But he doesn’t leave. Instead he just wiggles through the gap in the door and tries to lean closer to see—while also scuffing up the outer edge of one of Draven’s lines.
That’s it.
I throw down the last of the stems and petals in my hands and straighten up. My voice shakes when I point from him to the door. “So help me god, if you ruin this…”
Cedric steps up and catches him by the scruff of his neck before he can do any more damage the circle, or I can do any verbal damage to the boy.
“Go, now.” He opens the door with his free hand and shoves Michael out. The young mage’s face reddens, and he stumbles to catch himself.
“I just wanted to see,” he says, his voice a high whine. It takes him a second to realize we aren’t going to budge before his face darkens and he storms off. “Fine. I don’t need you anyway.”
I know we’ve embarrassed him and worse, probably made him hate me again. If that is what it takes to get this damned ritual finished in time, then so be it. I’ll take the consequences.
After all, none of us would even be here if it wasn’t for me.
Kendall carefully steps over the lines and hands me another handful of fresh-grown daisies before sweeping up the ones I crushed in the sudden flurry of motion.
My hands must be shaking again, because Kendall reaches out to steady them. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that’s happened,” he says, quietly.
“How did you know?”
“I don’t need to be able to read minds to know what you’re thinking.” He reaches over and brushes a stray hair away from my face. He leaves his hand to linger a moment behind my ear. “I’ve known you for nearly a decade, Octavia. I know how you think.”
I shake my head. “I keep thinking that I could do all this so much faster if I could just use the watch to stop time.”
He stops for a second, his eyes on me.
“You know what I mean?” I add, quickly. “Ritual Magic would be a lot more convenient if it wasn’t such damned slow work.”
In all the time we were out doing useless work for Bram, less than an hour had passed back here in The Underground. If Flynn already progressed so much in that short time, every minute now could mean the difference between life or death or…whatever it is that’s waiting for him after the spell takes him over completely.
He’s still staring. “Then stop time.”
I snort. “You think I haven’t considered it?”
Kendall still doesn’t move. “Why not?” He glances up at the others, who are listening now. “Seriously, Octavia. We can do the rest. The ritual calls for a strong Ritual Mage, that’s all.”
I look back at him, and then slowly at the other two. “Yes, but it’ll drain me too fast. I won’t have anything left. I don’t even know if I’ll have enough time to finish then. I’m not as fast as Draven.”
Draven stops drawing with the chalk and rests in his crouched position. “Whatever it is, it’s more time than we have now,” he says. “This ritual, it’s going to take at least another half hour for me to do. We don’t know if Flynn has that kind of time.”
Cedric is nodding along.
“You might not have power of your own, but you can still lend to others. Can you draw power from your link to me and put it into Draven?”
His eyes shift from me to the Ritual Mage.
“And from me too,” Kendall adds, straightening.
I squeeze my eyes shut to concentrate.
This might work. It’s a bit of a long shot, but isn’t all of it?
When I open them, Kendall has bent back down to look me in the eyes. He lifts his hand to tilt my chin up to him. His touch is gentle, the softness once again returned to his eyes.
The pocket watch ticks in my pocket, as if adding input of its own. I guess there is only one way to find out if it’ll work.
I take the watch out, nod at Draven, and press the same dial as before.
27
Octavia
My whole body rushes with the thrill of the magic.
Even though I still stand in the same room, surrounded by Kendall, Draven, and Cedric, their consciousness’s are not here with me. I am alone in the whole world. It is this knowledge that pricks all over my body.
I know I should be reaching for the book of Ritual spells that Flynn stole but for a minute, however, I just want to look at them.
Kendall is not the only one that has changed in the months since I arrived in this new world. He’s bigger, older, his face more serious. He tries to hide it for my sake now, but I know that being separated from Wednesday and not knowing where she is, or even if she is okay, grates at him.
Draven’s hair has gotten longer and some of the tattoos on his arms have started to fade. I glance down at my own finger, where he once dotted a protection spell in ink across my skin. If I turn it just right in certain lighting, I can still see the scarred sheen of where my skin was pierced.
