by K. F. Breene
Our timing wasn’t great.
“The garage would’ve been fine. I know a dual-mage pair with half the power of Dizzy and me, and they did it in their living room without a problem.” Callie hurried to my side, pulling the hood of a black raincoat over her head. Her bright yellow velvet sweat-suit pants peeked out the bottom. “You’ll catch pneumonia out here.”
“It’ll be okay.” I pulled up the hood of my own raincoat, squinting up at the dark sky. Drops shimmered in the battery-powered lamp I held, sparkling as they fell. “A moon would’ve been helpful.”
“Did you tell her, hon?” Dizzy called out as we neared the new cauldron site. A party tent sprawled across the top, held up on metal poles and draping down a little on the sides. If the wind kicked up any more, raindrops would be blown in through the sides, drenching our bottom halves.
Emery waited by the cauldron, still toting the orange juice jug, though he’d taken his raincoat off. Despite his long-sleeved shirt, he didn’t seem to feel the chill. He was probably too busy wondering how he got himself into this mess—or how he could best get himself out of it.
“Sorry,” I said as I ducked under the tent and took my place at his side. “It’s just—”
“Because you really could just stay indoors,” Dizzy said as Callie trudged into the tent after me. “That’s what Callie and I did. And look, it worked.”
“I’m not about to start questioning you now,” Emery whispered, and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Penelope Bristol, dancing in the rain is one thing, but you’ve dragged us all out here for something the Bankses say isn’t necessary.” My mother stalked up with her shotgun. She was ready for a battle.
“Mother, Darius’s people will take care of guard duty,” I said. “You can stay in the house.”
“I most certainly will not. With my daughter standing out here in the rain, unprotected from anyone wandering in? No. Someone needs to oversee security.” She stalked off into the trees.
“Let her help in her own way,” Emery said quietly, touching my arm.
“Well…we’d better put up a ward, hon.” Dizzy sighed. “Kids these days just have to be different. We were the same, I suppose, we just did it with circles and demons.”
I’d opened my mouth to say a ward wasn’t needed, but his words made me change gears. “Huh?”
“Go, Callie, Dizzy.” Reagan stalked through two bushes without rain gear, Darius following close behind. “I’ll watch them. Go join Ms. Bristol.”
“Actually, if you all could clear away.” I waved my hand in an arc. “We’ll set up a concealment spell. We’ll be fine out here.”
“Also a good plan.” Reagan stopped with her hands on her hips. “Right. I’ll just meander, then, will I? Unless you guys are cool with me coming in to watch?”
I shook my head, feeling the wrongness of that suggestion. Usually it wouldn’t matter, but for this…
“Let’s go,” Darius said. “We should do a perimeter check anyway.”
When they were all gone, some of them grumbling as they went, Emery unscrewed the cap of the orange juice. “Are you okay reading out the spell? I didn’t really think about it earlier.”
“It’s probably better,” I replied. “Last time a spell was read, I just took over. I’d hate for that to happen again.”
“And you also turned everyone into zombies. I’d hate for that to happen again, too.”
“I don’t know why you think that’s so funny. It was a really terrible thing.”
“I’ll bet. Zombies are gross.”
Laughter bubbled up through me, easing a little tension. “Okay. Be serious. Time to focus.”
“We are.” He pointed around the cauldron at the swirling wisps and threads of magic—a natural occurrence whenever Emery and I shared space. Electricity rolled over my skin and infused my core. He stepped nearer and his voice softened. “We don’t need to practice at focusing, Turdswallop. We just need to keep our hands off each other. The rest comes naturally.”
I smiled and bumped my shoulder against his. “Okay. Here we go.”
Just as before, the words jumped off the page, colorful and vibrant. This time, though, a real wind kicked up, fluttering the tent. Rain fell heavier, pattering on the overhead tarp. Nature moved and swayed around us, heard through the rustling of the leaves and creak of the branches. A soft song drifted on the wind, curling and turning, playing with my senses and lending a buoyancy to the spell.
“This is new,” I said under my breath, the fates thumping around us, trying to sweep us up and take us away. “And that is new. Maybe I just shouldn’t do potions.”
“You’ll be fine, love. You’re a natural. It’s in your blood.”
“Tell that to the zombies.”
“I can’t. Reagan killed them all. But rest assured, if you turn me into something heinous, I’m sure she’ll help you kill me, too.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
I tried to wipe away my smile, but I couldn’t. His mood was infectious, and the moment just felt so right.
“Hold on to your butt.” I took a deep breath and read the first line, emphasizing the word pour, since it was glittering and waving around on the page, and feeling a deep thrum when the directions told me to choose who would stir first. I held out the spoon for Emery.
He set down the empty container of orange juice and took the spoon without a word, about to put it in the liquid. But something felt off, like a thread drifting into the breeze, unraveling the fabric of the spell as it did so. Before I could say anything, he’d stopped and stilled, closing his eyes.
