was there very well, but when I got to the top I placed my hand against the wood and sent a pulse of my own magic through it—that deep, rumbling push that made the earth move—and saw the books there jump towards me. Just a bit. I did it again, and then started reading the titles. “Emerson, collected works. Dickinson, collected works. Thoreau—”
“Just bring them all down, Jake,” she called, and I sighed. That would be a hell of a lot harder. I was twenty feet up in the air.
Unless… I sent a tendril of power out to the book and bumped it forward, finding the wood in the shelf with my mind, my power. If I could push using the wood, fixing my power on the elemental properties of earth inside of it, could I… I slid the book out, focusing on flattening it against the hard mahogany, and sent it down to the lower levels by carefully focusing on keeping the spine attached to the wooden bookshelf. And then I felt like an idiot, because paper? Made of wood. Part of my elemental power, whatever it was that attached to dirt and roots. So I grabbed the pages in the next book with my gift, carefully, and made it float down to Raven’s outstretched hands using a current of air, concentrating as hard as I could to recreate the same push that had allowed me to weed the garden. The look on her beautiful face was absolutely priceless.
It took three more for me to really get the hang of the process, and by the time the shelf was half empty, I was climbing back down and watching them neatly file by in the air, drifting over to Raven one by one as she stacked them on a low table, the smile on her face absolutely blinding.
“Jacob,” she said, when my feet touched the floor and the last book settled into her hands, “that was really fucking cool.”
“Yeah?” I felt shy. And dumb, still, for not realizing paper was fucking wood. Idiot.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said, reaching out and touching my bare arm, just below the sleeve of my t-shirt. My eyes flickered to hers, and we stared at each other for a minute.
“I thought you weren’t reading my mind any more,” I said quietly, and she bit her lip and started to pull away. “Don’t go yet,” I whispered, and held her hand there for a minute longer, unable to stop mine from reaching out, pressing her palm against my skin, wrapping my fingers around her delicate wrist. I needed the reassurance she sent through the bond, sure, but… I just wanted t
o bask in having done something she liked for a minute. It wasn’t so much her reassurance I needed but… Her approval. For once. I let go after just a second, but the hum running through me of that lost sensation—the feeling of having someone I liked actually like me back, genuinely, for something I could do, something I was… That was more powerful than the rush of capturing a new facet of my magic. Raven watched my face for a long, increasingly uncomfortable moment, and then I shrugged. “Sorry,” I told her, not meaning it, and she gave me a quick shake of her head. “Well, sorry if it really bothered you, I didn’t—”
“Okay, now I’m worried that you don’t actually know what sorry means, and that’s why it’s so easy for you to say now.” I laughed out loud at that one, enjoying her easy smile, her familiar sarcasm.
“Fine. I’m not sorry,” I said finally, and swallowed, meeting her eyes again. “I hope touching me didn’t bother you too much, though.”
“Not at all,” she murmured, her eyes flicking to the carpet, and then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I can’t tell which of them might have a shield—they all look completely ordinary to me. So let’s take them up to your room and—”
“Fuck,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut as I remembered. It was hard to think of something I wanted to do less than subject Raven to Lucas and Mina. “Alright. Let’s get this shit over with.”
We walked down the long hallway, carrying them in case some unforeseen set of circumstances required us to look normal, and deposited the books in my room. When we were about to leave, Raven looked around one more time and turned to face me. “You’re going to sleep on the floor?”
“Anything you want,” I promised, and was surprised when she paused, her cheeks heating up.
“I… I don’t know what I want,” she said softly, forcing her dark eyes up to meet mine. “But it’s okay if you sleep in the bed too. It would probably be dumb to pretend—I mean, it’s not as if—”
“Raven, I don’t mind sleeping on the floor,” I said, barely managing to keep a leash on the fantasies that suddenly ran rampant behind my eyes, blending seamlessly with images from our recent, more carnal exploits. “And I don’t blame you if you want me to.”
