by Jo Schneider
Lys nodded. “Yes.”
“And you?” She directed this question to Ayden. “Why would you help us? Aren’t you still with your daddy?”
Ayden shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” he said softly. “My brother was a smell user, just like Mason and me. When he broke—he was just seven years old—he never came out of it.” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “We had to kill him. No one else was supposed to have to go through it like that. That’s why we . . . at least that’s why I thought we were doing all of this.” He glanced around at each of them. “I guess I was wrong.”
Mark appeared in the circle. “Why don’t you let me do it?” he asked, looking at Brady.
In her mind’s eye, Lys could see the book from Mason’s library. The five magic users. The fighting. The one that was saved.
“Brady has to do it,” Lys said. Everyone looked at her. “Be-because we need a healer.”
“A healer?” Mark asked. “How do you know?” His gaze bore into Lys.
“I saw it,” she said, “in Mason’s book. In the scene I saw the touch user heal one of the others.”
Ayden and Mark exchanged an eyebrow-raised glance.
“You didn’t see it?” Lys asked, a lump rising in her throat.
Brady bent down and placed his fingertips on the pulsing stone. He closed his eyes. “I can feel it,” he said. His eyebrows furrowed together. “I can feel the cracks like Mark’s leg.” Eyes opening, Brady looked at Lys. “I think I can fix it.”
A burst of magic forced them all to flinch away. Lys saw another chunk of the runes disappear.
“If we’re going to try, we need to do it now,” she said. “The plug is almost gone.”
“I will do it,” Kamau said, looking at his sister. She shook her head. Neither spoke, but after a moment Kamau nodded. “Please, be careful.”
The girl stepped forward and took Lys’s hand. She held out her other hand for Inez. Inez accepted and Brady gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Lys saw the other girl smile. Why was it that in the midst of saving the world that she would be so happy for those two? Lys felt Kamau’s fingers squeeze her shoulder as she took Ayden’s hand.
Mark and Peter stepped back, and the moment the others got into position and linked, Lys felt an even more overwhelming force assault her than before. The magic felt more demanding this time. Like the Need and the frog—a primal instinct, and something she wasn’t sure she could control.
Inez gasped and Brady stood stunned for a few seconds.
“Try to balance the magic,” Lys said.
“Balance?” Inez asked, her voice strained. “You want me to balance this?”
Whereas before the magic had been beautiful, now it was flaring and pulsing. The vine-like tendrils jerked back and forth, writhing like snakes. Even the golden light changed, turning more brown.
Ayden spoke. “Brady has a lot of extra power. Try to dial it back a bit kid, and the rest of us will have to let it loose.”
Let it loose?
You can control it. The words came in Lys’s mind—Kamau’s sister again.
Lys wondered how the girl spoke directly into her thoughts, but didn’t ask. She didn’t believe the words anyway. She couldn’t resist the pull. If she had to go in again, Lys knew she wouldn’t come back out. She wished she could tell her parents she loved them one last time.
Before she could change her mind, Lys obliterated the wall holding her magic back. Power rushed through her body like a song. Every nerve ending tingled, and her senses exploded. She felt like she was glowing brighter than the sun.
“This first one is mine,” Ayden said. His voice came as a surprise. Lys had almost forgotten their purpose.
Lys watched Ayden’s face as magic that had been shot through the top of the arch got pulled back and into him. The glow returned, now angry brown instead of golden. Ayden’s features contorted in pain and anguish. His hand clamped down around Lys’s, and sweat trickled down from his hair.
“What did they look like?” he asked in a raspy voice. “The runes,” he said, looking at Lys.
Lys found that she could recall the symbols with exactly clarity. She fixed them in her mind and did her best to infuse them into the stream of magic. It must have worked because he closed his eyes and shot the magic from his body back into the plug.
In an almost reversal of what had happened a few minutes before, the chunks of stone dropped from the magical fountain, back onto the plug. The stones glowed red hot for a moment, looking like cooling lava, before the runes resealed and the symbol of a nose settled in place.
