Ashes (Fire Within Series Book 3)

by Ella M. Lee

  He carried me to the couch, and Ryan handed me a mug of tea. I was shaking, still leaning against Nicolas. My eyes went to Dan. He was seated by the prototype sanctum, his eyes wide and alarmed, watching me warily.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Did I do something wrong? It seemed safe to touch.”

  “It was safe,” Ryan said, “for everyone except a transferrer. You showed slightly elevated transference levels when we scanned your magic, but only at about thirteen percent. Normally we don’t see active transference ability in anyone under ninety percent. The lowest I’ve ever seen was eighty-three percent. You shouldn’t have been able to engage transference with your levels.”

  “Well, I did,” I said. The words sounded as stupid as they felt, and they were fuzzy on my tongue.

  “Indeed,” Ryan said. “We’re lucky that didn’t kill you. There are no limiters on that prototype because I don’t need them, so you grabbed all the power out of it. I pulled it out of you, and Irina healed the damage, but it could have been worse.”

  With effort, I held out a hand to Daniel and beckoned for him. He hesitantly came closer. Nicolas’s hands tightened around me defensively, and Daniel stopped a few feet away, wavering.

  “Come here, Commander Darling,” I said.

  Dan frowned. To my surprise, he dropped to his knees in front of me and took my hands.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “This wasn’t your fault,” I said.

  He gave me an unhappy look, his dark eyes worried. His hands were shaking.

  “I’m fine. It was an accident. And I now know not to touch anything of Ryan’s ever again.” I smiled at him and—with a lot of effort—ruffled his hair with my hand. “Come on. We have too much to worry about right now. Don’t make this difficult, please.”

  “She’s right,” Ryan said. “We have work to do. Even more work, now that we need to figure out Fiona’s strange abilities.”

  “Yeah, can we do that tomorrow? I think I’m about to pass out.”

  I slept for fifteen hours after Nicolas carried me back to his apartment, only waking when Irina came to check on me. A shower and breakfast made me feel more human, which was good because Nicolas had the details of our preliminary meeting with Mark.

  We’d be collecting blood samples from him in Singapore later that day, but first I needed to see Ryan. He was eager to take scans of my magic and run a couple of what he claimed were harmless tests on me to figure out what aspects of transference I had, and how to make sure I didn’t nearly kill myself again.

  “How is Dan?” I asked Nicolas.

  He seemed surprised by the question. “Fine, I imagine. I sent him home late last night. He sat with you for a very long time.”

  “I’m worried about him,” I said. “How is his state of mind? You dying… I know it killed him, too. Is he stable?”

  Nicolas hesitated. “He’s upset, but he’s been worse. He’s keeping himself busy, which is how he gets through things.”

  “Warn me if I should worry more, okay?” I asked.

  “Yes, lamb.”

  Nicolas’s clipped tone was concerning. He was usually more expressive when talking about Daniel. I studied him closely.

  “Don’t be mad at Dan,” I said.

  I didn’t like the hardness of Nicolas’s expression, his slight frown, his tense jaw, his narrowed eyes.

  “It was an accident,” I said. “You know no one here wants to hurt me, and I certainly didn’t enjoy doing that to myself.”

  He exhaled sharply.

  “Please, Nicolas.”

  He was standing in the center of the apartment, studying me with his arms crossed. I went and put my arms around him, squeezing him to me. He had been keeping his distance, giving me space to recover, but I needed him close to me right now.

  “That sucked, and I was scared,” I whispered. “Please don’t act like this.”

  He held me carefully. “I’m not mad at anyone. I’m merely under a lot of stress. Seeing you half dead on the floor put me closer to the end of my rope.”

  “I’m right here,” I said.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I should lock you in my apartment until this is all over, to keep you safe,” he murmured.

  “Hey, you don’t have that authority anymore. Besides, you taught me how to break your shield.”

  I’d even done it a few times before, although it had been difficult and tiring and painstakingly slow.

  He kissed my nose, and his expression softened. “You are adorable. A few little tricks, and you think you are more powerful than me. You have much to learn, lamb.”

  I kissed him briefly. “Don’t be a prick.”

  He laughed. “It’s one of my better qualities, though.”

  “I can think of a few qualities I like more,” I said, leaning in.

  I pressed my lips back to his and pushed my tongue into his mouth. His hands tightened on me as he twined his tongue with mine for a brief moment. I ran a hand down his chest, over the smooth plane of his stomach, and along the hard muscles of his thigh.

  His fingers dug into my back, pulling me closer. His lips crept along my jaw as he pressed us together, and I sighed, lost for a moment to his eager touch. His magic wrapped around us like a cloak, heavy and comforting.

  “I love you,” I said, pressing my face into his neck.

  I felt safe here with him. I desperately wanted to feel that way forever. I was sick of everyone I knew getting hurt and nearly dying—including myself. My anxiety was through the roof these days, and I needed Nicolas’s stable presence.

  He knew that. He held me tightly, his lips brushing over my hair languidly.

  “I love you,” he said, each word strong and confident. “Take care of yourself. I rely on you. I need you. You think I don’t, but I do.”

