by SA Magnusson
Now I just had to find out who she was.
I made my way to the river, pausing along the shores. As I did, a reminder of what had happened the night before came to me. I had connected to power on the other side of the Veil, borrowing from the power of the ley lines, drawing from magic that should not have been dangerous to me. I had enough connection to that magic in the past to know that it shouldn’t have overwhelmed me.
Somehow, it had.
More than that, it had changed something about me.
That was the part that seemed the most striking. It hadn’t been clear until I had recovered, but now that I understood what it was, I found it strange. The spell had changed something about me, shifting it.
I turn my attention back in its direction.
Was that what it intended to do to the Veil? Too often, there were people who intended to attack and damage it, and I had been a part of that enough that I practically expected that to be the goal, but as I thought about it, it didn’t seem as if this were intended as some weakening of the Veil.
What was being done was targeting the ley lines.
It wasn’t the first time they had been targeted. When Lexy and those with her had attempted to do so using the drought, they had weakened the ley lines, weakening the Veil. With that, I had to wonder if perhaps it was more connected than I realized.
Could all of the other attempts have been a test?
They all seemed to be related, though they were different, targeting different aspects, and it left me with questions but no clear answers. How could the attempt to summon a demon king be related to an attempt at allowing gorgons across the Veil? How could either of those be tied to an attempt allowing the Great Ones to break free of their prison?
There were too many questions, and without having anyone to ask them to, I wasn’t sure what to do.
The mage council didn’t have the necessary answers. I was close enough to them now to know that to be true. The Dark Council didn’t have answers. Had Barden known anything about what was taking place, he would have shared it. Would the shifters know anything? I hadn’t gone to Ariel with this, but even if I did, what would she say? When it came to information about the other side of the Veil, I had a sense that Ariel had a distinct type of knowledge, but it also had limitations, the same way the mage councils had limitations. I didn’t know enough of the vampires to go to them, but after having survived an attack, I didn’t necessarily want to go to them. I certainly couldn’t go to the Siren family, though there were other families active within Minneapolis that I could approach.
And Sharon had revealed that she had gone to the Seelie queen. She might’ve gotten back to Sharon, but if she had, I suspected there would’ve been some information about how to remove these spells.
There was another place I could go, but it was a place I had avoided.
And I would still avoid. I couldn’t go to Solera with questions. Not only did I not trust her, but I feared what she might do. I feared how powerful she was, especially when connected to her source of power. I had stolen from her once before, and had little doubt that she would find some way to take vengeance for it if I approached her.
I stared at the river a moment longer. Ice collected along the shore, but the water near the center of the river continued to flow freely. It was early for ice to be forming like this, especially on the Mississippi, where the current flowed steadily downstream. Power emanated from the river as it always did. Since I had accepted my magic, allowing myself to reach for it, I had been more attuned to the sensation of power that came with it, and much more aware of how things like the Mississippi River, along with other rivers like the St. Croix and the Minnesota, all carried with them power related to their ley lines.
The power was still here, but it was altered, shifted in a way that it had not been before, and I debated a moment before stepping forward and dipping my toe toward the water. Someone shouted behind me, but I ignored it.
With my toe in the water, I ignored the freeze and the cold, choosing to fight off the frost that threatened to overpower me. It was stupid to do this, but I had to know. Ever since climbing into the river the night before, feeling the way the spell shifted the power flowing within it, I had been aware of something unusual.
And it was time to see if my recovery had allowed me to regain some measure of connection to the ley lines.
I could restore myself if it came to it, though perhaps my recovery the last time had been more chance than anything else. It was possible that if I were to get injured by the spell, somehow changed by that magic, I wouldn’t be lucky enough—if I could call it that—to find a dying magical user to borrow power from in order to save myself.
The power of the river flowed over me.
Whatever it was felt different than it had when I had been in the Mississippi before, trying to use that power to save Aron. I’m not sure why I should detect it so clearly, but it was there, the nature of the power flowing over me, filling me… almost as if it were adding to my stores of power.
I staggered back, pulling my foot out of the water.
A shout from behind me caught my attention and I turned.
“Aron?”
He stood near the shore, arm stretched out as if he were to grab me, wearing nothing more than a jacket and tight-fitting jeans. His icy blue eyes didn’t shine with the recognition I longed for, but there was something within them. Could it be concern?
“Dr. Michaels. You are not to be here.”
“And why am I not to be here?”
“I was instructed to ensure your safety.”
“Instructed by who?”
“Members of the council.”
I tapped my boot on the shore, trying to shake the water free. My foot was cold, but it wasn’t terribly unpleasant, and with magic flowing through me, I was able to ignore the cold in a way that I wouldn’t have otherwise managed to do.
