Spark (Fire Within Series Book 4)

by Ella M. Lee

  I smiled at Dan, who was hooking up his phone to the car’s Bluetooth system and chattering about some coffee shop we needed to visit to buy beans for Ryan.

  Daniel would be okay. Despite the shaky magical issues, he was settling back into his old self.

  This trip would be a nice memory for the both of us, something I’d definitely need to hold on to in order to have any strength at all in the new life I was planning.

  Daniel drove, speeding us down the highway out of Osaka. I told him stories from my abortive attempts at magical creation these past months, and he asked endless questions about what everyone was working on and what had happened in the world while he was gone. He seemed weirdly at ease with talking about his own death and resurrection, as though it were simply an interesting blip in his life that he’d always planned for.

  I’d never met anyone as resilient as Dan.

  We snacked on potato chips and fruit juice, and for just a little while, I could forget the heaviness in my heart.

  We were only a little over two hours into our six-hour drive to Tokyo, passing through Nagoya, when Daniel said, “Hey, want to drive for a bit? I think I’m getting a headache from all the sunlight.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said as he pulled us into a rest stop.

  I adjusted the driver’s seat while he ran inside the convenience store and came out with some more snacks and bottles of water.

  I’d only been driving for another fifteen minutes when Dan put his head in his hands. His eyes were closed.

  “Are you sick?” I asked.

  “Sick?” he repeated. “I have no idea.”

  I didn’t blame him for his confusion. Magicians didn’t get sick. We could get injured and experience pain, but we didn’t get common ailments like viruses, allergies, stomach bugs, or anything like that. Magic destroyed all that and protected our bodies.

  “My head really hurts.” He was panting now. “I think something’s wrong.”

  I studied him as much as I could, flicking my eyes between him and the road. “Okay, um,” I said, scanning the highway signs. “Let me pull off up here.”

  I sped up, switching lanes to get over to the exit.

  “Fi,” Dan said. “I…”

  His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed against the seat, unconscious.

  “Dan!” I shook his shoulder, but he didn’t respond. I fumbled for his wrist, turning it over and pressing my fingers into his skin to find a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. I breathed a sigh, my heart slowing the tiniest bit.

  As I pulled off the highway, I called Nicolas.

  “Pick up, pick up,” I murmured. “Please.”

  No answer.

  Damn it. I had no idea if he was ignoring me, or if he just didn’t have his phone near him.

  I tried Ryan next, but there was no answer from him, either. Not a surprise—he never received calls and therefore didn’t check his phone often.

  It was too early in the morning for Teng to be awake, so I tried Irina.

  “Oh, thank god,” I said when she picked up. “Something’s wrong with Daniel.”

  “Tell me,” she said, her voice sliding into the cool professionalism she maintained during emergencies.

  “He complained about a headache fifteen minutes ago. Just now, he said the pain was getting worse, and then he passed out. He has a pulse. It’s stable but weak, and he’s sweating and trembling. I don’t know if I should take him to a hospital.”

  “Do you think he’s in imminent danger?” Irina asked.

  “I have no idea. I’m not a doctor. But… I don’t think so?”

  “All right,” she said. “Head home as fast as you can. If he gets worse, call me back.”

  I followed the signs for the southbound highway. “I’m on my way, about two and a half hours out. Can you find Nicolas and Ryan and tell them what happened?”

  “On it,” she said. “Take care of him.”

  I ended the call and pressed the accelerator harder, taking Dan’s hand in mine and preparing for the longest two hours of my life.

  Irina, Nicolas, and Ryan were waiting for us when we arrived. Dan hadn’t stirred the entire drive home, but his pulse remained stable. I brought the car to a halt in the middle of the driveway, and Nicolas immediately threw open the passenger-side door, hauling Dan out. He laid him on the grass, and the three of them worked over him—Nicolas putting a stethoscope to his chest, Ryan checking his eyes, Irina laying her hands on his head and using her magic to check for issues.

  I leaned against the car, panting. It felt like I hadn’t breathed the whole way home.

  “Explain again what happened,” Nicolas said, his eyes falling on me for the first time in forever.

  I stammered through an explanation of what I’d witnessed, but there wasn’t much to it. Nicolas steepled his hands. “Irina?”

  She shook her head. “His body seems fine to me. No trauma, no irregularities.”

  Irina had to be right. I didn’t know anyone with more extensive knowledge of the human body than her. That left only one thing that could be causing the issue.

  I cleared my throat. “Maybe we should take him to the sanctum.”

  All three of them looked at me. I flinched under their attention. “Dan’s not human, really. He’s magical. Maybe the sanctum can help him. It’s where he comes from, after all.”

  Nicolas looked between me and Dan. Without a word, he picked Dan up and headed toward the temple. Well, at least he didn’t hate me enough to completely ignore my advice.

  Ryan, Irina, and I trudged after him. Nicolas wasted no time in laying Dan at the foot of the sanctum. We all knelt around him in a circle, waiting. Irina held his right wrist, monitoring his pulse.

  Nothing happened.

  Daniel is magic. He’s part of the sanctum.

