by Jayla Kane
“Again, with the ‘what you know of—‘” I kind of liked being snotty to Tristan, and not just because he pretended to be dead and disappeared—which I’d basically forgiven, but is still hella shitty. I liked that he didn’t care. If I talked like this to Raven and Zelle they’d act like I gut-punched them. “What do you know, huh?”
“Well, I can tell you that we desperately need your powers in full effect if we’re waging war with the Guild,” he said quietly, and I rolled my eyes.
“Okay.” What the hell else was I going to say?
“And that if you don’t know how to use them, there’s an excellent chance we will be hiding some bodies around here.” His tone was mild, but the words made me wince.
“Look, how do I bring things to life if they’re not already dead? I don’t know how to do this,” I said, shaking my head, “and even if I did, would I? Hell no. It just isn’t the kind of thing that—”
“You seem to have forgotten that there are many living things in this world besides, for example,” he coughed into his hand, “young, unattached and potentially heroic werelocks.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but he was right.
“Nice one,” I said, but he just raised his eyebrows, avoiding my gaze. “Okay. So?”
“So what about the trees your sister razed?” Tristan pointed at the trees she’d reduced to cinder during her attack, the brittle branches hardly more than ash. The weather was colder, but not with the bitterness winter would bring; in another month, the weight of snow and lashing wind would reduce half of this forest to slush. He was watching my face when I turned towards him. “What do you think? Do you want to try?”
No. Not really. I wanted to curl up in my bed and think about young, tragically unattached and very heroic werelocks—ha, ha--even if it made me hate myself for being so damn weak. But instead I cracked my neck the way I always did before a game and squared my jaw before striding across the driveway to lay my hand on the closest stump. This was one of the ones she’d blasted at the end, when all of that lightning was flying into her like a bombshell of electricity; a casualty by proximity. What’s that called in a war? Friendly fire? Or something else?
I glanced over at Tristan, who was watching me patiently from just outside of the front door. I wanted to ask him if this was what it was like for him—if he touched things the way I did, and had them fall apart. Were we exact mirror opposites? What kinds of things did I need to know? I decided to give it a try, first, and laid my hand on the blackened stump.
There was nothing inside; I could feel the emptiness, the missing cells and sparks of life, like a part of me instinctively knew they once were there and now were gone. But I also realized I really didn’t know much about how to fix what wasn’t there. With Hunter, Raven had somehow found his actual personality inside of his mind once I lit him up, and Tristan was there, guiding the entire process while he siphoned off my power and added boosts where I needed it. I’d felt he and Raven, but the panic and the hope… I was overwhelmed when I brought Hunter back. I hadn’t thought about anything—not cells, not mitochondria and ribosomes and chlorophyll or whatever the hell trees were made of. I just did it.
So I tucked my fingers into the darkest sear of ashes on the blackened tree, closed my eyes, and just… Pushed.
I could feel something now. I could feel… Myself. Winding through the tree, through all those things I didn’t understand—through the delicate threads of each tiny micro-organism that had lived on the tree, too, through the sharp shiny bits of DNA and the sparkles of fungus and parasites that dusted the tree’s bark, I was sailing through them all, the wake of my power lashing around the tree, tightening around it like a noose.
But then it started to grow.
Not well, I saw, Tristan walking up beside me. Not… Right. The trunk wasn’t straight, for some reason; it sheered off at a diagonal, ragged with holes where I couldn’t quite make the magic do what I wanted to, where I couldn’t tell it what I needed to. But it was a pine tree, technically; it was alive, also. And so were the giant black beetles that covered it, and the froth of white butterflies that burst out of the top once I let go.
“Fascinating,” Tristan murmured, but I shrugged.
“It looks wrong,” I said, unable to hide the disappointment in my voice. I noticed that there were some weird bulges in the trunk too, places where I’d made the cells regenerate too quickly, unevenly. Like tumors.
