by Lily Velez
“That’s the beauty of family,” I said. “When people make sacrifices like that, it’s not with the expectation of being paid back one day. They just do it out of love. Everything your uncle’s ever done for you and everything he does now is because he loves you and your brothers. I understood that the moment I first met him back in Crowmarsh, when he wanted nothing more than to protect you.”
We eventually found our way to a fountain. At its center was a stone angel standing atop a cluster of large rocks, holding a plate atop its head. From the plate, water sprung, falling in a gentle shower all around the angel.
“What about your family?” Jack asked softly. “Was it only you and your mother in Colorado?”
At the mention of my mom, my heart quaked. I wondered if there would ever be a day when the memory of her wouldn’t hurt so much. “She was an only child, but her parents lived in Colorado same as us. Less than two hours away, in fact. Unfortunately, they were extremely conservative, so when my mom returned from Ireland pregnant and unmarried, they were scandalized. So much so that they refused to continue paying for her tuition and kicked her out of the house.
“She had no choice but to drop out of college and work full-time to support the both of us. But she did what she had to do, sometimes working as many as three jobs at a time to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. Up until I was five years old, she went by her parents’ house a few times a year in an effort to reconcile with them. She wanted them to know their granddaughter. But I guess they had no interest in that. They never answered the door, as if we were complete strangers to them.”
“Scarlet, I’m so sorry,” Jack said, angling his body toward me.
I shrugged, playing with a loose thread of my cardigan. “In the end, the joke’s on them. I guess they wanted to punish my mom for making such a big ‘mistake,’ but she rose above it all. Once I started school, she returned to college. She went on to graduate from law school and became an attorney for nonprofits. There wasn’t a lot of money in it, but she loved advocating on behalf of disadvantaged people who had the odds stacked against them and helping them to overcome their obstacles. It was her way of giving back. She believed that was the ultimate religion, to just love people. To defend those who couldn’t defend themselves and help the less fortunate.
“Of course, in a rare show of compassion, my grandparents ended up coming to my mom’s funeral, but I could tell they were relieved to learn I’d be going to live with my dad, thus relieving them of any responsibilities toward me. Not that I would’ve wanted anything to do with them anyway. My mom had spent so many years trying to reconcile with them when she was alive, but it was only when she was gone that they…” My throat unexpectedly pinched, a wave of emotion coming over me.
“Hey,” Jack said, gently taking my arm and slowly turning me more fully toward him. I hadn’t realized how close we were standing, the small sliver of space between us sweltering as our eyes met across the short distance. The thump of my heart was like the increasing beat of a bass drum. The place where his fingers closed around the sleeve of my cardigan burned like a brand. I thought I might drown in that spellbinding gaze of his. I simply couldn’t look away. And as I looked at my miniature self reflected back to me in each iris, I realized Jack’s despair matched my own, and yet even in the midst of what he’d lost, he cared about my loss as well. Truly, genuinely cared.
Before I knew what I was doing, I took the small step that bridged the gap separating us and slipped my arms around his neck, burying my face into the warm place where his shoulder met his neck. His strong arms instantly closed around me, holding me in place in a protective way that made a heat wave rush through me from head to toe. The hard planes of his body made me think of the marble statues Michelangelo had once carved, and I leaned against him further, as if doing so would take all my worries away.
I didn’t cry as the wave of grief ran its course. I closed my eyes before the tears could slip down my face, but my heart was sore, bruised. God, how I missed her. It was in unpredictable moments like this when the loss felt so deep, in conversations when I had to speak of her in the past tense, when I reflected on the lives she’d changed in her work and how that work had been so cruelly cut short, when I thought of all the things she’d never gotten to do, all the places she’d never gotten to see.
