by Izzy Shows
I didn’t want to piss him off any more than I already was simply by working with the vampires.
No, we’re not going back to that. He’s decided to move on, and so are we, I thought as I stood up.
Together, we moved the coffee table out of the middle of the living room and took seats across from one another on the floor. My palms immediately went to my knees. Raven and I had worked together in much the same way, and this had always been the position they’d expected of me.
A pang of longing went through me as I thought of Raven. It had been a while since I’d last seen them. They weren’t exactly my friend, per se--I didn’t think anyone qualified as Raven’s friend--but I was fond of them, even if they were a slave driver of a teacher and never gave any indication that I’d done things to a standard they thought was anything other than barely acceptable.
I dearly wanted to be more than just acceptable to Raven. I wanted to impress them, much the same way I wanted to impress Diego, but it meant so much more to impress Raven. They were something entirely out of this world. I suspected they were Fae, but I didn’t know that for a fact.
“What are we going to practice today?” I asked as I pushed a stray bit of hair behind my ear.
“The same invisibility spell we’ve been practicing,” he replied, arching an eyebrow at me.
Of course. I should have known that.
I took a deep breath in through my nose and let it out slowly. “All right. I can do this.”
“I know you can. I believe in you. You just need to believe in yourself, too.”
Right. If he could believe in me, then so could I. Right?
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing to clear my mind of all other thoughts. One breath in and one breath out, slowing my heartbeat until it was a steady drum rather than the erratic pattering that always came when I was about to use magic. If I was in control of myself, then I could be in control of my magic.
I reached deep within myself to the place where I visualized my magic lying and grasped hold of it as if it were a rope. My fingers twitched on my knees, itching to move and perform the actions I was visualizing, but I forced them to remain still.
One breath in, one breath out.
I moved the magic until it wrapped around my body, encircling me like a tight band, almost restricting my ability to breathe freely. Then I let it seep back inside of me until it was one with my skin.
I saw my body fading from visibility, pictured myself fading away from the room until there was nothing left to be seen. I didn’t try to hide my skin so much as I shrouded my entire form, clothing and all.
I can do this.
The thought interrupted my concentration, and I crushed it with a vicious hand. There was no time for me to think anything else while I was working on magic. It wasn’t like battle magic, which was an extension of myself and allowed for free thought.
Diego was right: this was hard magic, and it required intense concentration. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead and a small tremor passed through my hand. I bit the inside of my cheek to allow myself the bitter pain that would allow me to concentrate.
I held on to the spell for a few minutes before I dared to open my eyes.
At first, I was afraid to look down at my own body to see if I’d done the spell correctly. I just stared back at Diego, but he didn’t say a word to me, which was encouraging.
He would have said something if I hadn’t done the spell correctly, right?
My eyes darted down to my lap and a small gasp escaped my lips. I couldn’t see my legs! I thrust my hands out in front of me and examined them. Nothing to be seen there, either. Reaching up a hand, I grasped my hair and pulled it in front of my eyes. Nope, couldn’t see that, either.
“Can you see me?” I asked at last, holding my breath after I spoke in anticipation of his response.
He grinned. “No. You did it, Blair.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner? You could have told me I’d done it.”
“I didn’t want to ruin your concentration. Keep holding the spell. You’re starting to shimmer.”
Immediately, I reinforced the spell. It took a hell of a lot of concentration to keep it going, and I hated to think how difficult it would be to use this spell in a combat scenario.
It had a lot of potential uses, though. I could sneak up on people like this and not have to worry about giving away my position just to move to a different vantage point. And soon Diego would teach me how to hide other things, like the sounds I created when I walked or the scent of my blood pumping through my veins. Very useful when dealing with vampires, which was now something I was doing on a daily basis.
No, don’t think about that, I cautioned myself. You don’t want to inadvertently say something that would set him off.
Instead, I allowed myself the joy of having successfully completed a spell. “Yes! I did it!” I jumped up and threw my hands in the air, letting out a great whoop sound. “Haha!”
Diego chuckled. “All right, moving on.”
His attitude was like a bucket of cold water dumped over my head, ruining my good mood. He couldn’t take two seconds to congratulate me on getting the spell right after I’d struggled with it for days? It reminded me of the way Aidan had handled my training--there was no such thing as a congratulations or a ‘well done’ from him. He’d been a very tough instructor, although at the time, it had been necessary.
I wondered if he would still have been like that if he’d survived Tyburn Tree and we’d been able to train together. Diego had intimated that Aidan might have been looking to mentor me. What would that have been like?
Quite possibly, it would have been a lot like what I was going through right now. Diego and Aidan would have been quite the pair back in the day; neither of them seemed to have much in the way of patience.
I dropped the spell and sat back down, composing myself. “Moving on?”
“The next spell we’re going to attempt is sensing auras.”