Tristan laid his hand on one and I watched, awed, as it slowly sank back into the trunk. He did it again with three more, then stood back and smiled. “It’s nice to… To help something, instead of hurt it.”
“Is your power all… Do you have to touch things? To make them die?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Or they have to touch me.”
“Is that… I mean, you have a lot of scars,” I said slowly, and he nodded, still smiling at the tree. “How does that…”
“If I can see it coming, I will dissolve it before it even gets close—a bullet, for example,” he said, and shrugged. “It’s instinctive. Sometimes I only have to hear it. I don’t use a shield, the way Jake does—my power just… It begins to swallow everything in that direction, which can get… Very unstable.”
“Like… The air?” I stared at him in incredulity, and he grinned. I’m not going to lie, he’s a looker. Poor thing. That smile lasted about as long as it took a butterfly to beat its wing.
“I think so,” he said, and shrugged again. “I think if I don’t keep a close range on it, it’ll destroy anything close by, anything my shadows touch.” He pointed down at his real shadow, and I realized, for the first time, that it was moving. Just a tiny bit, just the edges. “It’s eating the light,” he said softly as we both stared at it, the slight blur now way creepier after his explanation. “Absorbing it, I should say. That’s what it does, it absorbs matter, dissolves it. That’s the Unbinding.”
“That’s… Jesus, Tristan. That’s terrifying.”
He didn’t look up at me, and watched his shadow instead. “It is. Not to me, not now—well, not in the sense you mean. I’ve learned how to use it, learned to trust my own instincts, for the most part.” He glanced up at me. “You’ll do that. I promise. It’s not hard—magic is supposed to be hard, but it’s not for us, not any of us.”
“The other witches have to work at this kind of thing?”
“Well, other witches can’t do what you and I can do at all,” he said bluntly. “Or Hunter. I’m not sure why I’m such an anomaly, but I told you,” he said, obviously regretting having to bring it up again, “that your parents must have both been Ashwood Coven—”
“Well, between you and me my mom is the wild card,” I said bluntly, and he bit his lip and stared at the shadow again. “But I asked Zelle, and she said no way was Roddy Black my father, and there’s no way mom managed to sleep with him from California to make Hunter, either. So we’re off the hook for that, at least,” I said, more to myself than him. He didn’t look up.
“There are some magical dynasties who have deliberately practiced incest for generations,” he said in that mild way, then gave me another one of those beautiful, fleeting grins when I gasped in horror.
“Is there anything about these people that isn’t disgusting? Seriously.”
“Not every magical dynasty,” he said, smiling down at his shadow again. “Just some.”
“Barf,” I muttered, then looked back up at my tree. “So… How do I do this? How do I make this right?”
“What do you mean?” His eyes followed mine.
“It’s all… Why did it have all those bulges in it? The things you fixed? Why are there holes, and weird bugs, and why isn’t it straight?” I pointed. “All the normal trees are straight. My tree isn’t straight.”
“I think you should be quite proud of having saved it’s life.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll get a cupcake from Anna or something.”
He was quiet, considering for a long, silent moment, and I waited when I reali
zed he might actually be trying to answer my questions. He pointed at the beetles. “Perhaps you saved eggs that were meant to hatch in spring. Your power might have forced them to age, to mature early. Same with the butterflies.” He pointed to the tumors. “Those, I think it’s fair to guess, are the natural result of your raw power. Creation. It’s just not what needed to be created—or too much of what needed to be created.” He frowned. “I know this isn’t easy. The tree and the holes… You’re learning, Baby.” Tristan turned towards me and sighed. “Go easy on yourself.”
“Do you go easy on yourself?” I gave him a hard look, but he met my eyes.
“Can you feel what your magic has done, to us? Inside, I mean?” I stared at him, frowning, and he gave me a brief smile. “Jacob’s powers—considerable, and no matter what you think of him, he’s done an extraordinary job of controlling them—left all of us in rough shape the day you and Hunter arrived.” I liked that. We arrived. “Everyone was hurt.” He shrugged. “And none of us were by the end of the day. Not a bruise on a single soul.”