I breathed in Jack’s foresty scent, letting it clear my mind and soothe the heartache. It felt nice to be held, to be comforted, to connect with someone. After my loss, I’d distanced myself from almost everyone in my life save for Natalie and her family, putting walls around my heart to guard against the pain. And hadn’t I done the same thing upon arriving in Ireland, insisting I wouldn’t get attached to anyone, that I’d leave at the first opportunity? I’d thought I was doing myself a favor, but standing here with Jack, who so tenderly stroked my back, who knew my pain all too well and wasn’t afraid to brave it with me, was more a balm to my soul than anything else had ever been.
I finally opened my eyes—and then my breath caught in my throat.
Pulling back from Jack, I stared in shock at the vibrant scenery surrounding us. I knew these maples well, recognized the large growths of spike moss draped over their ancient branches. I’d seen these fallen trees before, knew the fog that crept toward us like an aimless spirit.
“This is the Hall of Mosses Trail,” I whispered. I’d hiked it when visiting the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. “But how…?” I turned to Jack, realization dawning on me. “You’re doing this. It’s the same thing you did when you brought your mom to the aviary. Are we really here?”
“No, it’s only an illusion unfortunately.”
I strayed to a Sitka spruce, pressed my hand against its thin, scaly bark. “But it feels so real.”
“It’s fashioned from your own memories,” Jack said. “As we were standing here, you inadvertently pushed a memory to me. Several actually. I thought this one might bring you comfort. It seemed to be one of the more cherished ones.”
I didn’t know how I’d telegraphed a memory to him, but I was glad for it all the same. “My mom and I hiked this trail for my sixteenth birthday,” I said. I swallowed thickly but smiled, savoring the atmosphere, illusion or not.
I looked back to him, touched. These past days, I hadn’t been able to get Zoe’s words out of my mind, the ones about Jack practicing dark magic. I didn’t believe what the other clans did, of course. Jack himself had told me his brothers believed his growing power was merely the result of the nearing Old Moon. How anyone could believe Jack would willingly give himself over to the darkness was beyond me. He was gentle, kind. The depth of the love he possessed for his family wasn’t something you came by often, nor was the way he cared for his friends. Myself included, I thought, the realization sending a warm flutter through me. It upset me that anyone could see Jack as anything but good.
“This is incredible. You have no idea how much it means to me.” I craned my neck back, admiring the height of the Sitka spruce, which sprouted hundreds of feet into the air. From somewhere far off, an owl hooted into the dark. “I can’t even begin to imagine what other miracles you’re able to work.”
He smiled gently. After a moment, he closed the distance between us and extended his hand to me. “Would you like to find out?”
30
The moment I took his hand, there was a rush of wind all around us. The ground underneath our feet transformed from the soft earth of the Hoh Rain Forest to the hard, unrelenting cement of…the top of a building! I stumbled back in shock, but Jack gripped my arms, holding me steady.
I stared in wonder at the gorgeous city skyline before me. From here, I could see the numerous bridges that crossed over Dublin’s River Liffey, the inky water aglow with orbs of yellow as it reflected lampposts and building lights on its shimmering surface. Double-decker tour buses and taxis zipped up and down the avenues flanking the river, the symphony of honking mingling with the general din of pedestrians, restaurant patrons,
and the stirring live music that made my heart dance.
This was the city where my parents had met, where they’d fallen in love. If I looked hard enough, I could almost make out the gothic towers of Trinity College in the distance. ‘Trinners.’ My mom had said that’s what the students and locals called it. What pubs had she and my dad haunted when they were first courting? What cobblestone streets had they walked hand-in-hand, and which shops had they slipped into, giggling like couples do, their eyes only for each other? It occurred to me, standing there on top of that building, that I was under the same stars that had watched my parents’ love story unfold over seventeen years ago. I gazed up at them now, feeling connected to the past like never before.
When I returned my attention to Jack, there must’ve been something in my eyes that said, ‘show me more,’ because he smiled again and looked heavenward. Almost immediately, there was the first pitter-patter of raindrops, and then all at once, a torrential downpour assaulted the city. Below, umbrellas popped open one by one like swiftly blooming flowers while those unprepared for the rain raced inside stores or took shelter under awnings.