Ayden went to his knees, but his hands did not let go.
“You’re next,” he said, looking up at Lys.
In her whole life, she never imagined that she would be called upon to bear a burden such as this. She remembered all too clearly the way the magic made her feel as she pulled the plug, and Lys was certain that she would not be able to go through it again. Not and be sane afterward.
As she closed her eyes, she silently said goodbye to her life, her family and all that she held dear. The magic would consume her, leaving nothing behind but want and need. But if the rest of the world could go on, she would do it.
Lys called the magic back to her. The flow from the arch slowed, and as she continued to pull, it reversed directions. Power started to fill her, and it took only a few seconds before she once again felt like a balloon about to pop.
The thought of letting it go hurt more than Kamau’s betrayal had. Her stomach wrenched inside of her body, and tears poured down her cheeks.
“Do it,” Ayden said.
Lys let the power linger for a split second, before she shoved it back at the plug, putting the image of what the symbols looked like with the magic.
A stream of magic shot from her and hit the plug like a fist against a board. The runes reappeared, as did the stone, and a moment later, her part was done.
As soon as the last of the power left her, Lys knew why people killed themselves. Not one scrap of happiness, light, or hope remained in her.
“Just let me die,” she said in a whisper as she too went to her knees.
“Sound is next,” Ayden said, his voice hollow. Lys wondered how he could keep going if he felt anything like she did.
“I am ready,” Kamau’s sister said.
Lys knelt on the ground. Her head weighed a ton, and her eyeballs would barely swivel to look at Kamau’s sister’s feet.
“You have to hold on,” Kamau’s voice said in Lys’s ear. “You must help them finish.”
Lys didn’t even have the energy to shake her head, or tell him to leave her alone. He didn’t understand. How could he? He’d never really been affected by the crashes.
“Lys,” Ayden said. “The runes.”
Allowing her hundred-pound eyelids to close, Lys pulled up the mental picture of the sound symbols and infused them into the magic that burst from Kamau’s sister toward the bowl.
It must have worked again because Ayden said, “Inez, you’re up. Can you feel the taste magic?”
Inez muttered under her breath.
“Draw it back to you.”
Lys opened her eyes and forced her head up so she could look across at Inez. The other girl stood wide-eyed with her lips pressed together. Jagged, dark magic rained down on her from above, almost like lightning strikes.
“How much of this do I have to take in?” Inez asked, gasping for breath.
“Until there’s no more,” Ayden said.
Inez shook her head, but gritted her teeth. More magic came back to her, and she started to glow red.
“Lys,” Ayden said.
Lys didn’t care if they won. She didn’t care about anything but being filled with magic again.
“Be strong,” Kamau said in her ear. “You have to finish this.”
Irritation caused her to shoot the symbols into the magic for Inez. How dare Kamau betray her, come back, and think that he could use his magic on her.
Not only that, she could feel his body heat, as if he stood within inches of her.
“Leave me alone,” she managed to say.
He didn’t get a chance to retort. The magic surged beneath their feet, shocking Lys back toward normalcy. Before her, the plug bowed up, like someone was pushing on it from under the ground.
The surge cleared Lys’s head enough so she could think. She remembered the scene she saw from the book. “Everyone hold their part.”
“Not sure how long that will last,” Inez said.
Lys looked over at Brady. “You have to use touch to seal it,” she said. “Can you do it?”
He nodded, his long, pale face already covered in sweat. Lys recalled how hard it had been for him to control his magic before this. She bit her lip as he closed his eyes.
The ground rumbled, and Lys saw rivers of magic being pulled back through the arch and into Brady. She felt her own magic spark back to life, and the oppressive emptiness retreated a step. In her mind, images of everything around her filled the wall of television sets. Once again, some were her, others showed her the world as it was now, and yet others whispered of a new future, where no one blew up volcanoes.