“I didn’t touch anybody but Rae and Hunter—” And Tristan, when we were saving Hunter. But not Leo and Jake. “Are you saying—”
“Mine eats the light,” he said softly. “The people you touched are easy to explain, but your power healed Leo and Jake without contact. Just ambient energy that helped them recover from a distance.”
“So I’m like… Leaking magic? All the time?”
“Ambient energy. I am too,” he said, his mouth a hard line. “All the time. So is Jake—his just interacts with the elements, so we don’t notice until he starts an earthquake by accident. Raven’s worked very hard to make sure she isn’t overwhelmed by the sensation of interacting with everyone’s mind, but she has a more… A normal amount of magic, compared to the rest of us. But Zelle—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes darting back to his shadow. “Zella has to work hard to expel her excess, harder than the rest of us. It’s too noticeable, the way it would be if there was an earthquake every time Jake took a step. She could start a fire by breathing.”
“That’s why they want her dead?”
“I don’t think they know. Yet. If… If I’m right, it’ll get worse over time,” he said softly. “I could be wrong. But I think genetically she has… She’ll become more powerful, until it’s something the Guild—and the rest of the magical world—will never ignore.”
“Maybe you’re wrong?” He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy that would mention something if he wasn’t already sure he was right, but a girl can dream.
“I hope I am.” He swallowed hard. “At any rate, she’ll need you to have mastered your power, Baby, more than anything, because you’re the key.” He blinked up at me, the sun’s very last rays bright and stark as they shot over the horizon. “You can bring back those of us that die in this war. And you can keep your sister from becoming a murderer.”
I’d already saved Raven from that fate. I’d do it a thousand more times if I had to. Tristan’s guilt was evident in the way his shoulders sagged as he turned back towards the house, his eyes glancing up at the library, where Zelle blew out the window.
I turned and laid my hands on another blackened trunk, giving him one backward glance. He turned to watch again, silent, the shadows that surrounded him glittering as they spread like a mist in the lengthening twilight.
If it took a thousand twisted trunks, I’d learn how to do this. I would.
Chapter Five
Hunter
It was finally time.
I looked around the cabin. It was a nice place, really; Tristan was giving me something that looked suspiciously like a life. I examined the woolen blankets one more time, checked the shutters, opened the damper over the fireplace just in case. I re-checked the stacks of firewood I’d cut, making sure there was enough to last until Sunday night, and then went back through all the cabinets cataloguing the food I bought. And then I stood around like a jackass, staring at the clock when I wasn’t obsessively fucking with my hair or fiddling with my shirt. Unbutton the top button? No. Button it. Untuck the shirt? No. Tuck it—no, untuck it. I had a swarm of butterflies in my stomach that grew bigger with each passing second.
And then it was eight o’clock, and I bent my knees….
I jumped right back into the upstairs room where she brought me back to life. It looked different than it did in my memory; the shadows were longer, the carpet thicker, somehow. But it was clean and plush and matched Baby, in a strange way—there was a red velvet spread on the bed, and the curtains were a dark satin navy. It smelled like jasmine.
“Hi,” she said, and I looked over at a matching velvet chair by the door and saw her sitting there, holding a bag in her lap and blinking up at me in the half-light. And I tried to talk, but…
I just held out my hand. Waited. Prayed for what felt like an hour but couldn’t have been but a second before her palm slid against mine, her body came close. So close. And as I looked down into that angel’s face I felt all the butterflies free themselves, fluttering all the way through my body, so much so that I worried if I spoke the room would fill up with their speckled wings.
So I said nothing, and jumped back.
The fire was perfectly fine.
