He kept his eyes open, watching the opalescent light of the chamber play over the dragon’s hide. No silver. In fact, the light became a distraction. He closed his eyes. At his center was an absence of magic, but in an odd way he could feel the dimension of the space it had once occupied. Hollow, cold and distant, like the void of outer space.
If travelling from portal to portal via the in-between was a crazy chaos of overwhelming, jumbled sensory input, this was its opposite. But there was something there, something that solidified in his mind even if not tangibly as he chased it.
Channels from his center out to the world. These were the paths through which he’d sucked in magic. He’d not noticed them before because the golden cords of magic had blazed too brightly, obscuring the superstructure that supported them.
Everything faded away, replaced by a vision of himself suspended in a void, pierced by wires of blackness. Magic had poured along those channels, filling him, enabling him to impose his will on the world. Now that magic was gone.
His physical body jolted violently. His vision self convulsed. Golden light flared once in his center and radiated out, lost.
He’d burned out.
He floated in the void. Layers. His center, the world, his body. A total absence of light.
Sparks of silver. One, ten, countless hundreds. Galaxies of patterned movement.
They came closer, touched his vision self.
He screamed.
He opened his eyes and saw Gina huddled on her chair, Morag tall in the center of the chamber, and found himself, floating in midair by the dragon’s raised head. Silver coated his body like icicles. He angled his feet down, as a diver would, and landed lightly.
Silver light danced patterns over and through Gina. He saw her: her life force and magic. The silver light chased along the paths of qi energy. It made her a silver figurine, beautiful and unreal. Exquisite and untouchable.
He blinked and looked at Morag. At least the dragon was unfamiliar. She didn’t have humanity to lose in this new clarity of sight. She soared high, double the size of what was her three dimensional body. That stood within a framework of a silver wire dragon with its massive silver wings unfurled.
The silver dragon smiled.
Lewis flinched at the display of teeth and his clarity of sight faltered. Ordinary, familiar human vision reclaimed him. He concentrated and the silver light returned, overlaying what he’d previously considered the real world.
“Well done,” Morag said. “Now, let it go. You’ll find the sight whenever you want it. Rest.”
He released his concentration on clarity of sight.
Fatigue swallowed him whole. He widened his stance to keep from falling. He was wary of the black dragon in front of him. Unsure what the silver sight meant. It was as if the silver had crystallized inside him. He was freezing, but didn’t care.
“Take him home, Gina,” Morag said. “He needs food and sleep.”
“Lewis?” Gina said uncertainly.
He tore his gaze from the dragon. What was Morag? Alien, yes. What were her intentions? Why had she helped him—was this helping him? The world looked wrong, as if he was a visitor, long gone from home, who’d just returned. He was disconnected.
“Lewis.” Gina clasped his hand.
Her skin was shockingly warm. He fancied he could feel her blood pulse. It pulsed through him like the beat of a drum, driving out the unnatural silver chill. He closed his fingers around hers.
She looked at Morag.
It must have been a signal because abruptly they were back in Gina’s closet. Morag had translocated them. Gina opened her hand to release his, and he had to force his fingers to unlock.
She opened the closet door and dim light filtered into the hallway. It was night on Cape Cod. Electric lighting switched on, yellow and normal, as she walked towards the kitchen.
He followed her, lured less by the thought of food than by an unwillingness to lose her company.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anyone attain clarity of sight. It looked…terrifying. Painful. Do you need a painkiller?”
“I don’t hurt. I feel cold.”
“Cold? Do you want a blanket? I could put a hot water bottle in your bed. A warm drink.” She moved towards the kettle.
“No, nothing.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Morag said you should eat.”
He shrugged. Food didn’t interest him. But she riveted his attention.
Gina frowned. She put the kettle on and took the blueberry pie out of the fridge and cut two large slices, adding dollops of cream. “Eat.” She put a plate in front of the chair he’d sat in earlier. Then she put a hand on his shoulder, urging him to sit.
He groaned.
Two hands on his shoulders, turning him urgently to face her. “What’s wrong?”
“You shouldn’t touch me,” he said.
She removed her hands, instantly.
He swayed forward.
“Lewis!” She put her hands on his chest, supporting him.
He ducked his head, forehead to forehead, not quite touching. “You make me feel alive. The silver light is cold. When you touch me…” His whole body reacted. He suspected Viagra was a limp imitation of the effect of her impersonal touch. He wanted to drown in her. “Warm honey.”
“Pardon?”
“You could melt over me like warm honey. I would like that.”
Her eyes widened. But her hands stayed on his chest.
So close. He could feel her breath on his face.
“Morag didn’t warn me of side effects,” she said.
“The silver light is cold. I went far away. Darkness. Nothingness. I can feel your heat. I can imagine your magic. House witch. I’m in your home. You’re wrapped around me.”
She withdrew her hands. They trembled before she folded her arms. “I’m in front of you.”
He touched his tongue to his lower lip. “I can taste you. Vanilla and rose. Mint and honey. Woman.” He forced himself to step back. “I need to leave.”