And then there is Cedric.
He’s begun to get better at hiding his emotions again, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. It’s still surprising to look at him sometimes and know exactly what is on his mind, but it just isn’t the Cedric that I’ve come to know and—know and care for.
That icy grip spreads to my heart and takes hold.
I think I understand what Kendall meant by what he said.
Maybe in the beginning I was selfish insisting on keeping all my powers, all of them. I didn’t know these other mages. I didn’t realize really what we were risking.
But now if my place was switched with Flynn, I’d want him to unbond me too. Powers be damned. All that matters is them.
I wish I knew how to tell them. Kendall isn’t the only one who’s lost for words sometimes. Cedric isn’t the only one who is good at hiding feelings. Draven isn’t the only mage here who projects a tougher image than what is really reeling inside.
And Flynn. Sweet, oblivious, intelligent, Flynn. I am more like him than I’m ready to admit. For all the time I’ve spent trying to do what is best for all of us, I really have no idea what I’m doing.
Until now. There is something I can do.
No more secrets. That is what I promised myself. But maybe next, there needs to be something more. I’ve been avoiding a quintessential part of this relationship with all of them. I need to stop acting like all of this is mine to deal with. We’re a team, and like the others said before, I’ve been acting like this is all my fault.
I might have pulled the trigger, but these boys—no, these men—they are the bullets.
Together, we are explosive. We are dangerous. And we’ll make it out of this place, back into our world, just fine. And whatever we find there, we’ll face it together.
I don’t know how much time has passed since I pressed the dial. It could be the instrument, or it could be that I’ve gotten stronger than the first time I cast Time Magic at Homecoming, but I don’t feel any waning yet. Those fingers that dig into my insides and try to twist all the magic out of me haven’t yet gotten a hold.
So I grab the chalk and dive into the work.
Draven has gotten the hardest parts done.
I still work as quickly as I can. Somehow the little gestures, the double chalk lines to ensure they are perfect, the rows of daisies for luck, they seem futile in this void of time. I try to think back to the little bit of training I’ve actually gotten in Ritual Magic.
Precision is everything.
I flip back to the first page of the ritual in the book and carefully read each passage. It takes me longer than I’d like. I usually avoid reading large chucks of text at a time thanks to the way the letters like to move of their own accord around the page—especially when another’s life is on the line. The last time I had to cast a Ritual spell on my own I messed up just two of the words and ruined the whole thing.
It might have saved me and Wednesday and stopped the whole mage word from being revealed, but the fact that my dyslexia ruined it stil
l stands. I pause, one hand hovering over where I’m placing the bleached bones of a small bird. The bones are so light and hollow, I know that just pressing hard between two of my fingers will snap them. The texture is smooth and soft in my hand.
I place it gently down into place, the petrified beak facing inward as instructed.
Is that what it really instructed?
I look over the line of text once more. I’m sure I’ve done it right, but something still nags me as off.
It isn’t until I’ve read through several times that I realize what it is.
The issue doesn’t lie with how Draven has set up the ritual, but with the ritual in question. Rituals are known for being performed with careful precision, but this one is sloppy at best. My eyes scan the page. This unbonding ceremony was made to sever a mage from his partner, but there is no provision for mages with multiple partners. Even if we try to add some kind of aspect that will direct the magic towards his Psychic bond, we’ve only just assumed up until now that the bonds work like separate branches. Jessica is Psychic. I am Earth. But what if the bonds are messier than that?
I sit back on the tops of my heels. What if unbonding him isn’t enough? It’s the magic inside him that’s killing him. If his ties to Jessica and his poisoned magic are more complicated than we assumed, if it runs through both kinds of magic he performs, then the ritual will do nothing.
We’ll be left at the beginning without any power left to help him.
There has to be another option.
My eyes fall down to the book once more. I peel the last page back to view the ritual on the other side. I flip through a couple more, my eyes barely scanning their names, until I come across another one that’s been marked. The top corner has been folded down neatly in the way that only Flynn does.
It is a new ritual. It does not so much break the bonds Flynn has as it does completely reverse the effects of the entire affinity ritual.