“I don’t need members of the council to keep an eye on me.”
I didn’t like speaking to Aron in such a way, especially as he didn’t know what he was doing. At least, I believed that he didn’t know. It was easier that way.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
“And why not?”
“The council is trying to determine how this spell interacts with the ley line here.”
At least the council believed that much. I wasn’t sure whether they would take the threat seriously or not. “I think the council needs to be focused more on how this spell allows an interaction with the other side of the Veil.”
“They are trying to determine that, as well. They have missives out waiting for a response.”
I started to smile, unable to help myself. “Missives?”
“As I said, they are waiting for a response.”
I glanced back at the water, deciding to try another tactic. “Do you remember being in the water with me?”
“We’ve had these conversations before.”
“I know that we have, but I’m just wondering whether you have any memory of being here with me.”
“I have none,” he said.
At least that was honest. It didn’t make it any less painful, but the honesty helped. “You were dying. You’d been shot by what I can only suspect was a bullet marked with a rune that allowed it to penetrate your barrier. Otherwise, from what I understand, you would be able to defend yourself against such attacks. You were bleeding, the kind of injury that most who come to the emergency room don’t survive. I tried healing you, but I wasn’t strong enough. I brought you to the river, a shore that wasn’t all that different from this, and laid you down, letting the water flow over you.”
I couldn’t look up at him. The memory of that night came crashing back over me, and my voice caught as I spoke, though I needed to get the words out. In all the times that I had been working with Aron, trying to understand what had happened to him, I hadn’t revisited that night.
“Even drawing on the power of the ley line flowing through
here wasn’t enough. As much as I tried, I wasn’t able to save you. I have a connection to death. I don’t know what it is or why I have it, but it’s there, and I had started to feel you dying. When I felt that, I tried to push it away, tried to do whatever I could to stop it, but the injury to you was too much. And though I tried, you started to pass away.”
Silence fell between us for a moment and I thought that he might say something about his lack of memory the way that he often did, but he did not. The silence allowed me to continue.
“Power comes with dying. I don’t really understand it, and I never have, but it does. I discovered that I could use that power. It makes me feel something like the Grim Reaper, but with death, there’s a surge of magic. In your case and others like you who have considerable magic, that surge is significant. It strengthens me, and I used that strength, combined with the power flowing through the river, to try and save you. I thought that I had failed.”
I licked my lips and swallowed, staring out across the water. Lights glittered on the surface, making it look beautiful and peaceful, though the Mississippi was powerful and not peaceful. I had thought the river was unforgiving, the magic hidden beneath it unable to help me at the one time that I wanted it to, and somehow I had succeeded in spite of that.
“Death comes for all of us,” Aron said.
“It does, but I didn’t want it to come for you.”
“Why?” Aron asked.
“Because I care about you.” I turned to him, looking up at him, meeting his empty blue eyes. “I wasn’t able to articulate it very well, but I care about you. And I think you were starting to care about me, too. Neither of us were good at such things, me especially. I’ve been always so focused on myself and my career that I never took the time to spend with someone else. And yet, with you, it was different.”
I wasn’t sure exactly why Aron was different. He was everything that I thought was not my type. At the same time, he had become exactly my type. I think it was the quiet strength, but maybe it was more about the fact that he respected me for who I was and what I was without passing judgment on either. Too many men I had been around were threatened by strong women. Even though Aron was older than me, we had shared that simple connection.
“I’m sorry that I don’t remember,” he said.
With the words, the dam broke within me that I hadn’t realized was there. I started crying, sobbing, with tears streaming down my face. I had tried to be strong about all of it, had tried to hide my sadness when I was around Aron, but being out here, reminded of the night that he had died, I no longer could hold it in.
And then he had not been dead. I thought that I had saved him, thought that I had brought him back, but even that was an empty victory. Aron had died that night, the man that I knew and had begun to care about was no longer, leaving me with someone new, someone without those memories… and someone who needed to be supported the same way that I needed to be supported.
I had been so focused on myself, so focused on trying to do whatever I could to heal him to bring him back for my own selfish reasons, that I hadn’t taken the time to think about how he was dealing with all of this. It had to be incredibly difficult for him, too, and not just for me and others who cared about him.
“What are you thinking about all of this?” I asked.
“Dr. Michaels?”
“I haven’t really asked how you feel.”
Aron stared at me, and in that moment, I wondered if perhaps he might not answer me, but his jaw clenched briefly before he took a deep breath. “There have been many people who have come to visit, and all of them talk about this person that I was, this person that I can’t remember. I remember magic. That is my memory, but even that is tainted somehow. I want to remember the person that I was, if only because the person everyone talks about sounds like a good man.”
“You are a good man,” I said.
