Abandon: Book Three of the Forgotten Affinities Series

by Analeigh Ford

  Acacia sees me looking and hastily says, “They’re for luck. Didn’t work but…it was worth a shot.”

  “This place is empty,” Cedric says as he draws up beside us.

  Horatio leans in, trying to keep his voice low so Michael doesn’t overhear. “Some of the recruits got sent away.”

  Kendall squints in confusion. “Why?”

  “They weren’t strong enough.” I cringe a little at Michaels voice. I guess he was close enough to overhear after all.

  “And here you are,” I say, giving up and moving to the side a little to let him stand beside me, “Too strong for your own good.”

  The potion has fully taken effect now, and it may or may not be bolstering my confidence as well as my magic, because I immediately reach into the bottom of my pocket and draw out the watch on its long, gold chain.

  I haven’t shown it to anyone else yet, not even my boyfriends. I guess I’ve been so distracted by everything else, or maybe I just wanted to keep it to myself for a little while before it became the subject of intense scrutiny. Either way I am still a little reluctant to set it out on the table for everyone else to examine.

  I understand now why Bram always keeps his cane so close.

  Acacia is the first to lean over and touch it. I almost expect her to get spelled or shocked or just, something, but nothing happens. She picks it up and turns it over in her hand to get a good look at the inscriptions carved into the sides.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she says.

  She passes it to Horatio next to her, who just scratches at the silver inlay to see if it comes off, and when it doesn’t, he in turn passes it to Draven.

  But the moment it touches the skin of his palm, Cedric snatches it away. Of all of us, it appears the most natural in his hands.

  He looks at it longer than the rest. “I’ve heard about things like this,” he says. “My father almost had one, years ago.”

  “So…” I begin, trying to avoid sounding like an over-eager schoolgirl who just got a gift for Christmas, “I mean, it’s actually more than just a broken pocket watch?”

  “It isn’t broken at all,” Cedric says. He turns it over in his hand once more. The tips of his fingers glide over the edges with a practiced touch. They find a little rotating dial on the side, and with a careful touch, he tries to turn it. But it doesn’t budge.

  He shakes his head, but a smile has appeared at the corner of his mouth.

  “What is it?” I say, giving up and letting myself sound as eager as I want.

  “It’s just…” He shakes his head again, “I didn’t think any more of these existed.”

  The rather substantial group of us leans in to look at it a little closer this time. The only one who isn’t here is Flynn. He’ll be disappointed to learn we didn’t wait for him, but it’s his own fault for sleeping in so late.

  When no one volunteers any more information, Cedric continues, pointing out the symbols carved around the edge.

  “This watch was made around the same time as the affinity artifacts,” he says. “I recognize the runes. They were popular for a while, back when magic just began to get organized.”

  Something that old is bound to be valuable. Bram must really, really need me to stop time for him if he’d risk giving me this. Imagine that, me, stopping time. There are so many times that would have come in handy.

  “So? What does it do?”

  Cedric chuckles. “My guess is as good as yours.” He passes the watch to me with a new appreciation. “Artifacts like that often are made to function in very specific, very particular ways—and only for very specific mages.”

  I nod. “Like the ritual artifacts.”

  The ones that I just stole.

  “Can I try?”

  Michael presses between me and Kendall and almost has to stand on his tiptoes to see the watch in my hand. I’m reluctant to let him touch it, but he snatches it away so fast I don’t really have a choice.

  The watch looks even bigger in his small hands.

  He does not touch it gingerly like Cedric did, but rather, he grasps it tightly with one hand, and with the other, he tries to force the tiny knob to turn again. I reach out to snatch it out of his hand, but not before, at the very last second, it budges just a bit.

  I swear that for a second, I saw the hands move.

  I still grab it back before he can do anything worse.

  “How did you do that?”

  He shrugs. “Probably just tried harder.”

  I take a moment to sum him up once more. Although he tries to hide it, I see that his hands a shaking a bit now. His skin has gone a little pale and beads of sweat have broken out across his downy upper lip.

  “Were you using magic?”

  He grins. “Wouldn’t you?”

  He’s got a point. I hold the watch up close to my face, so I can get a better look at the part that turns. I grasp the knob in one hand.

  “There’s no use,” Michael says, this time, his voice coming out a little strained.

  Kendall sees the concern on my face at the same time that Cedric sees the same symptoms I do. He grabs Michael by the shoulder and steers him away from the table and directly up under a light.

  “Let go!” Michael tries to squirm free of his grasp. Kendall doesn’t hold on to him, but Cedric and Draven are quick to step up and fill the gap to either side.

  “Woah, careful there,” Draven says, putting a hand to the back of Michael’s now sweaty forehead. “You’re really overdoing it. What did you do, channel all your power into trying to turn it?”

  “No,” Michael whines, and then sheepishly adds, “Maybe. Most of it.”

  “Well it’s a good thing not just anyone can open it,” I say.

  The young boy shakes his head. “No one can open that. It’s too powerful.”

  “Yes well...you do only have the power of one mage. Albeit a very powerful one, for your age.” I add the last part in because I can see he is about to protest.