“I’m on autopilot a little bit,” he said, and took a deep breath. “When I did this with my brother, I don’t think either of us was really concentrating. It’s such an easy spell that a natural can do it in his sleep. We certainly didn’t check in with the environment around us. That’s not something mages are ever taught or told to do. But…” He put out one of his hands and his fingers wiggled through the air. Magic rose around him and flirted with his moving digits. “I can feel the difference. When you say the words, I can feel the expectation of the spell. I can feel your utter conviction. It’s another lesson, one among many. It’s why I’m learning right alongside you, Penny. Even the most basic spells can have a profound effect.”
He put the spoon into the liquid, and this time the magic didn’t drift away. It rose, swirling in the air as he moved the spoon. After two times around, he pulled the spoon up just how I said, stepped back, and held it out to me.
I took it without a word, but didn’t immediately cross to the cauldron. Instead, I took my time and leaned my back against his front, relishing in the energy around us and the electricity zinging through me.
“I love you,” he said as his arms came around my middle.
“I love you.” I bent my head back so I could get a languid kiss before stepping up to the cauldron.
This time he read off the instructions, and I felt the magic tug at my middle as I moved the spoon.
“Did you feel the—”
“Tug,” he finished. “It happened so early this time. Who knows if it will matter.”
“It’ll matter.”
He continued to read, and I added the next ingredient. After that, we switched turns reading and adding ingredients, sometimes after one of us used the spoon, and sometimes in the middle of a line. We didn’t discuss it, and we never faltered. Completely immersed in our magical bubble, we worked off each other as we’d learned to do. Working this spell felt like working all the others, second nature.
Natural.
Three-quarters of the way down, the tug on my middle was so extreme that I had a hard time breathing. I gripped Emery’s forearm with one hand and the spoon with the other. The cauldron bubbled, though there was no heat. Magic spun and twisted from within, pouring over the cast iron lip and spewing onto the ground.
Emery connected gazes with me, but he didn
’t ask if we should keep going. He took the spoon and stepped up, waiting until I took his place and called out the next line of instructions.
A hard yank on my ribs preceded heat seeping out and down through my stomach. A new feeling washed over me: closeness. Intense intimacy. Support.
Snippets of the most fear-filled moments in my life played through my head, starting as early as I could remember. In every single one, a new presence was felt.
Emery’s.
He was backfilling all the little holes in my life, adding support and comfort to each terrible memory still rattling around in my head. Even in sixth grade, when stupid Billy Timmons, the bully nemesis of my youth, pointed out to everyone that I was wearing a bra for the first time, Emery was right there beside me, changing my horror and embarrassment to straight-backed courage and purposeful indifference. At my father’s funeral, my mother stood on one side of me and Emery stood on the other, holding my hand and coaxing me through the pain. He was helping me take on all the little beasties of life, going back to the beginning.
Tears came to my eyes as I felt Emery’s arms wrap around me, his body heaving. His pain was like a suffocating blanket, his loss so deep that I was sucked into the well of it. In a moment he stilled, shuddering. His chest rose with a deep breath.
“Don’t tell anyone I cried,” he said with a shaking voice. “It’ll make me seem less manly.”
I laughed through my tears. “You can tell people I did. People already think chicks are weak, so crying is expected.”
He backed off and looked into my eyes. “Let them. That way, it’s easier to blindside them with your strength.”
“Or with a well-timed headbutt.”
Laughter shook him. “Yes. Exactly.” A crease formed between his brows as his smile disappeared. “It wasn’t this intense with my brother. This is… We didn’t have this.”
“That’s probably because you didn’t do the spell right. I bet nobody does the spell right. Saying words isn’t enough. You have to feel it. Put emphasis on the sparkly parts.”
His eyebrows lowered. “The sparkly parts?”
“Turtle turds, that’s not normal, is it?” I blew out a breath. I explained what I saw when I looked at the directions, knowing the spell would wait. The cauldron still bubbled away, no explanation as to why. And it would keep bubbling, I knew, until we tore down the magical bubble we were working in.
“And when you changed those witches into zombies?” he asked, not teasing this time.
“I felt the pull to do the potion, but there weren’t any sparkly or emphasized words. But I didn’t have an Emery and a magical bubble when I was in that church.”
“Hmm.” He turned back to the spell, and we started again, effortlessly working through it with a depth and complexity I doubted most mages knew was possible. The warmth inside me increased, and the tug was back, building until it ended in a stronger yanking sensation.
More magic gushed out, and memories flitted through me again, this time the good ones. Emery’s presence filled in holes there, too, and he shared in all my accomplishments, rooting for me.
Buffeted by his own memories, he found my hips with his hands and leaned against me, his lips grazing my bare neck. I closed my eyes and lost myself in him, knowing we were buffered from the outside world. Wanting to ride the feeling. It felt right. We probably could’ve skipped it and the spell would’ve been fine, but…well…
I turned in a rush of passion, unbuttoning his pants and shoving them down. He didn’t waste any time, crashing his lips onto mine and sliding my jeans down my thighs. His warm skin and bumpy muscles delighted me as I lowered to the ground, knowing he’d get there first. I straddled his hips, nothing in the way, and my eyes fluttered as I sank down onto him.
“I love you,” he murmured against my lips, his fingers twisted in my hair.