I frowned. “Isn’t that what the Chancellor did to me?”
“No. What he did was much more complex and very much like a mind meld, only more...open. We won’t be doing anything like that. Every creature, magic or not, emits an aura into the world. You can sense them, allowing you to detect the presence of other creatures when you’re investigating. It will also allow you to sense the level of magic someone has.”
Ah. That would be immensely helpful in knowing whether or not I could take something on. “How is it that everything has an aura?”
He shrugged. “It’s just the way it is. I didn’t design the universe. I don’t have those answers for you.”
Pfft. Fred or Raven would have been able to answer that question. I’d just have to ask them about it later. Probably Fred; Raven was busy a lot these days. I didn’t want to bother them.
“All right, so, how do I detect auras?”
“Spread your awareness throughout the room. It will probably be easiest for you to start with detecting Weylyn’s aura, as he’s intrinsically linked to you.”
Yeah, OK, that made sense.
“Close your eyes and visualize your magic stretching out into the room around you. Don’t let down your shields--it’s much easier to detect auras when you’re not shielded, but it leaves you open to attack.”
I nodded, funnelling that knowledge away into the back of my mind. Don’t let down your shields. Got it.
My eyes closed again, and I re-centred myself so I could get back into the mindset of using magic. I expected this to be about as difficult as the invisibility spell had been, or at least to require the same amount of concentration. Which kind of sucked, because it was a spell I now wanted to be able to keep going at all times.
It would be a huge drain on my magic to keep a spell going indefinitely, but it could be the difference in life and death if I knew what I was going up against before I came into contact with it.
Breathe. Focus on your breathing.
Right. That’s what I was supposed to be doing.
One breath in, one breath out.
Repeat.
Again.
It took me a little while longer to settle into the right rhythm this time. I kept thinking about all the things I could do with the spells Diego was teaching me. He might be a tough teacher, but he was definitely starting me out on useful spells instead of stupid little things I could already do. I couldn’t imagine that another Wizard of the Order would have been so clever about my training.
Focus!
Damn it.
At last, I reached that place of concentration that I needed in order to use my magic. Again, I reached into my core and pulled the magic out. This time, I saw it as a living creature that I sent seeping out from under me to invade the room. I pushed it as far as I could get it to go, trying to find the three bodies I knew were in the room.
A twinge of disappointment settled inside me. I should have felt Diego by now. He was right in front of me.
Thirty minutes and several more tries later, I finally felt Weylyn in the room.
Success!
He was a vibrant blue in my mind’s eye, pulsing with infinite power. It would have been intimidating if I hadn’t already known he was more powerful than I’d be able to conceive of. Putting him aside for the moment, I concentrated on ‘looking’ around the room.
It took me a minute, but I found Diego. He was an earthy green colour, like a field of grass in summer. I didn’t doubt for a moment that he had immense power in Earth magic.
That had to come in handy with wood when he was fighting vampires. No wonder he was so important to that war.
My magic snaked around the room again, and I found Desideria. She was another shade of green, a little more yellow than Diego’s dark green, but the two auras pulsated at around the same power level.
Hm, did that mean I’d also be blue?
I popped my eyes open and saw that the three of them continued to radiate their auras. It was a little disorienting at first, but the colours settled in front of me at last.
I glanced down at myself and saw an icy blue emanating from me. It shone with the same vibrancy I’d seen in Weylyn, and I felt my cheeks flush with heat at the realization of what that indicated.
The Chancellor hadn’t been lying when he said my familiar was an indication of the power I’d possess. The evidence was right in front of my eyes.
I kept the spell up in the back of my mind, too curious about the colours to let them go, but it was draining me.
I’d used so much magic today, and I hadn’t gotten any rest, or really eaten...
My head hit the floor with a loud thud.
Twenty Two
“Blair,” Diego said, shaking my shoulder. He sounded worried.
Why would he be worried?
“Blair, wake up.”
Ugh. I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted to settle back into the warm embrace of sleep. It had been so deep that there hadn’t been dreams, and I didn’t doubt that it would bring me the rejuvenation that everyone else was so easily able to grasp.
“No,” I said. Or at least, I tried to say. It came out more of a slur than anything. I rolled away from his hand, curling in on myself.
“Blair, you have to wake up.”
There was a note of command in his voice, and I knew he was getting frustrated with me. Or at least, that’s what it sounded like.
What was the harm in sleeping?
“Blair!” He shook me harshly, and at last I opened my eyes.
“What?” I glared up at him.
“You’ve been out for an hour. I couldn’t get you to wake up.”
“Huh?” I frowned. “No, that doesn’t make sense. What happened?”
“You overreached. You’ve been using too much magic without any energy in your body. You know it’s a give and take, that you have to have enough energy inside you to power your spells. If you don’t, it’ll start to eat away at your life force. Your body shut down before it could do that.”