  “So do you!” he says, clearly frustrated.

  It is my turn to shake my head.

  “No,” I say, my gaze falling back to the watch in my hand. “I have the power of three.”

  I call my power forward and turn the knob.

  18

  Octavia

  Touch and feeling for Earth. Concentration for Psychic. The potion still pounding in my veins for Ritual. Where before, ever since the night of Homecoming, I have been unable to call forth my Time Magic, today it works.

  The knob is so small between my fingers that I can barely feel it—but I know the moment it turns and catches. For a second, there is only a quiver—the faintest movement that, if I stare too long, I can’t see at all. But then I push a little harder. I feel a surge inside me as my boys turn to watch, their power running into me as well.

  Then I begin feel a slight vibration as the gears inside begin turning, and with it, so do the hands of the clock. They spin quickly at first, the little moons shifting and phasing through time until they match up with where we now lie. Tiny dots of light appear inside, suspended within the crystal in tiny, glowing constellations.

  I am sure that if I were in the real world and looked up into the night sky, the same stars that I see reflected here in the glass would be overhead.

  From somewhere infinitely deep inside the watch, begins the faintest ticking sound.

  It was beautiful before, but now it is breathtaking.

  I run one finger across the edge, feeling the rune-marked edges. I don’t dare push any of them yet. The watch doesn’t exactly come with an instruction manual for its use, so there is no telling what would happen if I pressed one of them.

  But Michael has no such qualms.

  The young mage reaches out, and in a frantic bid to stop him, I accidentally press one of the buttons on the side myself.

  I freeze, waiting for something terrible to inevitably begin. I feel a draw at my powers…but the world does not fall apart around me. N
o one screams. No one faints. Pain does not tear out the magic from within me.

  In fact, no one does anything at all.

  All the world is suddenly silent.

  The distant drone of students muttering ritual incantations, the scrape of feet on the cement floor, even the muted hum of breath—that is the first thing that I realize is missing. No air moves to press against my cheeks. I open my mouth to breathe, and though air rushes into my lungs, when I exhale something seems not quite right—like the moment that same breath leaves my body it hangs suspended before me, waiting.

  Michael’s hand still touches the watch’s dial in my hand, but his fingers do not so much as twitch. When I lower my hand, and the watch with it, his hand remains firmly in place—just hovering there. My eyes flit over to his face.

  It is blank. No registered shock or surprise. Sweat is still smeared across his pale skin, catching like little dewdrops in the light. Standing here like this, unmoving, he looks even younger than before.

  But that is not what makes panic rise up in me.

  It is, instead, the look on Draven, Cedric, and Kendall’s faces when my gaze falls on them. It is the stillness of their chests. Where there should be breath, heartbeats, the subtle movements of life—there are none.

  No one moves except for me.

  I never meant to learn Bram’s spell so quickly. Not knowing it bought us time, at least. Now I don’t have to worry about failure, I just have to think about the consequences of succeeding.

  I press the dial as quickly as I can with the sudden, violent, shaking in my hands.

  No one else seems to be even faintly aware of what just happened.

  “Well,” Cedric says, brushing Michael back behind me and out of reach from the watch. “I guess it will take some time to learn how to use it.”

  Acacia and Horatio have moved Michael back over to the side. Acacia is looking at him under the lights again. From the muted sounds of their conversation, they sound like they’ve taken on the role of surrogate parents chiding him for touching the watch without my permission.

  In the meantime, it takes me a second to gather myself. Even then, I have to clear my throat before I can speak. “You mean…you didn’t feel any of that?”

  “I feel a little drained, actually, but that’s all,” Draven says, tilting his head to the side with an audible cracking sound.

  “Actually,” Cedric says, his eyebrows knitting closer together, “So do I.”

  Kendall’s eyes remain fixed on me. “You did it,” he says, his voice low and quiet. Quiet enough that Michael and the others do not overhear.

  I glance at him, knowing the look on my face reveals the truth.

  “What was it?” he asks, his voice breathless with excitement, but still low as to avoid alerting the others. We don’t want anyone knowing too much about the new development, not yet, maybe not ever. We’re still in The Underground, and lest I forget it, I don’t plan on us staying here forever.

  Though how we plan on getting out…that is still a topic for another day.

  “It stopped,” I say, “All of it. Time, I mean.”

  “For how long?” Cedric asks next. I can see the gears turning inside that head of his. If Flynn was here, he would already be working out how we can use this to our advantage. Maybe I should be more like Flynn.

  I think back to my momentary panic.

  “It couldn’t have been more than a couple seconds.”

  Draven tugs at my arm, and I allow him to pull me the rest of the way out into the hall. Our voices echo here, but at least I don’t think the others inside can hear us.

  “You can’t tell Bram.”

  I take a step back, and Kendall reaches out an arm to gently press against the lower part of my back. “But I have to…you do realize that, right?”

  Draven shakes his head again, and glances back into the training room behind us. “Just…not yet. So long as Bram thinks you’re still practicing, it will buy us time.”

  “Time for what?” Flynn’s voice carries down the hall towards us, reminding me of just how impossible it is to carry secret conversations in these echoing halls without them being overheard.

