by Bella Klaus
My stomach flipped, and worries for my best friend rushed to the forefront of my mind. “Kain? Valentine told me you grabbed Beatrice and helped her escape.”
His brows drew together. “After I saw that guy abduct you into the mirror and leave her behind, I had to grab her.”
“Did you get hurt?” I took a long sip of Panacea water, letting the silky liquid soothe the ragged edges of my nerves.
Kain shook his head, and the bundle under his jacket wriggled toward his collar. “That ifrit thing got caught behind a ward for a few minutes. By the time I had Beatrice in the back seat of my car, it broke free and burned through the ambulance.”
I exhaled a long breath.
“Where is she?”
“The palace infirmary with Lazarus.” The mass under his jacket expanded, making Kain flinch and grimace and unbutton the top buttons. He exhaled an annoyed breath and reached into the depths of the garment to extract a furry head with jewel-green eyes and pointed ears.
“Macavity?” I whispered.
The cat turned his head to Kain and gave him a let-me-out yowl.
Kain narrowed his eyes. “We had a deal. I smuggle you into the hospital to see Mera and you stay in my jacket. Don’t change your mind and get us both thrown out.”
I beckoned Kain forward. “Thanks for getting help yesterday. That was good thinking.”
He glanced around the room, walked toward a chair in the corner, and rolled it to my bedside. “I wasn’t going to leave you to face off against a bunch of supernatural goons alone.”
I pulled the young man toward me with a hug. Macavity released a paw and pressed it on my chest as though to remind me of his presence. As we parted, I tickled the cat behind his ears.
“Thanks for coming,” I murmured. “Both of you.”
Kain lowered himself into his seat and rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re saying you and Valentine lived with those freaks in their hideout. Is that true?”
“They kept the zombies in the basement mostly,” I murmured. “Thanks to Valentine’s overprotectiveness, I only spoke with Kresnik a few times.”
The female healer from before stepped in with another bottle of Panacea water, and Macavity disappeared down Kain’s jacket. She walked to the Hatch, extracted my breakfast, and arranged it around the tray.
As she walked around the room, inspecting my vital signs, we fell silent, letting my thoughts drift back to the time Valentine and I had spent in the Flame. Back then and for several days after my escape, I hadn’t understood why he’d kept me subdued with thrall. Even Valentine’s soul hadn’t fathomed why his body hadn’t put me in a safe house somewhere far away from Kresnik.
Preternatural Valentine had been trying to hide me in plain sight. He had wanted Kresnik to dismiss me as a weakened blood cow only good for servicing her master, but my attempts to assert myself had resulted in the return of my power and falling under Kresnik’s notice.
If I hadn’t performed that sound healing session with my teammates, then Kresnik would have had use of my power and never seen me as a threat. Then after Valentine had maimed or murdered him, I could have gone to Istabelle or another healer to sever the magical cord that allowed the madman to drain my magic.
“Are you alright?” Kain’s voice cut through my musings.
I pulled my gaze away from my breakfast to meet his and Macavity’s concerned glances.
“Just thinking about everything that’s happened over the past few days,” I murmured. “Did the healers find a way to help Beatrice?”
He shook his head. “She still looks old but she’s rushing around, running errands for Lazarus.”
“I suppose that’s better than how she was before,” I muttered. “Has he healed from his burns?”
Kain grimaced. “If you call Freddy Krueger progress, then sure.”
Macavity yowled a protest. Neither of us had been able to finish watching Nightmare on Elm Street, even though Beatrice had insisted it was a horror classic.
Suppressing a shudder, I pushed away images of a man covered in burned skin and took a bite from my granola. It was sweet and crunchy and fruity and moist with the banana and almond smoothie.
I reached for the dandelion coffee and inhaled its warm nutty aroma. The first sip mingled the bitterness of roasted coffee beans with the depth of dark chocolate and the second sip mingled the earthy sweetness of chicory with the creaminess of the hazelnut milk. An appreciative sigh reverberated in the back of my throat.