“You need to eat and sleep.” Her arms dropped, abandoning defensiveness.
“Away from here.”
She drew a shuddering breath and he couldn’t stop himself looking at how her breasts rose. Her bra concealed the outline of her nipples behind the flimsy barrier of her t-shirt. Her breathing quickened, her breasts rising and falling. He stared like a teenage boy ensnared by hormones. His palms tingled with phantom promise of how her breasts would fill his hands.
“We’re strangers. We can’t have sex to warm you up,” she said.
“I know. I’ll leave.” He turned clumsily for the door. He had his own sexual ethics. It was about self-respect as much as respecting his partner.
“But I want to taste the hunger in you,” she finished.
He rocked to a halt, his hand on the door. He bowed his head, resting it against the cool wood.
“A kiss.” Her voice was husky. “I want to know what clarity of sight feels like.”
“Kissing me won’t show you.” Being truthful hurt. He ached to touch her.
She walked up behind him and placed a hand on his back.
He flattened himself against the door, leaning away from her, fighting for control, unable to leave. Utterly unable to resist.
Both her hands on his back, up to his shoulders, and down, tracing his muscles, down to his butt. His hips jerked.
She pressed into him, stretching up. “One kiss.”
He turned so fast that she stumbled and he caught her. Her body scalded him. He leaned his back into the door. If he stayed there, shoulders touching it, he couldn’t do anything she didn’t want. He slid down the door just enough to bring their mouths level. She could choose if their hips aligned. He waited.
Gina burned. Lewis had attracted her at first sight. She knew he wasn’t really interested in her. This was some weird consequence of attaining clarity of sight. Perhaps any woman would have triggered his arousal. But with
him watching her as if she was a sex goddess and talking about tasting her, promising to have her melt over him like warm honey. She was wet.
A kiss. They could both handle one kiss.
She wanted to know, to share, the experience of clarity of sight. In Morag’s home, Lewis had appeared tortured. His scream had been agonizing. Even now he seemed different. He was a voyager back from an unknown dimension, part of him still lost. But his eyes…wherever he’d been, whatever he’d seen, he was now utterly focused on her. And that was seductive.
He’d caught her when she stumbled and his hands remained at her waist, large and gentle. He waited. For all that he’d been staring at her breasts as if they starred in his erotic fantasies, he made no move to caress them.
He stared at her mouth. She’d specified one kiss, and he waited for it.
She looked into his eyes. “Kiss me.”
His mouth swallowed the “me”. He kissed her hard, nothing tentative, no suggestion of learning one another’s kissing quirks. He kissed her as a lover would, a lover coming home. He claimed, he took, and he gave…bliss.
“Don’t stop.” She panicked when he broke the kiss. Her lips were swollen, kiss-bruised. The flavor of him intoxicated her.
He tipped his head back against the door, his throat exposed, and she kissed it, maybe sucked on it a little. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. His fingers dug into her hips.
She realized she was rubbing up against him, with his fingers squeezing her hips in rhythm to her thrusts. She froze. That was well beyond a kiss. Well beyond safe boundaries for however long they’d have to associate till Morag had taught him the Deeper Path.
Gina struggled to surface. The cover story for the Collegium was that she was his girlfriend, but that wasn’t the truth. It would be too complicated to be the truth. She knew that. Maybe he could claim that he was out of his mind at the moment, influenced by attaining clarity of sight, but she didn’t have that excuse. What would he think of her once this whatever it was wore off?
What would she think of herself?
Commonsense demanded that she save herself. There’d only be heartache in getting involved with Lewis.
Her heart pounded. His chest heaved against hers with rough, aroused breathing. She pushed away, retreated several steps and leaned against the kitchen table. They stared at one another.
His breathing evened out. He managed a slight, wry smile. “I’m not cold anymore.”
She half-laughed. “No, you’re not cold.”
He raked a hand through his short blond hair. “I haven’t been that out of control in years.”
“You weren’t out of control. You didn’t even move your hands from my hips.”
“You think that means I was in control?” He shook his head, finally straightening from the door. “Gina, I was hanging by a thread. If you’d invited, I’d have taken.”
Their gazes locked.
“Pie.” She cleared her throat. “Morag said you should eat. There’s pie on the table.” He could still leave, insist on taking the portal back to New York immediately. But she needed him to stay. Rational or not, she couldn’t handle him walking away.
He pulled out his chair and sat at the table.
“I’ll make tea.” She hid her relieved sigh. “Herbal okay with you?”
“That’s fine.”
She made the tea and sat kitty-corner to him at the table, trying not to imagine what else they could have done with the cream on the pie.
“Will what we did cause problems?” he asked. “Are you still willing to provide the cover story of being my girlfriend?”
“Oh. Those kind of problems.” Not the kind where she thought about cold showers or simply running into the ocean so it steamed instead of her. “Morag still has to teach you the Deeper Path. You’ll need a reason to be away from the Collegium.”