“Hold the plugs,” Brady said, his voice rich and deep, like he belonged with the ancient stones. “Just a few more seconds.” He glowed like a spectral ghost. The light from the seal now looked like it resided inside of Brady. The magic swirled around him in oily, black clouds, attached to him with tendrils of golden light from the plug.
Lys pulled her attention from the images in her mind and turned it toward the sight plug. The energy beneath it tried to throw off the seal, but Lys held it firm, using pure willpower to keep it from breaking.
“That’s it, almost there,” Brady said.
One perspective from her mind drew her attention. Lys saw them all at the arch, just like they were now. But she saw herself from behind. She stood, yanking Kamau’s sister up with her. Brady pulled away from the others. Inez yelled something. Brady shook his head, smiled and threw himself onto the plug.
Sounds from the here and now filled her ears.
“Brady? What are you doing?” Inez asked, the pitch of her voice rising.
“I can’t stop. Not now. I need the magic. You know how it feels.”
Lys knew how it felt—the elation followed by the dark abyss. To have everything and then feel like you have nothing. It was too much.
“Please,” Inez said through a sob. “Please. Try to stop.”
“I can’t. I want to keep it, and if I give it up, I’ll always want it back. I told you I could fix it, I just didn’t mention that I would die.”
Lys’s eyes shot open. She stood, pulling the young girl beside her to her feet. “No!” Lys shouted, realizing that she’d seen the future a moment before.
Brady yanked his hands free, his body still pulsing with power.
“What are you doing?” Inez asked, grabbing for his hand.
Brady shook his head and smiled. “I love you. Remember that.”
Before anyone could move, Brady stepped into the hole.
Chapter 34
“No!” Inez screamed, reaching for Brady, but he was gone. For a moment nothing happened, then a force like the wind, only made of energy and magic, shot straight up from the outlet. It flowed through the hole at the apex of the arch, filling the sky, strangling the magic already there. The edges of the outlet began to crackle and spider web.
“Get back!” Ayden yelled to Inez.
Inez didn’t move. She looked into the outlet, tears streaming down her face. “No,” she said again.
The flow of magic slowed and the crawling vines dimmed. The light pulsed through the tendrils, but it began to wane. When the magic holding her to the ground ebbed, Lys fell to her hands and knees.
“Brady,” Inez cried, rushing forward. Ayden proved to be faster. He grabbed her, not allowing her near the plug.
Lys crawled. She had to see. The runes had filled in. The top layer reforming as the pieces gathered back to the plug. A great wind blew straight down from above, and Lys saw the magic returning. Golden trails in the sky retraced their path back to the arch. She watched as the magic squeezed through the gaps in the plug. As the top reformed, there were tiny spots that didn’t seal.
The runes settled in place. The tree symbol reappeared in the bottom of the bowl. The magic stopped. Silence descended.
“Did he do it?” Kamau asked.
She turned to look at him, finding his sister at his side. “I don’t know. I think so.” She didn’t know what the tiny cracks meant. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
Lys felt Kamau’s fingers reach for hers, but she couldn’t take his hand. She managed a weak smile.
Mark, who appeared beside Inez, wrapped her in a hug as she sunk to her knees. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered in a choked voice. Inez continued to cry. Eventually she grabbed Mark and clung to him. Peter crawled over, hugging Inez with tears streaming down his face.
Kamau’s sister moved around Lys and took her other hand. A slight smile creased her exhausted face.
Lys had so many questions, but she didn’t want to ask them. She didn’t want to think about what just happened, nor did she want to think about what would happen later.
“Lys,” Kamau said, “this is my younger sister, Damisi. She has some very unique abilities.”
Didn’t they all? Lys smiled down at the girl, but she had nothing of substance to say. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Damisi’s voice came in her head again. You and Kamau make a good couple.
Lys didn’t want to think about Kamau either, but she felt herself blush despite all she had been through in the last few days.