Within seconds, I was soaking wet, but I didn’t care, could barely sense the cold. Jack’s magic energized me, and I laughed, tilting my head back and raising my arms to embrace the rain. “This is amazing,” I called out to him over the roar of the storm.
He raised his hand in a gesture like ‘stop,’ and suddenly the air was filled with thousands upon thousands of glimmering crystals frozen in midair. No, not crystals, I realized with astonishment. The raindrops! They were suspended mid-descent, hanging all around us like glass ornaments. I touched one, and it gently floated away, wobbling but maintaining its form.
And that’s when I noticed how silent the city had become. I dared another look below and my heart shot up my throat. Everything was frozen. The traffic had come to a complete standstill, a throng of pedestrians paused halfway down a crosswalk. On the outdoor terraces of restaurants, diners sat with spoonfuls of food halfway to their mouths, and a street performer two blocks down was motionless in the middle of spinning atop his head. The resulting silence was eerie, as if we existed inside a vacuum, the only two people in the world.
“Does the magic only exclude who you choose?” I asked.
“I’ve never been able to keep more than one other person in the present with me, and I can only sustain magic of this magnitude for seconds at best. It’s also usually a few days before I can summon it again.”
“Is that normal?”
“With newly emerged Masteries, yes. It takes time to command the magic expertly. Sometimes years.”
With a flick of his fingers, the world below us was unfrozen, and people resumed their activities without the slightest clue that something had momentarily interrupted their evening. The rain continued falling as well, but Jack eventually had it ease, perhaps not wishing to ruin anyone’s night.
“Shall we?” He offered his hand again, and I took it. As before, blasts of wind blew up against us from all sides, and then we were back in Iveagh Gardens. I would’ve expected to be nauseous, but it was a lot like stepping out of one room and into another.
So among his many abilities, Jack was a Wayfarer just as Lucas was. He could create incredible illusions, he could stop time… And I knew that was only scratching the surface. There was a wealth of power inside of him. There had to be for entire clans to fear him.
In the shadows of the gardens, I shivered, but it wasn’t out of fear. I was still dripping wet from Jack’s impromptu rainstorm. I twisted my hair over my shoulder and strained water out of the locks. There wasn’t much I could do about my clothes, though.
“Here,” Jack said, stepping closer to me as he bracketed his hands onto my arms. What happened next was a lot like a sun rising inside me. Heat developed deep in my core and then surged through every muscle, bone, and ligament. It was as if I’d been sitting in front of a fireplace for hours, and when Jack finally pulled his hands away, I was surprised to find my clothes and hair were completely dry.
“With all the rainstorms we’ve been through, you’re only now pulling out that party trick?” I teased, flashing him a smile. After what he’d just shown me, the night felt enchanted, and I was more than a little enraptured. Jack had told me about kickbacks, but I wondered if there was such a thing as being high off magic as well.
An easy smile touched his lips, and he pocketed his hands. “Something tells me you would’ve run away screaming had I done that back when we’d found you on the side of the road.”
“Probably true.”
“Only after you’d assaulted me with that rock, of course.” There was a playful glint in his eyes that left me momentarily breathless. I had only ever seen Jack as the serious eldest brother among the Connellys. Witnessing another side of him, a lighter, relaxed side, only added to the magic of the night.
I nudged him with my shoulder as I strayed to the fountain. “I really need to learn some magic of my own,” I said.
“I still intend on helping you with that. You said what happened at the rugby game was the first time you’d done anything like that, right? Have you exuded any magic since, even if only on a small scale?”
I shook my head. “No, that was the only—actually, wait. I’m not sure if it counts, but when I was in your mom’s mind, I was able to conjure magic against the Wraiths. It was a lot like what I’d done before.” I briefly described the scenario, mentioning the blast of white light and the heat that had emanated from my palm as well.