  I’m about to suggest we find quite literally anywhere else to discuss it when I actually catch sight of Flynn.

  Even in the dim light of the hallway, something is immediately off. His skin has taken on a pale, waxy pallor and his hair, usually so neat, is plastered down to his forehead. Like Michael earlier, sweat glistens on his skin.

  But it is not from his own spell, but the same one that’s left massive patches of an angry red rash blooming across his skin.

  “God man, that spell’s really done a number on you,” Draven says. He saunters towards Flynn before producing the second potion twirled between his fingers.

  I step up before he can plunge the syringe into Flynn’s arm. I’ve caught sight of something else.

  I drag Flynn by one hand back into the brighter light of the training room. His feet scuff along the floor, heavy with exhaustion, and he groans when I make him lean against a table so I can peek up under the sleeve of his shirt.

  I freeze, and then reach around him and tug his shirt the rest of the way off, exposing the flesh beneath.

  It is not just a red, angry rash.

  It is dark lines and tendrils spreading outward from the middle of his chest like an explosion of ink beneath the surface of his skin. The sight of it makes the mages around us go quiet. Even Michael, who dashes over as soon as we reappear, just catches his breath and stares.

  This is not the effect of the protection spell.

  From the look of it, whatever ails Flynn is far deadlier.

  19

  Octavia

  The moment the nurse sees Flynn’s mark, her face shifts from surprise to horror, and then, to something so impassive that it is easily the most terrifying of the three.

  She touches him gently on the side and hurries him over to the only bed in the room. I guess we’re just lucky no one else was here, needing her help. This office could be considered rudimentary at best.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Her answer is not reassuring. “I don’t know.”

  She instructs Flynn to lie down on the bed with the marked side exposed. I notice right away that though she quickly pulls on a pair of latex gloves, she still does not touch him. Her fingers trace the air above his skin, following the lines of the spreading darkness in the middle of his chest.

  The sight of it makes my skin burn for a moment, a phantom reminder of the spell that only recently lingered on my skin as well.

  “I don’t think it’s contagious,” I say, after the nurse tells him to turn onto his stomach so she can check the other side too. “We were exposed to a powerful protection spell.”

  Her movements become more methodical at the news, less frantic. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not yet. Frantic means there is hope, methodical could mean something…else.

  “Are you exhibiting any of the same symptoms?” She asks me, though her eyes are on a syringe of something she’s pulled out of a drawer in the desk. I recognize it as the one Draven gave me earlier.

  I tell her about the burning sensation and Draven’s potion, “But it’s gone now…and I definitely don’t have that,” I say, pointing at the black mess that still appears to be spreading further under Flynn’s skin, even as we speak.

  “When did it set in?”

  “I noticed it this morning,” Flynn says. “But I figured it was just a bruise.”

  It’s my turn to be incredulous. “Just a bruise? From what?”

  The nurse nudges me out of the way slightly to take a closer look at him. “Are you sure you were exposed to the same spell?”

  I nod, but suddenly Flynn tries to sit up. The nurse just shoves him back down.

  “It must be the Psychic magic,” he says. “It’s my paired mage.”

  It takes me a second to understand. “His magic is backfiring,” I say, quickly. �
��His other paired mage is using it against him. Maybe that’s why the protection spell is suddenly affecting him so badly?”

  “Marks like these are not made by protection spells,” she says. “This is bad magic. Aggressive magic.”

  “The kind of magic that happens when your paired mage wishes you were dead?” Cedric asks.

  “If that is the case,” the nurse says, carefully, “Then so long as Flynn is connected to the cause of it, he can’t recover.”

  I look down at Flynn, and he looks back at me coolly.

  “I know what we have to do,” he says. Somehow, he produces I book I hadn’t noticed before from one of his pockets. He, like Cedric, must have enchanted them. He doesn’t have to open it to show me what dog-eared page is marked inside.

  I shake my head slowly. I think I know what he is going to suggest. “No.”

  But he keeps nodding. “It’s the only way. We tried everything else…it would be stupid to wait and see what happens if this spreads further.”

  “When,” the nurse reminds us, “Not if.”

  “We have to break the bond between me and Jessica,” Flynn says.

  “But won’t that—”

  “Take away my Psychic Magic? Probably.”

  I glance up at my other three paired. We’ve spent so long trying to make it so I can keep my powers, it seems wrong to make Flynn give up one of his now.

  I look to the nurse, hoping she might have a better answer. But when she doesn’t, I have to lean in closer to Flynn. I rest a hesitant hand on the dark mark on his skin. When he doesn’t flinch away in pain, I run my hand across the lines.

  “Are you sure?”

  He nods. “I think we’ve both known this was coming for a while now. I’m ready.”

  “You must be careful,” The nurse straightens up. “The unbonding ceremony is complicated and dangerous.”

  My head whips to face her. “What do you mean? Flynn has the powers of two mages. He should be fine. He just—”

  “It doesn’t have to do with the mage’s strength,” she says. “It’s the strength of the caster. The bond is engrained in the mage. It’s dangerous to break it.”