by Ella M. Lee
“And he did?” I guessed.
“Another two years went by, nearly,” Irina said. “Nicolas had recently made commander, completely shattering records and both impressing and annoying a lot of people. But he was close with Claudius, and he was amazing with magic, so it was no surprise he was on the fast track to make the council at any moment.
“Things were getting worse between me and Cillian. Our relationship was incredibly unhealthy, and I was making secret plans to leave Samuel’s group, attempting to quietly field myself to other commanders.
“Cillian found out and confronted me. He tracked me down while I was out in Hong Kong alone, and he beat the shit out of me. I’m not a fighter, not really, and my magic is not focused on combat or defense. He had a hundred pounds on me. There wasn’t much I could do against him.
“Luckily for me, Cillian was under surveillance. It turned out that I wasn’t the only liaison he’d been giving magic to, and worse than that, he’d been leaking information about Water to other clans. Sylvio, who was still part of Arturo’s group, intervened and saved my life.
“I went to Ryan. I knew he would be willing to hear my story. Cillian, alive and locked up waiting for clan judgment, was very likely to implicate me and reveal exactly how I had ended up in Water. I didn’t know what would happen to me if that was found out.
“Ryan assured me that everything would be okay. He took me to Nicolas, who listened as I explained what Sky had done to me. In some ways, I have to admire Nicolas’s ‘means to an end’ philosophy. He didn’t care what I had done or how I got here. He merely cared that I was an excellent healer, that I was a close friend of Ryan, and that I had been kind to him in the past.
“He told me he would take care of things for me. I asked him if he was capable of that. He shrugged and said, ‘I’ve been capable of achieving everything else I’ve wanted since coming here,’ so I trusted him. I didn’t have many other options. Ryan has influence in Water, but Nicolas has true power. I didn’t like him, but he was my best chance of avoiding any sort of punishment.”
“Did he come through?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“Yes, he did,” Irina said. “He wouldn’t tell me exactly what was said and done at the council meeting, but I came out of the ordeal unscathed.”
“And Cillian?” I asked.
Her lips quirked into a tight line. “He was executed. His betrayals of the clan had resulted in several failed operations and deaths. There wasn’t much to be done for him, and I doubt Nicolas tried hard to have Cillian spared after what he had done to me. That had upset Nicolas. He once called me ‘good’ and ‘pure,’ and it angered him that someone would hurt me.”
That sounded like Nicolas. He was more chivalrous than anyone I had ever known. He always took careful measure of those around him. Although he was never overprotective or condescending, he didn’t believe in uneven fights or bullying, and he absolutely believed in defending those weaker than himself.
I imagined he would have been glad to watch the execution of someone who had hurt Irina when she was helpless and undeserving, especially after Irina had so selflessly helped him before.
“How did you end up in his group?” I asked.
She sighed. “No one else would take me. Samuel didn’t want me anymore, and no one else would touch me after the scandal of Cillian. Nicolas understood that I didn’t love his reputation or what he’d done in Smoke, but he offered me safety and freedom working for him. I would have been a fool not to take it.”
“And you stayed,” I said.
“I suppose as time went on, I might have found a commander—perhaps someone new who would have offered me a place, but…” She shrugged. “I like Ryan and the others. Nicolas has been generous to me.” She smiled. “Daniel is a delight.”
I smiled, too. Daniel could charm anyone. I imagined it had taken him all of ten seconds to befriend Irina, with his sarcastic remarks and brilliant mind and fluent Japanese.
“Eventually, I met Andres, and he liked working for Nicolas,” she said quietly. “So… I lived with it too.”
“I’m sorry for what happened, Irina,” I said, forcing myself to meet her gaze and keep breathing evenly. “I regret it, and I would do anything to change it. I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, and a muscle in her jaw twitched. “Let’s… not, okay?” she said quietly. “I can’t discuss this. Not now.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I looked away, feeling bad. This relationship would not be fixed easily. It might never be anything close to friendship or true camaraderie. I knew Irina had heard my story—Nicolas and Dan had talked extensively about me with the others—and it was nice to know hers, too.
I could understand being drawn along your path from one thing to another, somehow managing to survive as circumstances bloomed and withered seemingly at random around you. Magicians’ lives were rarely easy or neat or clean.
We all just did the best we could.
“I really am curious,” she said. “About how you can love him.”
I shook my head and sighed. “I wish I could explain. These days, I have to trust myself. I’ve lost too many of the people I love to willingly push them away. Life is hard. He makes me happy. I want him. I know that, deep inside myself. Sometimes that’s all there is to it.”
Irina looked at me as though she had never seen anyone like me before. I got the distinct sense that she required more proof and logic in her life than I did, that she required reasoning and convincing. I didn’t have any of that for her. Perhaps Nicolas didn’t either, given that he hadn’t tried harder to win her over.
“I can’t say I understand,” she offered.
“I’m not sure I do either,” I said. “But when I look at him, I don’t see his past. I don’t see a monster. I know he’s powerful and dangerous, but I don’t see that either. I see, among other things, a man who has the compassion to save strays like you and me.”