That didn’t explain why he’d awakened me. “Why didn’t you let me sleep, then?”
“It’s dangerous, staying down when you’re like that. You don’t have any control over yourself. There’s no saying what might happen to you. You need to get some food and rest--rest that you choose on your own rather than your body shutting down on you. Go home.”
I struggled to my feet, then swayed and had to grip his forearm to stay upright. “Ugh.” My head was pounding heavily now, and I realized how much my muscles hurt. I felt like a truck had run over me.
He was right. I’d done too much. At least he was being nice enough to not point out that it was all my fault for staying up late with the vampires. That was charitable of him.
“Yeah, sleep... That sounds good.”
Only, not. Because sleep would bring the demons that haunted my nightmares. Or, possibly worse, I’d dream of Mal. That had been happening more and more frequently, and it was kind of horrible. Not that the dreams themselves were bad, but it made it a lot harder for me to move on from him when he was constantly coming back into my mind.
“You shouldn’t drive. Let me take you home.”
“No, it’s cool. I’ve got this.”
He levelled a glare at me. “Blair.”
“I’m cool. I’m cool. It’ll be fine.” I stumbled away from him and whistled for Weylyn. He was at my side in a moment, pressing his weight against me to give me something to lean on. “See? Weylyn’s got me. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Diego’s eyes narrowed, and I knew he wanted to argue with me. But come on. I was going to be fine.
I made it to my car before I crashed to my knees, the pavement tearing at my jeans and biting into my skin.
“Hrngh.” I put a hand on the car to centre myself, but my vision was swimming. Maybe Diego was right. I probably shouldn’t drive. But I couldn’t go back up there and tell him that. I couldn’t let him be right.
It would go to his head, and then where would I be? Struggling to get him back down to Earth, that’s where.
I fished in my pocket and pulled out my cell phone, twisted around and sat on the pavement with my back pressed against my car.
“Hello?” Emily’s voice greeted me after the second ring. “Everything OK?”
“Not exactly,” I said, grimacing. “I overdid it, and now I can’t really move without seeing double. Do you think you could come get me and give me a ride?”
I felt like such a shithead, asking her to come get me, but I didn’t know anyone else to call, and my pride prevented me from going back to Diego. Especially not after the day I’d had with him.
“Sure! Where are you?”
“Diego’s.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
We hung up then, and I let my head loll back to rest against the car. Emily was too good to me. I didn’t know how she was always making time for me, but she never made me feel like an asshole for needing her.
That, I did all on my own. I never had a shortage of mean things to say to myself, especially when it came to how undeserving I was of Emily’s affection. She really deserved a better friend.
She doesn’t want to just be your friend, my mind reminded me, and a small smile curved my lips.
I hoped that was true. We hadn’t discussed anything serious--there was enough time to do that later--but my heart thrilled at the idea of being with her. Just one kiss, and I was addicted.
She was enough to drive all thoughts of Mal from my head, at least while I was with her.
I frowned at that reminder. I needed to talk to her about Mal, about the fact that I wasn’t quite over him. It wasn’t fair to her for me to be carrying a torch for someone else while I was interested in her. I just didn’t see how that conversation was going to go. I didn’t want her to think I wanted Mal more than I wanted her; that wasn’t the case at all. She was more than enough for me. I just
had these feelings that I didn’t know what to do with.
I was left alone with my thoughts for several more minutes before Emily’s car pulled up. Then I scrambled to my feet, Weylyn assisting me. He had morphed into his dog form, so he wasn’t quite big enough to give me the support I really needed, but he definitely helped.
“Oh, Blair, you don’t look so good.” She rushed over to me as soon as she was out of the car, her hand coming up to caress my cheek. I leaned in to her touch, my eyes shutting for a moment as a smile graced my lips.
“You look great,” I said.
“Your eyes are closed.”
“Yeah, but you always look great.”
She giggled and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m glad to see that you’re feeling well enough to be your usual self. Come on, let’s get you home.”
With one arm under mine and wrapped around my back, she helped me to her car and made sure I got inside without further incident. I managed to buckle myself in, and then I sagged back in the seat.
A moment later, Weylyn was in the back seat, and we were setting off at a comfortable pace.
Silence reigned between us for several minutes, during which my mind kept up a constant stream of torment about how I was such a drain on Emily and really should leave to make things easier for her.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, I hissed internally, trying to get the thoughts to stop.
But they wouldn’t. I just kept taking from Emily, and I never seemed to be in a position to give back to her. She never asked for anything from me, never gave me an opportunity to do for her all the things she did for me. Just once, I’d like to be able to do something for her and feel like an equal in this relationship.
It seemed like getting her flowers and taking her on a date wasn’t enough. I had to do something more, be more, in order to be worthy of her.
She’d saved my skin more times than I could count, and I wanted to do the same for her.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said, breaking the silence at last.