“Damisi.” Kamau’s voice was serious.
“Thank you for coming for me,” she said to her brother, this time aloud.
“Mother was upset.”
Lys sensed a story, but again, she didn’t want to talk. An emptiness filled her—a black hole that sucked her will away. Magic, Brady, her vision of the future. All these things combined into a puzzle that Lys couldn’t put together. The longing for magic lay inside of her, almost as powerful as her need, but right now exhaustion washed over her, allowing her to ignore it. The loss of Brady broke away the barriers around her heart. She could hear Inez still sobbing into Mark’s shoulder, and Lys knew that Inez had to be suffering even more. She let go of Kamau’s and Damisi’s hands and stumbled over to Inez.
“I’m so sorry.” Lys didn’t have anything else to say. She reached up and stroked the other girls’ hair.
“He’s gone,” Inez said, the words muffled by Mark’s shoulder.
“He’s gone.” Lys repeated the words as her heart broke. Could she have stopped him?
It was too much. Lys felt herself fading. She lurched to the side, barely catching herself with her hands.
“Lys!” Kamau was there immediately.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I think I’m done.”
Chapter 35
She woke to the soft murmur of voices. Cool, fresh air filled her nostrils. When Lys opened her eyes, darkness greeted her.
Darkness! Where was she? Panic forced her into a sitting position, her hand reaching out in front of her. To her relief, her fingers came into view, but they were blurred, and everything around her lurked behind a black curtain. What did the magic do to her?
Magic. Once a word symbolic of wonder—princesses, castles, wizards, knights, unicorns, love. Now Lys felt a heavy weight inside of her—the word magic a curse. She lay back down, pulling a sleeping bag up to her chin.
“Lys?” Inez’s voice asked. She turned her head to find Inez lying across from her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” The image of Brady stepping into the hole caused a lump to form in Lys’s throat—what could she say? “Where are we?” Inez would kill her if she knew Lys had known what Brady was going to do. She asked herself again if she could have stopped him.
“Some campsite in the desert
.” Inez sat up, pulling the sleeping bag tight around her.
“What about Mason?” Lys propped herself up on one elbow facing Inez.
“He got away. Those guys from the New went after him.”
Should she be rooting for the New? Did they still plan to kill her when they got the chance?
“I kind of hope they catch him,” Inez said.
Lys nodded, her mind returning to the events at the arch. “I’m sorry I collapsed. Not much of a help.” Lys looked away.
“Kamau brought you back.”
Silence descended. The mention of Kamau turned Lys to another subject she didn’t want to think about. Kamau had betrayed her, betrayed them. But then he saved them. Lys didn’t know if there were good guys and bad guys anymore.
That thought brought Lys to who really saved them. “I’m sorry about Brady,” she said.
Inez nodded. “He did it to save us.” Her voice cracked. “Why would he do something so stupid?”
“Because he’s a hero. Because of the magic. Because he loved you.”
“Don’t say he did it just for me!” Inez said, quickly wiping a tear away.
Lys shrugged. “He cared about people. He did it because he loved you and wanted to save everyone.” It was a good answer. A true answer, but not the only answer. The other part of the answer included magic and being able to live without all that power. Lys shook her head. “What time is it?”
“It has to be almost morning.” Inez shifted in her sleeping bag.
“Did everything happen yesterday?” Lys hoped she hadn’t missed several days.
“Yes.”
Lys considered her magic. “Do you feel.” Lys paused. “Empty?”
“Yeah.”
The past week felt like it had been a year long. First Mason at the hospital, the recovery facility, the New. “You guys showed up with the New,” Lys said. “What happened? Did they have Peter?”
Inez nodded. “They used Peter to track us. After they got you out of camp, Kamau explained things to, what’s his name? The guy with the red hair?”
“Doyle?” Lys ventured.
“That’s him. Kamau explained Mason’s plan. He said you told him.” Inez raised her eyebrows.