Daniel was relieved to hear that I hadn’t blown up our group dynamics in a startling display of fireworks and blood, although he offered none of his own commentary on what Irina had told me. He merely sighed in relief and grabbed my hand, pulling me out his door and down the hall to Ryan’s apartment.
Ryan’s apartment was almost as large as Nicolas’s museum-like home, but far less tidy and austere. Most of the space in Ryan’s place was occupied by tables and shelves filled with magical devices and materials for crafting.
Today Ryan was as dressed down as I had ever seen him. His white button-up shirt was rumpled, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His hair was wet and unstyled, falling into his eyes.
“Coffee, Fiona?” he asked.
He looked like he had been up all night. I shook my head, waving him off and watching as he poured a cup for himself from his French press. He must be exhausted; it was telling that he used such a simple brewing method rather than making himself a pour-over or an espresso from his $15,000 machine.
Dan went to the large worktable by the window. It wasn’t as cluttered as usual. Right now, there was a large three-by-three-foot space that held only a strange glass orb sitting on a metal stand. It was about the size of a volleyball, hollow in the center, clear but with imperfections. It looked hand-blown.
“It’s beautiful,” Dan said in a tone of awe.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a prototype of a new clan sanctum,” Ryan said, joining us at the table with his coffee.
I smiled, clapping my hands together, delighted. “Can I touch it?” I asked.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “It’s inactive right now. Please don’t break it. That was my thirty-eighth attempt.”
I winced, running my fingers gently over the glass. It was inlaid with layer upon layer of wards, all dark and still right now.
Based on our group’s research, we had a plan for creating the sanctum. It relied on being able to trap large amounts of Daniel’s unique lightning magic in the
physical sanctum.
Magic always struggled to survive. It liked containers. It liked safety. It liked its own kind. If we could get enough of Daniel’s magic together, it would enter a state we called inversion—its energy would become focused inward instead of outward, and it would begin binding together to create a stable, self-replicating, and self-sustaining base.
This was a proven magical state that every clan’s magic could enter. It had been discovered early on in the history of magic and was clarified as Ying’s Law, “Ying” being the name of the Smoke magician who had discovered inversion.
Inversion was almost always used in small doses in order to achieve very specific outcomes. Inverted magic was much harder to control, and it consumed more energy than regular magic, but it was what we needed to create our clan.
That base of inverted magic would—we hoped—live inside the physical sanctum we built for it.
Dan was staring longingly into the glass, his chin resting in his hands. He loved this project; it excited him that he could be the heart of entirely new magic. I loved that he was dedicated to this, but I was worried about how enamored he was with the idea of Lightning Clan. His magic was its own wild, living thing, different from anyone else’s. His connection to it was deep and unshakable, and he had a lot of faith in it and in himself.
But Dan was ultimately still so young, with little experience in the real world. He had seen more danger and disruption than others his age, but he was also protected by powerful forces—his magic, Nicolas, and his other groupmates. I worried that Dan didn’t truly see the hazards of what we were doing past the stars in his eyes.
“Can you put lightning in the orb?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “The wards are designed to let magic into the orb, but not out of it.”
“Only I can get it back out right now,” Ryan said.
He meant using transference, his special ability, which could move magic around between people and objects.
Dan pressed both palms against the surface of the glass, and the sphere filled slowly and elegantly with his magic. Spiderwebs of lightning magic collected until it looked like static, like shiny silver tinsel obscuring the entire interior of the glass.
It started moving, churning on itself, pulsing. The beginnings of inversion.
Dan studied his work with something like rapture. I could see why he loved it; it was completely magnificent. It reminded me a little of my Flame magic, and I was almost certain that when we made Lightning Clan, we would find it categorized closer to the dangerous magics—Flame, Meteor, and Wild—rather than the more placid types.
That was fine. It would be beautiful and powerful regardless. I couldn’t wait to possess it.
“Dan, can you grant lightning magic to me?” I asked. Commanders had the ability to gift their magic to others, and they often did so in order to provide a group member with more power or to train someone in magic.
He tore his eyes away from the sanctum and refocused on me. “I don’t think so. I tried with Teng and Nicolas right after I was promoted. It seems like I can only give out pure Water magic. If I transmute it to lightning and then try to gift it, it doesn’t take. The only person who has ever been able to handle it is Ryan.” He glanced over at his teacher for a moment. “His transference works on it.”
I sighed. “Well, I guess no practicing ahead of time, huh? We’ll just have to figure it out later.”
“I’ll try to make it as easy as possible to grant to others,” he promised.
He would have control over how the magic formed up, and I knew he would put his entire focus into making it as perfect as possible. That wouldn’t be hard; this power would be amazing. I smiled, reaching out my hand to touch the glass.
I had only wanted to feel the charged energy that always existed close to Dan’s magic, but when my fingers connected with the surface of the sphere, the wards flared.
My whole body went rigid and numb as current rocked through me. I heard a strangled cry that I faintly recognized as my own voice.