Macavity freed both paws from Kain’s jacket and was about to wriggle out to steal my breakfast when someone on the other side of the room cleared their throat.
My head snapped up to meet Healer Atman frozen at the doorway, his gaze fixed on the bulge on Kain’s chest. “Is that a cat?”
Kain rose to his feet and wrapped a hand around Macavity’s curled form. “He’s not technically in the hospital because he hasn’t left my jacket.”
“We don’t allow animals.” The healer strode into the room with a scowl, reaching into his inside pocket, presumably for his wand.
“He’s a shifter.” The half-lie tumbled from my lips.
“Then your shifter friend would know that it’s forbidden to enter the upper wards in their alternative forms.” The healer pointed his wand toward the door. “Please leave. We’ll have to fumigate the room before we start the extraction procedure.”
I blinked. “What?”
Healer Atman sighed. “This ward excels in soul healing, one of the most delicate disciplines in magical medicine. The last thing we need is unstable shifter energy disrupting the power of our patients.”
“Sorry,” Kain muttered. “We’ll go.”
“Meow.” Macavity’s mournful yowl tugged at my heart. It was rare for the cat to give a heartfelt apology, but today he seemed truly sorry for coming. He stuck his head out of the jacket, his ears pointed forward, his whiskers drooping.
“Leave so we can rid the atmosphere of cat energy,” the healer said, sounding thoroughly fed up with all three of us.
“See you later.” Kain scurried out of the room and the female healer from before stepped in with two male colleagues.
I ran a hand through my hair and smoothed down the front of my hospital gown, watching them stand in each corner of the room with their wands raised. White magic arced from their tips, and travelled up the wall and across the ceiling, meeting in the center and forming the same Star of Ishtar shape Father Jude had used during the ceremony to resurrect Kresnik.
A tendril of magic sprouted from each point of the star, lengthening across the ceiling, down the walls and toward the floor, where it rejoined the others to create another star directly beneath the first.
Branches sprouted from each power line, forming a web of magic. As each branch connected, it split into smaller tendrils until the walls and ceiling and floor became a mesh of magic.
“We are ready for you, my lady,” Healer Atman said from his corner.
Another female healer appeared in the doorway, holding a tangerine-sized crystal on her outstretched palm. Unlike the other healers who wore white, her robes were a sheer turquoise silk that looked as thin as spider silk. Beneath the garment, she wore a shapeless pants suit in the same color.
My gaze rose to her unlined face that indicated she was centuries old, with pale eyes that glowed as brightly as the transparent pendant on her sternum.
As she stepped inside, the other healers’ magic reflected on her platinum hair, making it glow like the stars. Angel magic radiated from the woman’s entire being, clean and sharp and slicing. I glanced over her shoulder for signs of wings but she’d either tucked them in or rendered them invisible.
The pounding of my heart muffled her footsteps, and every drop of moisture in my throat evaporated with my ragged breaths. A high-level supernatural wasn’t required for a routine fumigation. They had to be performing the procedure.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“My name is Lailah Hadriel,
” she said in a melodic Irish brogue. “Senior surgeon of the Atlantis Hospital of Soul Healing. I understand you wish to separate yourself from another entity?”
Even though the woman’s energy was calming, my heartbeat quickened to a drumroll. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to change my mind. The power residing in me was mine, and nobody would separate me from the last of the man I loved.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I rasped.
Healer Hadriel’s brows drew together, and her eyes glowed an incandescent white. She leaned forward as though peering into my soul. “That magic needs to return to its owner.”
“Do you know what it is?” I asked.
She inclined her head. “A soul nucleus torn away from its anchor.”
Every ounce of moisture in my throat evaporated. We studied biology in the Academy, and I knew all about animal cells. At the most basic level, they consisted of a membrane filled with a thick material called cytoplasm, and in the center was a nucleus. The nucleus was its most important part and controlled the cell’s activities.