Chapter Six
Baby
I looked around me and wasn’t surprised at all by what I saw—it was exactly as Tristan described it, and nothing less than I would’ve expected from Hunter. Raw timber shelves on cozy plaster walls, interrupted by big beams that ran along the length of the ceiling, too, showing off the craftsmanship. A woven rug in front of a crackling fire, a shining pine floor, the scent of lemon and smoke in the air. Thick blankets piled neatly on the end of the couch, a tiny kitchen with a black, pot-bellied woodstove and a giant oven, three chairs and a pinewood table; drifting flakes of white snow passing listlessly by the windows. One door, leading away into the darkness, and one facing out to the world, snug and locked up like Fort Knox. Books. The smell of something savory in a big cast-iron pot cooking away. A tidy desk with a laptop, three envelopes, and a notepad. A rifle mounted over each door, a mahogany trunk tucked under a shelf, and a big, imposing man, looking down at me with eyes the color of the sky on the longest night of the year, when the sun finally, finally goes to bed.
I’d forgotten. So quickly, I’d forgotten.
I moved away from Hunter and he dropped his arms immediately and took a step back, giving me space. I could feel his eyes racing over every inch of me as I set my bag on the corner of the couch and tried to keep mine from going back to him. What kinds of expectations did he have? We’d only… I mean, we never…
The last time we were alone, I kissed his bloody face, so grateful for the steady stream of it that trickled from the hole in his lip; a moment before, he’d been dead, and no blood could flow. Because his heart had been still and silent in that massive chest, his body a tomb for all the good he tried to do, all the intentions still locked inside of him. But now… Now he was here. Cleaned up, moving over to the stove with an efficiency that told me he liked his new space, pulling open the lid on that pot and dodging the lamp that hung by his head. So tall—I’d forgotten how big he was. He was so big.
And alive.
“You hungry?” He turned and looked at me, his face blank. “I know it’s late. I had trouble deciding what to make, but I thought a pot roast—”
“You don’t know how to cook,” I said, trying hard to sound teasing, light; it fell a little flat. I tried for a smile, then, and felt it wither when he put the lid back on the pot, his face still completely blank.
“Sure I do,” he said softly. “I’ll eat while we watch something. That okay?” He moved past me, back towards the laptop, and snapped it open as he carried it over to the little coffee table in front of the couch.
What was the last thing we talked about? I couldn’t remember—and I don’t mean the stupid argument in front of my sisters. I don’t mean the text messages I gave up trying to make sound witty
and fun. It was when he opened his eyes—he said ‘holy shit’ and I was so relieved, I laughed and laughed—and then poor Raven passed out, Tristan told me to go help her, the Binding we did would be harder on her than it was on us…
“Baby?” Hunter was watching me again, his eyes quiet and careful, like he was trying not to startle me.
“Sounds good,” I said, and then swallowed. “And I’ll take a plate—it smells good, too.” Better not to try and be funny. I didn’t feel very funny.
And I’d forgotten how insightful he was. I could never fool him. Never. Not from the first moment he’d laid eyes on me.
But Hunter said nothing about it—he didn’t mention my hair color, he gave me a quick smile when I said thank you as he handed me the plate, and when he settled next to me on the couch there was a careful distance between us, in spite of his size. The food was delicious. I could only eat a couple mouthfuls before I had to put it down, though; I was nervous, and that grinding feeling in my insides never seemed to go away. He took the plate back to the kitchen with his own once he was done without comment, and I curled into the couch and tried to pay attention to the laptop screen. I couldn’t even remember what I picked to watch. When he sat down next to me again, I realized how dark it was, and wrapped my arms around myself.
“Are you cold?” It was so strange, how gentle that voice was. It shouldn’t be. It should rattle with death and mayhem and blood, it should be full of hatred and vengeance and rage, it should match my insides—he should. Because he died; because someone turned him into a monster, and a killer, and then he died.
But he didn’t sound like any of that. He sounded steady, and kind. Like he had since… Since…
“Baby?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and was horrified to hear the tremor in my voice; he was going to ask. He was going to notice I was ruined. That my hair was wrong, my voice was wrong—everything was wrong—