  Hesitantly, I took his left hand and pressed it against the hard surface of the sanctum. The second they connected, Dan flew upright with a gasp, his eyes wild and startled.

  Nicolas steadied him, holding him around his shoulders.

  “What the fuck?” Dan said, his eyes finding me.

  “I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “What do you remember?”

  “I remember driving. I remember my head hurt, and I traded with you. Everything got blurry and distant. Then it went black, and when I opened my eyes, I was back in the sanctum.”

  “You complained about your head, and then you passed out,” I said. “I turned the car around and came home. We brought you in here, and I pressed your hand against the sanctum, and you woke up.”

  Daniel gently shook Nicolas off him and stared at his hands. “It felt like my head was being torn apart. Like elastic, pulling me.”

  Nicolas’s eyes were on the sanctum, staring at the churning magic within. “Restrictions,” he murmured. He looked at each of us. “I think you’ve found a restriction, Dan. You’re bound to this sanctum.”

  “I’m what?” Dan said.

  “How far did you get?” Nicolas asked me. “Show me.”

  I took out my phone and found the rough location on the map where Daniel had passed out. I gave it to Nicolas. He studied it. “Two hundred kilometers or so. What if you have a range that you can’t go beyond? Magic needs to be bound to something.”

  “I’m bound to my body,” Daniel said, waving a hand at himself.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Nicolas said. “Your body is certainly a vessel, but what if you are truly bound to the sanctum? Ryan?”

  Ryan shook his head. “It’s certainly possible. But these are uncharted waters. You are unique, Dan. How do you feel now?”

  “Fine,” Dan said.

  “No pain?” Ryan asked.

  “Nah,” Dan said. “I feel normal.”

  But the unhappy frown on his face worried me, as well as his gaze—a million miles away.

  “Hey, it’s fine,” I said to Dan. “Just means Ryan gets to run more tests on you and figure out what’s wrong.”

  “I
don’t think anything is wrong,” Dan said. “I think this is my life now.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “Good thing I love Osaka, I guess.”

  There wasn’t an untroubled expression among us at his bleak words.

  No one was pleased to find that we’d learned the first of Dan’s repercussions and restrictions. Despite that, Sylvio raised the mood by bringing home cheesecake from Osaka. Dan cooked a huge spread of food, finally getting that family celebration he had mentioned to me in the sanctum. After dinner and dessert, everyone decided to head into town to drink at one of the izakaya there, Nicolas included. I stayed behind.

  I didn’t want to see Nicolas either brooding and unhappy, or see him content without me.

  When I checked my email, I found a message from Leon.

  I did as you asked. Documents are in the mail. You’ll get them tomorrow. Should I be wishing you good luck?

  I smiled and wrote back quickly.

  I’ll send a cashier’s check for you. Standard fee + a little extra. Keep your luck; it’s never done much for me anyway.

  Leon would get a laugh out of that. He’d always been oppressively sarcastic when I’d known him, just a Flame liaison who ran some unsavory side businesses for extra money. He and Teng would get along well, with all their surly one-word responses and clandestine projects.

  By the time I was half asleep in bed, the house was still empty. I stared at Nicolas’s name in my texting app for several minutes before finally coming up with courage to say something.

  Do we get to talk ever?

  When I woke up, I hadn’t gotten a response.

  Chapter 24

  Living two lives wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Half of me walked around invested in Lightning Clan—double-checking project lists, answering questions, writing notes on experiments, proofreading reports. The other half of me checked out, trying to numb the rejection I felt from Nicolas and the misery I knew would come once I was on my own.

  I planned in my journal, alone in my room, when I was sure Nicolas was far away. Where would I go? How would I live? What did I have to worry about, forsaking magic and venturing back into the normal world?

  I didn’t have a lot of answers to these questions.

  I collected my false-identity documents from the post office in town, where I’d put a hold on the package. A United States passport, a Massachusetts driver’s license, a Social Security card. They all bore the name Caroline Zoey Haas.

  I hid them in a bag in the back of my closet.

  I had to leave soon. If I didn’t, I’d chicken out. I’d let myself wallow in this misery and stay, just because I’d be too afraid to do anything else, and I’d slowly destroy myself.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I knew I could start over. I’d done it a million times. What was one more?

  The only thing that held me back was Daniel.

  But it had been three days since Daniel’s strange incident in the car, and he seemed fine. We’d talked in the onsen, we’d driven to Osaka for dinner, I’d shown him the wisteria grove I’d planted in his honor, and together we burned the death altar the clan had set up for him in the temple.

  He’d had a lot of fun doing that, and we’d turned it into a bonfire and toasted hot dogs and marshmallows over it.

  Dan and Ryan were deep into researching whatever it was Dan had become, and Dan attacked that project fervently, as he did with just about all his work.

  He’d fallen back into a routine—playing with magic, cooking, sparring with Chandra and Nicolas, writing in his journal, working out and running.

  His incredulous voice startled me out of my push-ups the first time I wore an open-back tank top in the gym with him.

  “Is that my name tattooed on your back?”

  I jumped up, spinning around. “Um, yeah, actually.”

  He took a few steps closer, studying the dark ink just below my left shoulder blade.

  “Do you like the design?” I asked. “Ryan did it.”