  He was right; I didn’t think that highly of myself, especially compared to the other people in Nicolas’s life. I felt like a drain on him, constantly breaking down and needing help.

  He pulled back so that he could see my face. His expression was concerned, his tawny eyes intense and glowing.

  “What do I need to say or do to show you what you mean to me?” he asked. “I’ve done too good a job of hiding myself. All the things that worry you… that you don’t deserve me, that you aren’t good enough for me, that you don’t hold a candle to me? Those are the same concerns I feel about you.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”

  “You are strong and clever and beautiful. You have saved my life and the lives of those who are important to me. You have the type of forgiveness and compassion I wish I possessed. I have mind-reading, but you can see into the core of people without it. I can manipulate people with fear and intimidation, but you can affect people because they genuinely like you. You have power, even over me, and I don’t mind. I am afraid every day that you will find me unworthy of your attention.”

  I slid my hands up to cup his chin. Nicolas was the best at giving impromptu romantic speeches, the kind that swept me off my feet. My knees were weak right now, listening to his vulnerability.

  No one else saw this from him, and it nearly stopped my heart that he wanted reassurance from me.

  “We need each other, then,” I said.

  He smiled slightly. “We are a team. Do not think of yourself as lesser than me. It is simply untrue.”

  “I will try to believe you,” I said. “That’s all I can promise.”

  He touched my cheek tenderly. “That’s all I ask.”

  I gave him one more brief hug before pulling away. I would have liked to live in a world where we could stand here all day and compliment one another, but that was a fantasy if I’d ever heard one. I’d have to be content with imagining myself in his arms sometime in the future, when we both had time.

  Before heading to Ryan’s place, I knocked on Daniel’s door. I didn’t expect him to be home, but to my surprise, he threw the door open immediately.

  He looked tired and d
isheveled, as though he had been up all night. I wrapped my arms around him, and he held me carefully. After a few moments, he let go, studying me intently.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “All cleared by Irina.”

  His eyes closed briefly. “Fucking hell. I thought you were dead.”

  “Nicolas said you stayed with me for a long time last night.”

  “Of course,” he said. When Dan was upset, he had a tendency to overemphasize words.

  “He’s not mad at you,” I said. “Neither am I.”

  Daniel shrugged.

  “Really,” I said. “Don’t set us back because of this.”

  “I would never,” he said. “It’s about time we moved on this project for real. I’m just not interested in having you die for it.”

  “I won’t, I promise. I’m off to Ryan right now. We’ll figure out my weird issues.”

  “Careful,” Dan said, squeezing my hands. “What would I do without you?”

  He loved saying those words to me, as if he hadn’t somehow lived twenty years of his life without me and gotten along just fine.

  He seemed to sense what I was thinking. “I need you,” he told me sternly.

  “I’m here. Turns out a little lightning won’t kill me. You’re stuck with me forever, I promise.”

  “Forever,” he echoed, his eyes sparkling. “Good.”

  “How are you?” Ryan asked, welcoming me in and returning to the tea he was brewing for us.

  “Tired,” I said, taking a seat on his couch. “Not a big deal. Nicolas is upset, though.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you hurt,” Ryan said. “Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  He went to his workbench and retrieved a little wooden box. He handed it to me, and I opened it to reveal four hollow glass marbles nestled in foam.

  “Three of these are imbued with magic,” he said. “Can you tell me about them?”

  “The left one is Nicolas’s magic,” I said. He had distinctive magic, elegant and a little wild, persnickety to work with. “The next one is Dan’s lightning magic.”

  His was another distinctive magic that called to me. I was intimately familiar with its strange, crackling nature. Daniel’s normal Water magic was beautiful, but when it was transmuted into lightning? It was on a whole different level, gorgeous beyond compare.

  “Correct,” Ryan said.

  I examined the third one, frowning. It felt a little familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “I don’t know. It’s Water magic, though.”

  “That’s Irina’s magic,” Ryan said. “Now I’m going to ask you to put a tiny bit of your transmuted fire magic into the last marble.”

  I did as requested, picking it up, manifesting a small amount of my fire, and shoving it into the glass. I replaced the marble in its slot.

  “All right,” he said. “These marbles are transference training tools. They only hold minuscule amounts of power, and there are wards on them that prevent rushes and deluges of magic. These can’t hurt you like the sanctum prototype did. You can safely put power into them and take it out as much as you’d like.” He paused. “With that said, I’d like you to try pulling the power back out of Nicolas’s marble.”

  I took it between my palms. Most enchanted objects had activators of some kind. Without some way to activate the magic, it couldn’t be accessed without transference skills. This marble had nothing of the sort.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  I had never done work like this, and I had no idea how I’d done it the day before with the prototype.

  Ryan sighed. “Yes, I thought this would happen. Transference is an innate ability. It can’t be taught. Most transferrers do it by themselves the first time, before they are tested or even told of its existence. If you have transference skills, it’s a thing you should know, like a bird learning to fly or a fish learning to swim.”

  “Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. “So this is absolutely impossible.”

  Ryan sat next to me on the couch. “No, no. Not at all. You see, transmutation is also an innate ability—and you’ve done it. Transference should feel like that first occurrence of transmutation for you. Start by trying to recall that feeling. It should be easy to use transference, like it’s all you’ve ever wanted to do, just like transmutation.”