“I am an empty man,” Aron said. “For now, I have magic and the council, and that is it. I will serve the council, and I will use my magic to do so, and perhaps in time the memories of who I was will come back to me.”
I couldn’t tell from the way he said it if he cared if those memories came back. Maybe he didn’t care, though I cared, so I wanted him to care.
“Do you want to learn more about yourself?” When he didn’t answer, I smiled tightly. “It’s okay if you don’t. You’re not going to hurt my feelings if you tell the truth.” Even that was a lie, though I tried to hide the fact that it would hurt me. It would hurt me deeply and greatly, especially as I wanted him to want the person back as much as I did.
“The council has tried with magic. You have tried with your medicine. There seems to be nothing that will work.”
And maybe there was nothing that could work. I had tried with medicine, but I had also tried with magic, searching to see whether I could reach that part of him that had been lost, but it hadn’t come to me. And maybe it wouldn’t. Without having an understanding of my magic, it was possible that there wasn’t anything that I could do for him.
“If you want to know more, I will work with you. We haven’t done everything possible to help you.”
“What more could you do?”
I took a deep breath. “There is a person who might know a way of helping. She’s a person that I angered, but you also have a connection to her.” There was an obligation, though only Aron had known what that obligation was. Without knowing what price he would have to pay for Solera’s help, I wasn’t sure that it was safe for us to go to her.
“And yet this person has not come to me.”
“Because she can’t.”
“Why can’t she?”
“She’s exiled. As one of the fae, she is trapped, forced to be apart from the world that she loves. But she is dangerous, so if we went to her, any help that she might have would potentially carry with it consequences that we may not want.”
“What sort of consequences?”
I shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. When it comes to Solera, there is a price. I don’t know what price she would exact for this.”
Aron stared at me for a moment. “I would have to ask the council.”
I could only nod. What else was there for me to do? Even in this, Aron was different. And I suspect that this person would never have gone to Solera in the first place. I doubt that this person would ever have gone to Ariel in the first place.
I started away from the shore, watching Aron for a moment, and then turned away from him. It was too painful. When I reached the top of the shore, I headed straight toward the spell, staring at it for a long moment. Power radiated from it, confined by whatever magic the council had used to hold it in place, yet I had to wonder whether the council would be successful in maintaining that hold indefinitely. If this was tied to the ley lines, eventually they would be overpowered. They would have to be.
Yet, there remained something about the ley lines and the sense I had when dipping my toe into the Mississippi River that had been different. Changed. Much the way my magic had been changed.
That was the answer we needed to find. That was the key to whatever the strangely powerful mage intended.
And maybe that was what I needed to search for. I had experienced that power three times now, and I might be the only one who understood the way it influenced things, particularly how it impacted the connection across the Veil.
Summoning my sword once again, I did nothing to hide it, revealing myself to the other mages in park. I took a swipe at the spell, but the protections around it prevented me from reaching it.
The mages watching the park started toward me and I released my hold on the sword and headed away from the park. I needed answers, and they weren’t going to be found here.
11
The warehouse looked the same as it did the last time I was here, though perhaps it was better protected than it had been. Spells surrounded it, power emanating from the warehouse, surrounding it and leaving me with a biting chill along my spin
e.
There couldn’t be that many magic users within the warehouse, so the amount of magic they had placed around the warehouse itself must’ve been incredible.
I waited, motionless, saying nothing as I stood at the door. Eventually Darvish or Barden and one of their people would come, and then they would open the door.
I wasn’t expecting Florence.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I came to see Barden.”
“He’s been a little busy these days with the spells that have been placed throughout the city.”
“That’s the reason I’m here.”
“And he’s not, so I’m not sure what you expect to find.”
“I was expecting to find someone that I have a working relationship with.” I still didn’t have a good read on Florence and wasn’t sure why she seemed to immediately dislike me, though the feeling was somewhat mutual.
“Listen. You’re not one of us. We have been hunted long enough that some of us are a little sensitive to such things.”
Could that be why she reacted that way with me? “I’m not a mage, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You might not be a mage, but you are related to one of the counselors, aren’t you?”
“My grandmother isn’t quite the same as most of the mage counselors.”
“She didn’t try to burn off dark magic?”
“Well—”
“I’ll let Barden know that you stopped by.”
She started to close the door when I pushed my hand out, preventing her from shutting me off. “I just need to know if you’ve figured anything out about these spells. There was another one placed last night, and it’s a little different in the way that it works. It’s tied into the ley line that runs beneath Mississippi, and in order for us to be able to prevent this, we need to understand just what it is that these spells are doing. I know that you were there. Barden said you got a picture of it.”
“I got a picture of it,” Florence agreed.
“All I need to know is how it compares to some of the others.”