The University of Logris probably taught classes on soul magic, but there had been a limit on what I’d been allowed to learn as a Neutral. Was Healer Hadriel trying to tell me that Valentine was walking about with the most vital part of his soul missing?
I shook my head from side to side. “What are you talking about?”
“If a seer looked into the soul, it would consist of an expanse of white and a nucleus that took on the shape of its owner,” she said. “Sometimes during an event of extreme trauma, the nucleus detaches itself from its setting, severing the soul.”
A shocked breath escaped my lips. The healer had to be talking about the time November attacked me while Valentine’s body was still ash. I stared into her pale eyes, my mind whirring with possibilities. Valentine must have sensed that I was in distress and rushed to my side.
There was so much I wanted to say, but the part of me that believed everything would go wrong clamped my jaw shut. How could I risk losing the part of Valentine I held most dear?
“Mera.” Healer Hadriel drifted closer, filling my nostrils with her ozone scent. It had to be an angel trait to know what a person preferred to be called. “Left long enough, the foreign nucleus will assimilate with your soul, and you will lose your ability to shift. But its original owner will be the one who truly suffers.”
My heart chakra filled with cold panic, and I clutched a hand over my chest. Why was I clinging onto Valentine’s soul when less than an hour ago, I yearned to return it to him?
“You’re afraid,” she said.
“Wouldn’t you be in my position?” I rasped. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been separated from him. He’s died, risen from the dead, fallen under the control of enemies, and then had his body destroyed. Now that he’s back, he looks at me with suspicion.”
Thinking about those eyes that had always gazed at me with love now turning cold sent a surge of grief that thickened my windpipe, and the words caught in my throat. Heat rose to the outer layer of my skin, coalescing around my eyelids. My breaths shallowed, and I pressed my lips together to hold back a torrent of sorrow.
“If I lose this part of him…” My chin fell to my chest, and I exhaled a ragged sigh.
The magic around me continued to thrum, and each interaction of power within the web stretched across the room, creating a three-dimensional mesh that wrapped around us all.
I curled my fingers around my throat, trying to dislodge the words. Part of the reason why I hadn’t fallen to despair about Valentine’s cold behavior was because the most important part of him had been with me from around the time I’d set fire to his remains.
But it was easy enough for me to talk about separating us in theory. I thought I would have a day or maybe a week to get used to divesting myself of Valentine’s essence. Everything was happening too soon.
Healer Hadriel lowered herself into the seat Kain had occupied and placed a warm hand on my arm. “When I read your case notes, I felt compelled to travel to Logris and meet you. I knew your father when he was one of the few deities committed to liberating humans from the control gods exercised over men.”
“How could someone become so evil?” I asked. “He wants to enslave everyone.”
“Never underestimate the transformative effect of pain,” she murmured. “Some beings strengthen under their tribulations, others crack, and a minority twist and warp into beings of uncontrollable vengeance.”
“Right.” What I’d suffered in Kresnik’s vision had been a blink of an eye compared to the thirty thousand years he had spent on that rock. All for trying to help humans gain a little power.
“It’s unethical to coerce you into choosing any course of action,” the healer continued. “But you must be aware of the facts. The soul kernel that I see in your heart chakra almost certainly belongs to your true mate. Absorbing it will mean being unable to form deep bonds with others, including the person chosen for you by fate.”
My throat spasmed, and the hand over my heart rose to the base of my neck. I needed to stop resisting. This was what I wanted. When I parted my lips to tell her to proceed, nothing came out.
The contents of my stomach roiled with frustration. Why wasn’t I telling the healer to take it out? Because every time I tried to help Valentine, something went wrong. And I was sure this time would be no different, and the separation would result in some kind of disaster.
“Mera?” she asked.
My gaze snapped up, and I met her pearlescent eyes, which reminded me so much of Father Jude’s. “Yes?”