Jack listened, nodding along, his brow furrowed. “It could very well be your Mastery finally emerging, though I don’t know what such a Mastery would be called. As I mentioned before, I’ve never known a witch who could banish demons with the mere flick of a hand. Those of us with stronger magic can cause them to briefly dematerialize, but even then, the magic’s only effective against lower, weaker demons. Creatures like the Wraiths and others would typically be immune.”
I looked back to the fountain. There was a quickening in my chest, a budding excitement. “If it is my Mastery, and it’s beginning to surface, does that mean I’ll be able to call upon the four Quarters now?”
Jack’s eyes went distant for a few heartbeats, the way they did when he was mulling over something in his mind. “Typically, that comes long before the Mastery. It’s strange that those abilities haven’t emerged yet. But let’s try something.” He knelt before the fountain. He gestured for me to do the same, so I lowered myself one knee at a time, the gravel digging sharply into the knees of my jeans.
“Dip your hand into the water.” He waited for me to do so before proceeding. “Now concentrate on feeling the water. Really feeling it.”
My hand had made contact with water every day for the past seventeen years, so it wasn’t exactly a novelty. Nonetheless, I closed my eyes and tried to experience the water in a new way. I focused on the coolness of the liquid, the way it sleeved my hand up to my wrist like a delicate glove. I wriggled my fingers, noting the rhythm of the water, the way it gave way to my movements.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Water is one of the four Quarters. As a witch, it’s a power you have the privilege of calling upon. That doesn’t mean you’re the master over it, though. Druids venerated nature and lived in balance with it. When you summon the Quarters, you do so with respect, acknowledging the divinity in them just as they acknowledge the divinity in you. A good way to maintain that humility is to thank the Quarter you mean to summon before you begin working with it.”
I remembered what Lucas had told me about young witches spending time in nature to begin that holy communion that would eventually rouse their magic. With his words in mind, I’d tried to connect with one of The Wise Ones without much success. Maybe this time would be different. Thank you, I mentally said to the water in a reverent hush. Thank you for all you do, for all you provide. To ensure I wasn’t merely paying the water lip service, I purposed to feel the words in my heart, all
owing them to glow in my chest like stars.
“Now imagine yourself reaching out to the water with threads of magic. Then picture a single drop separating from the rest. See it break the surface and rise into the air.”
A single drop didn’t seem so difficult. I knit my brow and pictured the fountain clearly in my mind, recreating every detail from the textured feathers of the angel’s wings to the number of rocks it stood upon. I honed in on the pool of water itself, initially seeing it as one unified body. A perfect, peaceful unit. I magnified my focus, thinking about all the miniscule drops that made up the pool, and then I selected just one, capturing it in my field of vision and then reaching out to it with those threads of magic. I saw them as wisps of gentle mist as they gathered around the drop, holding onto it. The drop tried to slip from my grip, but I kept grabbing for it, furrowing my brow harder. It was a fine line juggling respect for the water at the same time that I firmly directed it to do this one thing for me. I willed the drop to detach from the others, practically wrenching it free, and then I pictured it ascending up, up, up—
“Scarlet, stop.”
A trickle of warmth slipped from my nose, and a moment later, a coppery taste reached my lips. I rushed to wipe the blood away with the back of my hand, my cheeks flushing. “What happened?” I asked, unable to keep the panic out of my voice. I gripped the ledge of the fountain’s wall, a slight wave of dizziness hitting me.
“You overexerted yourself. Don’t worry. It’s normal when you’re first coming into your magic. Let yourself rest for a few moments.”
“Overexerted myself? I barely did anything.”
“You were focusing for over fifteen minutes.”
“Over fifteen minutes?” How was that even possible? It’d felt more like fifteen seconds. I sat back on my heels and sank against the fountain wall slightly until the lightheadedness passed. “I didn’t think it’d be that hard.”