His fork scraped the plate, a tiny grating sound as he chased a final bite of pie. He seemed utterly intent on it. “We also had a deal that I’d have the same number of cover visits for my personal use.”
Understanding washed over her. “That’s the real reason you agreed to meet Morag. You don’t care about the Deeper Path.”
He looked up. “I’m interested. The silver light is unusual.”
“But your personal quest is more important to you. What on Earth is it?”
Chapter 4
Lewis considered Gina’s impulsive question.
She wanted to know what was more important to him than the different magic Morag offered to teach him. To Gina, clarity of sight and the Deeper Path were a holy grail. She wanted them desperately, envied him greatly.
But Gina wasn’t a guardian. She didn’t bear the weight of lives lost because of her stupidity.
He did.
Other magic users remembered the two hundred and sixteen people saved when he held back the ice storm in the North West Passage. He remembered the five men who died when their helicopter crashed. The storm had come out of nowhere, summoned by a weather mage, and the weather mage had been hired by the Group of 5 to distract and destroy Lewis.
And I fell for it.
Silver light flickered, spinning out and across Gina’s kitchen, lighting patterns and objects, curling around the herbs on the windowsill and frilling like silver lace against the darkness outside. He blinked and the silver light vanished. Apparently, emotions could erratically enable it, which told him he would need Morag’s help to learn how he controlled it.
“It’s none of my business,” Gina said. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll honor our deal. As many times as you visit Morag, you are free to claim to be visiting me, your fake girlfriend. Where you go from here…I won’t question.”
“If I used the portal, would Emmaline keep the secret of my travels?”
“Yes. She’s strongly against surveillance.” Gina replaced her mug on the table and laughed. “It’s ironic. Emmaline generally identifies the Collegium as snoopers, and now she’ll be helping its president to move around secretly.”
“Her portal isn’t registered with the Collegium?”
“It is, but she doesn’t like oversight, whether Collegium, government or even concerned family. She is frail, though, so we watch her anyway.”
“I won’t bring trouble to her door.” He swallowed some herb tea. It tasted of straw and medicine to him. He wasn’t a fan. “Would it be possible to use a burn phone while I’m here? Would your privacy wards prevent it being tracked?”
She stared at him for a long moment, then faintly shook her head. “Do you remember what I do?”
“You’re a dragon knight.”
“That doesn’t actually occupy a lot of my time.”
He resisted asking what the role did involve. If he wasn’t answering questions, he couldn’t ask them. He recalled their meeting. “You said you’re a software consultant.”
“Ye-es.” She drew it out as if waiting for him to understand some obvious point.
“Is that a euphemism for hacker?” he asked.
“It’s a hint that I have the skills to hack. A lot of my work is searching out vulnerabilities in new software.”
“Hacking.” He finally understood. “So you’ve taken precautions to ensure people can’t track your online activities back to your home.”
“I have a room filled with tech equipment and a garden filled with wards. Whatever you’re doing, it won’t be traced.” She watched him over her mug of tea.
She didn’t offer. He’d have to ask. But she’d put it out there: she had the skills to help him with his quest.
She could be an ally.
“How well do you know the Collegium?” he asked.
“I know it was created after the First World War to protect mundanes from the horrors of war amplified by magic. The decision was that we, magic users, would police our own.”
“And protect our own. People forget that bit. Individual magic users are vulnerable. The Collegium reassures them that they’re not alone. If they
encounter trouble, or simply observe something suspicious, they report it to us. We recruit widely and we strive to reflect the broad range of magical capabilities out there. We need to understand the issues people are experiencing.”
“Did the previous president feel that way?”
“You know the story?”
“Your predecessor fell under a demon’s influence and—”
“No,” he interrupted. “No. When a story is told and retold, people blur or forget important distinctions. It was Richard’s personal assistant, Nancy Yu, who summoned a demon and fell under its control. The demon used Richard’s obsession with power to isolate him from the senior Collegium mages. Something that Nancy facilitated. Richard’s daughter, Fay, banished the demon a month ago, and I’m—we’re—still discovering the damage it did as it burrowed into the heart of the Collegium. It tainted how some people thought, twisting their actions.”
“You don’t know who to trust,” she said slowly.
“Ninety eight percent of our members are well-intentioned, but their decision-making might be scarred from the demon’s time. Even those not tainted…knowing the demon infiltrated has unnerved some people.” For instance, his own replacement as commander of the guardians. Kora wanted to protect him in his new role by surrounding him with guardians. He wanted to work alone. Was he wrong? Richard—with Nancy Yu and the demon’s assistance—had isolated himself as president, and that had brought the Collegium to the brink of disaster. People hadn’t been close enough to Richard to detect the demon’s presence.
He understood that Kora feared that situation repeating, but allowing the guardians to surround him as president strained the relationships he had to build with all of the Collegium’s departments and senior mages. If they thought him captured by guardian interests, that would stress the Collegium’s operations in new ways. The institution could implode from infighting, and from information and support withheld.
Kora thought he was being obstructive as a result of his sensitivity to his loss of magic. She refused to heed the political reality he saw so starkly.
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