  “It’s cool,” Dan said softly. He touched my skin. “You really love me, huh? Reminding yourself of me all the time?”

  “Oh… I usually just forget it’s there,” I said.

  He pushed me playfully. “How does Nicolas feel about you having another man’s name tattooed on you?”

  Sharp claws bit into my heart at his words, but I forced myself to smile. “I think it was less weird when you were dead. My poor best friend, gone before his time, a hero to the magical world.” I cringed mockingly. “Now you aren’t nearly as awesome.”

  Dan laughed. “Want to spar? I bet I can still kick your ass with my awesomeness.”

  “Try me,” I said.

  Dan won all five rounds of our sparring, but that was fine. In fact, it was a perfect end to what I was pretty sure was my last day in Lightning.

  I had told myself I wouldn’t leave without one final, last-ditch effort to talk to Nicolas. He hadn’t officially broken up with me—hell, he hadn’t spoken enough words to me for that to have happened—and I needed to know for certain where we stood.

  I was so hopeful, so eager to stay with Lightning, that I thought a single kind word from him would convince me to abandon all my plans.

  I didn’t knock on his door; he wouldn’t answer me if I did. Instead, I let myself in. “Hey,” I said, standing awkwardly in the doorway of his office.

  He sat behind his desk, lost in thought as he stared at his laptop. At the sound of my voice, he looked up. “Yes?” His tone held absolutely no expression, like I was a complete stranger to him.

  “I wanted to thank you,” I said, my voice shaking from nerves. “You didn’t have to look through that research. You didn’t have to put together a plan to get Dan out of the sanctum. I know it was difficult for you, and I appreciate it. You work hard, and I’m glad you’re here for the clan. I’m also glad Dan is back.” I held up my wrist. “Look, my binder is gone. No more agreement with Stephan.” Nicolas flinched at the name. “Everything’s okay, see?”

  Nicolas studied me for a long, silent moment. “Is that all?”

  My heart sank, and any hope I had of reconciliation shattered and filled my chest with painful needles of cold and hurt.

  “Can we talk?” I asked. “Please? Like, really talk? I’m sorry for everything. I just want to know what’s going on in your head.”

  The silence that stretched between us was longer and more awkward this time. Finally, Nicolas cleared his throat. “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “I don’t want to leave things like this between us,” I said a little desperately.

  Nicolas’s expression crinkled into something like pity. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  I bit the inside of my lip painfully hard, anticipating tears, but none threatened. I found I’d been expecting those very words, and they relieved all the pressure and anxiety I’d felt before setting foot into his office.

  I nodded. “Right. Okay.”

  Nicolas’s distant, cold gaze turned back to his laptop screen. A dismissal.

  “Nicolas?” I asked.

  He looked up, confused, shifting in agitation. “Yes?”

  I wrung my hands, forcing myself to look him in the eye as I said my next words. “I love you.”

  His gaze only lingered on me for another moment before he turned away once again.

  If that wasn’t finality, I didn’t know what was. I backed out of his office, shutting the door carefully. I made my way across the garden to the temple. At the threshold, I glanced back. The distance between me and Nicolas seemed insurmountable from here, the warded walls of his apartment like a barricade.

  Nicolas would be fine. He’d suffered a lot worse than a two-year relationship that ended in failure and betrayal. He was perhaps the strongest of my new family. He would have a long, long life, with so much time to heal. Our time together would fade from his memory, hopefully to be replaced by something better.

  I wished that for him. That would be my real punis
hment—worrying about him forever, hoping he’d be safe and happy and well, hoping he’d be able to keep Lightning safe and successful.

  Peering into the dim light of the temple, I could just barely make out Daniel’s form. He sat cross-legged, resting his head back against the sanctum with his eyes closed.

  I stepped inside, bowing to the Buddha.

  “Dan?” I asked.

  His eyes flicked open. “Yeah?”

  I looked around. The magic wasn’t active, and Dan’s power was all snapped in tight. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “Thinking.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  He tilted his head at me. “Nah. It’s just a lot, being back here. Trying to figure out what all this, uh, means. It’s easier to think about this stuff when I’m near the sanctum.”

  I swallowed, guilt piercing me, ringing in my bones. I was leaving my best friend to sort himself out alone. Not alone, I reminded myself. He has a clan full of very old, very powerful magicians. I had to hope he’d be fine.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his brows drawn together. “Are you crying?”

  “No,” I snapped, harsher than intended. “The incense makes my eyes water.”

  A truth to cover my bad lie. Incense did make my eyes water, but I was also crying.

  “Uhngh,” he agreed, although the syllable sounded skeptical. He stood, dusting off his pants. “What do you want for dinner?”

  “Whatever you want.” Because I won’t be here.

  His gaze drew level with me as he tossed an arm around my shoulders and moved to spin me toward the door again. Instead of letting his motions guide me, I held firm, facing him. I pulled him into a hug, burying my face in his neck.

  “Fi?” he asked, tightening his arms around me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just missed you so much.” I pulled away to look into his dark eyes. “You’re okay, right?”

  He gave me an impatient look. “Yeah, I’m okay. Seriously, what’s up with you?”