  I took another long, hard look at the marble and then centered myself, pulling inward, clearing my mind and focusing. I closed my eyes for a moment. I could feel the magic right there. I’d held Nicolas’s magic, used it, transmuted it, had it wrapped around me a million times. I’d been inside his sanctum. I knew him deeply and intimately.

  Come on, I thought. Come to me.

  When I’d first transmuted Water magic, I had simply begged it, and it had obeyed.

  Please? I asked. Just… come on out and be with me.

  I reached out with my magic. I pressed it against the marble. I wrapped it. I squeezed it. I tapped it. I shook it. I tried to entice it into coming closer.

  Nothing.

  Nicolas’s magic stayed firmly in its little glass container, and all the hope and confidence I’d felt a few minutes ago was shattered to pieces.

  Chapter 13

  I exhaled sharply and met Ryan’s gaze. “I don’t think I can do this. What if yesterday was a fluke?”

  He shook his head firmly. “What you did was not a fluke.”

  I took a deep breath. Transmutation had been so easy and instantaneous. I had never had a problem with it. Ryan said I could do this, so why was it difficult?

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I think I could stare at this marble all day and nothing would happen.”

  He must have noticed my worried look. He studied me carefully and then said, “Fiona, what drives magical creation and strength?”

  I shrugged. This was Ryan in teaching mode. He didn’t care if I already knew the answer or not; he just wanted me to pay attention.

  “Nicolas says it’s built from love,” I offered. “That’s what he told me when we first met.”

  “Did he?” Ryan asked, his brows flicking up in surprise. “That’s interesting. He knows that’s not exactly true, but perhaps he was being metaphorical. Or simply cryptic.”

  I laughed. “Probably.”

  “Magic can be born of love, I suppose,” Ryan said. “Perhaps it is, for Nicolas. He does have a rather strong desire to love and be loved. But at a more basic level, magic is born from need.”

  “Need,” I repeated.

  That made sense. Water magic had been created by the Polynesians, who had needed the water to cooperate with them in order to survive. Flame magic had been created in the darkest times of war, to give its users an advantage in battle. Verdant magic had been created in the depths of drought and famine to save lives. All of the clans had similar beginnings, as detailed in Clan Creations, a book that had been read by every magician in existence, but the book had never specifically said why any of them had come into being.

  Need was as good a theory as any other.

  “It hasn’t been proven, not even by Smoke,” Ryan said, “but there are strong signals that suggest magic, magical strength, and magical abilities are sparked by deep and true need, that the core of a person can draw up latent, unseen power into something tangible when they most require it.” Ryan paused. “These are the types of things that Smoke seeks to define, and Nicolas knows better than anyone the theories behind magical inception. It was a specialty of his.”

  “I needed transmutation,” I said, looking down at my hands.

  He offered me an understanding look. “You did. You needed strength, the kind of strength you had built up in Flame. You needed to be able to fight, to injure, to escape. You had all those things inside of you, and you manifested it into something that helped you in that moment.”

  “I knew transmutation was real,” I said. “I’d seen Dan’s magic, and he had told me I might be able to do it too. I wanted that to be true.”

  Ryan smiled. “So… maybe
you needed a little nudge from a friend, too.”

  But it had been more than that—I had needed to survive. Not only had I needed to be able to fight on even terms with Derek, I had been deeply afraid that I wasn’t impressive enough for Nicolas to keep me. I needed him to want me, so I had taken that fear and panic and turned it into fire.

  Okay.

  But what did I need right now? I had no idea.

  I held the marble up to the light and sighed. “What does transference feel like for you?”

  “Have you ever seen a souzu?” Ryan asked. “Those Japanese water fountains made of bamboo?”

  “The kind that fill up with water and then tip over and spill out?” I said, and Ryan nodded.

  My mother had one in our flower garden when I was growing up. It was large, balanced on its own rickety stand, and it pumped water from the little pond below up into the weather-worn bamboo piping. When the bamboo pipe filled with water, it tipped over, made a sharp clacking sound as it hit the wooden frame, then dumped the water back into the pool below. I remember begging my mom to turn it off at night because my bedroom window faced the garden, and it would keep me awake.

  Ryan made the motion of the fountain with his hands. “To me, transference feels like that point when the bamboo rod tips and hits the wood, that moment of connection, like the opening of a channel. The magic touches together, connects, and then pours out.”

  I took a deep breath and resettled myself, closing my eyes to clear my mind. Maybe I’d be able to use Ryan’s explanation as a teaching example.

  I held Nicolas’s marble between my palms, pressing them together as though praying. I felt his magic and felt mine and tried to make them click together to form a bridge, to allow one to flow into the other.

  “This might take a while,” I said, my voice distant and detached in my own ears.

  “That’s fine,” Ryan said.

  I paced between the couch and the windows, studying the marble. I sat on the floor. I laid down, moving through several yoga poses, trying to force myself into the most focused state possible. I tugged at the barrier between my magic and Nicolas’s magic again and again, but nothing gave. This was beyond frustrating.