“Do I have your permission to remove the foreign soul nucleus and place it in this vessel?” She offered me the hand containing the tangerine-sized crystal.
“What will you do with that when it’s full?”
“You may offer the nucleus to its owner or I can intervene on your behalf,” she replied.
This version of Valentine would likely refuse, since he couldn’t see anything wrong with the way he acted. It might take a while to work out a way to convince Valentine that regaining the nucleus of his soul was in his best interests.
“I want it extracted, but I’d like to keep the crystal,” I said.
Healer Hadriel nodded. “Shall I begin?”
My lips clamped together. I couldn’t say the words, but I forced myself to nod.
She dropped the crystal in my left hand and closed my fingers around its curved surface. The transparent stone felt like activated charcoal—infinitely hollow and capable of absorbing several times its volume. Magic within my little finger pulled as though the contents of my heart meridian were already flowing into the crystal.
“What kind of crystal is this?” I asked.
“It’s a soul star stone,” Healer Hadriel said with a warm smile. “This one came from the shores of a volcanic beach in Heaven.”
I shook my head, trying to picture what kind of volcano could produce a crystal that looked like quartz.
After rising from the seat, she nodded at Healer Atman in the corner. A heartbeat later, all four of the healers lowered their wands, and the magical grid detached from the walls and flew toward me, filling my vision with white.
Power overwhelmed my system, forcing a gasp from my lips.
Tiny invisible strings sliced through my body as though it was made of cheese, but their cutting edges somehow managed to avoid the nerves. My heart thundered, and I breathed hard, trying to stop myself from falling into a full-blown panic.
Why hadn’t the healers warned me of what to expect? I’d assumed that it would be like sessions with Istabelle where sound vibrated through the body, making everything thrum. This was direct, deliberate, disquieting. It was like being diced into minuscule pieces.
Flames erupted from my skin, and Healer Dianne stepped back. “Everybody out,” she said. “Lower the oxygen saturation and seal the wards.”
Alarms sounded. The four professionals in white jogged out of the room, with He
aler Dianne edging toward the doorway, seeming not to want to dare to turn her back on me. Fire spread across my sheets, over the bed, the table, the floor, and the walls.
“Sorry,” I tried to say, but the word came out a throaty rasp. Bloody hell… At this rate, I was going to burn down the hospital.
Healer Hadriel stood at the doorway. Behind her, orderlies rushed through the hall, floating patients on mobile gurneys. Flames filled my vision and panic filled my heart. What if the hospital wasn’t equipped to hold back the power of a fire user?
A pair of enforcers stood beside the healer, creating an opaque barrier of water in the doorway that stretched across the floor.
“Please stay on the bed,” said the healer. “Continue holding the soul star crystal. Our enchantment is separating the foreign nucleus from your phoenix soul.”
I opened and closed my mouth, trying to tell her that Kresnik had created me out of two souls—one from a Neutral and the other from a phoenix—but the words came out garbled. It was as though my body wanted to shift but couldn’t because of the magical webs holding me in place.
Maybe the healer had already taken my unique makeup into account, and my two souls had merged into one during my twenty-four years of life or during the years Kresnik and his minions had been trying to conceive me.
White smoke rose from my chest, hovering around my heart chakra. This had to be Valentine’s nucleus. I willed it down my arm, but it wouldn’t move.
“You can do it, Valentine,” I whispered, even though my words became a throaty rasp. “Go. I’ll reunite you with your body.”
The white smoke remained in place.
“Mera?” Healer Hadriel said from behind the barrier of water. “I feel the foreign power trying to rise. Stop holding on to it.”
“I’m not.” This wasn’t working. My magic flared, sending out three-foot-long flames across the room. I raised the hand holding the stone and pressed it into my heart chakra.
“Well done,” she said. “Keep going.”
I shook my head. It looked like Valentine’s soul nucleus was as reluctant to detach itself from me as I was to release it. Meanwhile, in the outside world, we were practically strangers.