I rose and fell with abandon, my desire surging as the cauldron bubbled behind me, echoed in the magic bubbling inside of me. Magic swirled and danced around us, no longer contained within our energy bubble. Not even contained in the concealment spell. It poured out into the world and flitted around, prancing and soaring among the trees like a live creature.
The yanking sensation peaked as I did, and my whole world blasted apart, the universe opening up and swallowing me whole. Pleasure filled every part of my body and I vibrated in ecstasy. Emery shuddered under me, crushing me to him tightly, his arms circled around me.
We panted for a moment in the aftermath, catching our breath.
“I’m going to need more of that,” he said, running his lips across mine.
“After,” I said with a smile, pushing myself up and pulling him up after me. “Later.”
“It was a good idea to be outside. The garage would’ve been no place for this.”
“Making love?” I stepped into my pants, bringing a few leaves with me.
He chuckled. “This spell. You were right, as you often are when it comes to natural things. This spell was made to be outside. Also, I like how I can point out you were right about something, and you don’t gloat.”
“Reagan gloats enough for the whole world.”
He laughed harder, clearly because he knew I was also right about that.
Both of us turned to look at the spell. There were three lines left. I read the first, expectation overcoming me. He stepped up behind me and, holding me tightly, read the second. As a pair, we picked up the lavender, the last ingredient save our blood, and put it in the cauldron together, the whole thing rocking in place.
“That can’t be normal,” I heard Emery mutter, but he wrapped his hands around mine on the spoon and helped me mix it all together.
Like a dam bursting, a rush of magic blasted through me, sucking me under. I sputtered as I tried to make sense of it, rolling on the huge waves at high seas. It felt like the storm of the century. Like tornados whipping around within me, battering me from the inside out.
Emery’s magic was nuts. It was crazy. It whipped and tore at me, punching and pulling me before turning me end over end and throwing me against a rock. All of this happened internally, and I reached out to find something to hold on to, some way to get my bearings.
No wonder the guy was wild and unruly, with this volatile magic roaring through him.
My hand hit empty air and I turned, seeking him out.
He lay flat on his back, his hands around his throat, gasping for air.
20
“Oh no—Emery?” I fell to my knees beside him, shoving the effects of his magic to the back of my consciousness. My temples throbbed with the effort, but I pushed past it, my gaze roaming his face.
He pounded on his chest. Held his throat.
He couldn’t get any air.
The goblin’s magic. It had to be.
“Reagan.” I jumped up and ran for the edge of the concealment spell before realizing I was an idiot and tearing it down. “Reagan!” I screamed into the night. “Reagan, help!”
Would she be in the house, or out in the trees?
Trees. She wouldn’t sit idle if there was even a remote possibility someone might ambush us.
But where in the trees?
“Reagan!” I screamed, moving elements through my fingers into a harried weave. Putting the magic to my mouth, I shouted, “Reagan!”
Sound amplified, blasting out like a loudspeaker. The neighbors a mile away probably heard that. She would come running, I knew she would.
No time to lose, I spun around. Someone zoomed out of the trees—a vampire and, given that he didn’t try to kill me, one of ours.
“Go find Reagan,” I yelled, falling to my knees next to Emery. “Hurry!”
Emery’s feet kicked and he scratched at his throat. Panic welled up inside me.
We shared magic. It was fused.
Wasn’t that what he’d said? Maybe I could fix this from my side.
I closed my eyes, yanking his magic back to the forefront. Raw power pushed and shoved at me. I’d need to com
e to grips with this, then mix it with mine.
I hope that’s right.
Half falling, I straddled Emery, knowing I was running out of time. I dropped my head to his chest, opened up, and let our combined power consume me, leveling out as I did so. The electricity I’d always felt around him vibrated through my body and tingled my hair follicles. It stretched my skin and made my heart thump, but it wasn’t the right magic. It wasn’t what was causing this!
Sifting through our combined magic, I focused on how it flowed, on its balance, its life, and tried to isolate the new element. The eternal power trying to find a home within his body. Within mine.
Time pressing on me, panic barely kept at bay, I was still searching for the foreign power when a familiar magic came into my scope. Awesomely complex in a way I barely understood, light and dark and fire and ice, the universe stretched out before me.
Reagan was here.
Before I could borrow her power to help Emery, he gasped, sucking in a breath, before coughing and bucking, throwing me off.
“What happened?” Reagan asked anxiously.
“Didn’t…assimilate…magic,” Emery choked out between lungfuls of air.
“Come again?” Reagan bent and put her ear closer to him. “You sound like you’re dying. I can’t understand you.”
I tuned them out. Flares lit up the dark night, putting a rainbow glare on everything. Time and space seemed to stretch around me. When I put a hand up, it felt like I could reach through the clouds, past the stars, and to eternity beyond.
The soft patter of rain took on a different tone in my brain, combining with the subtle movement of branches and the wind worrying the leaves. It became a symphony, living in my blood and expressed through my magic.
Wide-eyed, I glanced up at Reagan, leaning down over us. A pitch-black halo surrounded her, the exact opposite of the bleach-white light pulsing from me. Emery had a mix hovering around his body, his black survival magic muddying the white of this new magic, blending the two anti-colors together and bringing out the rainbow hidden therein.