All the breath was knocked from my lungs as I landed on my back on the hard floor. There was ringing in my ears so loud that I couldn’t even hear myself think, and my eyelids slammed shut.
Chapter 12
“Fi, Fi!”
I was being shaken. My brain felt like it was bouncing around, reverberating inside my head, while the rest of me was completely numb. I groaned.
“Dan, stop, back off.”
That was Ryan’s voice, his sternest teaching tone, the one he used when he expected you to pay attention. I could barely hear him, like my ears were stuffed with cotton. Everything was moving in slow motion.
I fought to sit up, but I couldn’t move even an inch. My whole body was tense and electrified, almost vibrating. I hoped I was still breathing, but I couldn’t feel that either.
I was on the verge of panic when Ryan’s hands touched me. He rapidly stretched out my arms and laid them at my sides. He ran the tips of his fingers from my forehead down to my navel, then back up again.
As they moved, they collected magic, tearing it away where it had embedded itself inside me.
“Dan, call Irina, get her here,” Ryan said, his tone calm but urgent.
He made the same gestures again, and I barely felt his fingers skim over me, barely felt the strange and slightly painful magical tugging they brought with them, like the pinpricks of a limb warming up after becoming too cold. Each of his touches calmed my tense vibrating just a little.
“Fiona, can you hear me?” Ryan asked.
“Uh… uh… uh-huh,” I said. I tried to make my lips move, but I couldn’t get them to form a real word.
“You are all right,” Ryan said. “I pulled out most of that stray magic, but it ripped through you pretty badly. You need healing. I’ll start, Irina will finish. Lay still. Do not panic. Trying to move will only stress you out. I know you are frightened, but everything is fine.”
I tried to let his words reassure me, but my body wasn’t obeying. He pressed his fingers into my forehead and neck, then my wrists. He lifted up my shirt, and his cool palms pressed into my abdomen and rib cage, his magic tingling as it rubbed against mine.
I tried to open my eyes, but I felt too disconnected from my body to know if it had even worked.
I heard muffled commotion—more people arriving at Ryan’s apartment.
“What the hell is going on?”
That was Nicolas’s distressed voice. I tried to open my mouth to speak, struggling slightly, but it wouldn’t work. Ryan had told me not to panic, but I was definitely panicking. I had a sinking suspicion I had just nearly died, and I breathed faster, hysterical and afraid.
“Hush,” Ryan said to me, his hands pressing into my shoulders. “Accidental adhesive transference, causing extensive somatic damage.”
Those words sounded bad, although I didn’t know their exact meaning. My heart wanted to beat out of my chest, and no amount of my mental thrashing was allowing me to make a connection to my body.
Unfamiliar hands touched my forehead and cheek. “This isn’t too bad.” Irina’s voice. “Let me take over.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Dan said. “The wards on that prototype are airtight. She shouldn’t have been able to get anything out of it, let alone all of it.”
“How much power?” Nicolas asked.
“I don’t know,” Dan said. “A lot. I dumped enough into it to begin inversion.”
“That much?” Nicolas sounded angry. “You electrocuted her with it?”
“She electrocuted herself!” Dan said.
Please don’t fight, I thought desperately. Whatever happened was an accident. Please.
I felt a modicum of calm under the press of Irina’s magic, featherlight and precise, as it healed me. I tried to breathe evenly, even though I barely had any control over that.
Please, please, please let this be okay. I would be screaming and crying and trembling if I could.
Nicolas wa
s next to me suddenly, stroking my hair, kissing my forehead gently.
You are all right, lamb, he said in my mind. I love you. Don’t be afraid.
I am very afraid, I confessed, but having Nicolas’s voice in my head was calming.
I could barely comprehend that he was taking my hands, wrapping them in his. You will be fine, he said softly. This is all fixable. Let go of your panic. Pretend like you don’t want to move at all, like you are content, like we are in bed together and it’s late and you’re falling asleep. I’m right here with you.
I tried to listen, tried to let my mind still itself. He continued to touch me and whisper silent encouragement to me while Irina healed me. Eventually, he gathered me into his arms, helping me to sit up.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
It took several tries before I got my brain to make the correct connection. I blinked several times. My heart was still racing. Irina was kneeling in front of me, her expression serious and concerned.
She peered into my eyes one at a time, then took my wrist and checked my pulse.
“What is your full name?” she asked.
“Fiona… Diana… Ember,” I said, clearing my throat and trying to get my mouth to connect to my brain.
“Where were you born?” she asked.
“Lincoln, Nebraska,” I said.
“What is fifty plus fifteen?”
“Sixty-five.”
“Any blurriness of vision, dizziness, or nausea?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I’m… tired.”
She took my hands. “Squeeze as hard as you can.” I did. “Good.”
“Am I okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. She looked at Nicolas, who was still supporting me with his hands. “Keep an eye on her. I’m particularly worried about residual nervous system complications. Either Ryan or I should see her again in the morning, after a full night’s sleep.”
“Of course,” Nicolas said.