This is certainly something the academy would never have kept on file in their library.
Did Flynn mark this on purpose?
I flip back to the other page. This was certainly the one he meant for us to try when he gave me the book. But the other spell…he must have marked it for a reason.
We have to break the bond, that much is certain. So long as Flynn is attached to vile Jessica, that poison will spread and he will eventually, probably quite quickly, die.
But what if we were to purposefully completely sever both bonds? Or more than that, we could stop up his access to magic altogether.
Just the thought makes me blanch. Flynn would awake from fitfully induced sleep to find he’s not only unbonded to Jessica, but to me as well. He was ready to bargain away his Psychic magic, but how about the rest of it too?
There is nothing written here that Flynn could not be bonded to me again once all is finished. We have the affinity objects. It could be done. But if we are going to do it properly, then we’re going to have to make sure there aren’t any messy loose ends left dangling.
We can’t risk doing the first ritual.
I am going to have to purposefully sever our bond if we want the chance to save it. And I’m going to have to take away Flynn’s powers for a while in order to do it.
I stretch out my fingers and try to gauge how much time I have left. There isn’t really a way to tell exactly, but though I know the potion must be wearing off soon, I don’t feel like I’ve quite reached my limit.
I take out the pocket watch and look it over once more. It, like all the rest of the world right now, is silent. I turn it over in my hands, examining the symbols carved into the sides once more, careful not to press any dials. This device is an artifact of its own. I see now how Bram can, time and time again, do powerful magic tearing between the planes without ever reaching those painful limits I’ve experienced firsthand myself.
Maybe with this, I am even more powerful than I thought.
Powerful enough, perhaps, to escape The Underground?
First, Flynn must be saved. Then…who knows. Maybe the gift Bram gave me will end up being his undoing.
28
Flynn
My sleep was not peaceful, dreaming, nightmarish, or fitful—as far as I was concerned, I never slept at all. But when I open my eyes and look up into the faces of Octavia, Cedric, Draven, and Kendall, I immediately know that I am not only no longer in the nurse’s office. I am also not about to get any rest any time soon.
The burning sensation that strengthened until it felt like my whole body was on fire returns full force. My lips part, chapped and close to bleeding, and I cannot stop from groaning. I try to lift my heavy arm to my face, but I stop.
Black tendrils have spread to wrap around my forearm in black swirling patterns. The skin is tender and prickling with pain.
Octavia leans in close and puts a hand on my forehead. The touch should be cool against my burning skin, but all it does is alight with more pain. I groan again, and blink. And just like that Octavia is gone. Hands are prying me up from the bed, pulling my body up and over onto concrete.
I want to lift my head up to see her again, but my muscles spasm beyond my control. It takes everything in me to just stay conscious. For a second, I forget where the root of this pain comes from and I try to reach out to her with my Psychic power. A massive headache sears from the back of my head to rest in the spot between my eyes.
It curls and spreads through all my body, pulsing in the black soured magic.
My hands clench at my side. At least I still have that much control.
The motions of the others around me seem odd and blurred. I think I am swimming in and out of consciousness. Even though whatever I was given to make me sleep is wearing off, it isn’t drowsiness that I feel. A creeping, nagging sensation tugs at the back of my mind—telling me not to fall asleep.
Sleep now might mean something permanent. Even through all the pain, the burning of my skin, the screaming of me veins, still one thought struggles to the surface amongst all the others. And with it, so does the image of Octavia’s face.
I must survive this.
The last I remember, they were discussing whether or not to try the unbonding ceremony. I think they were trying to fetch Cedric’s father. We’ve had our differences in the past, the Davenports and I, but I can’t think of a man I’d rather have in charge of the ritual.
But even now with my limited capacity, when I inch my head a bit to the side, and then the next, I don’t see him. His son bends over me and presses a hand to either side of my head. He says something, but it comes out too muffled to understand.
It takes me another second to realize it’s because they aren’t words in any of the languages I understand—but instead, the first words of an incantation I’ve never had the opportunity to witness myself.
But even in the midst of my addled mind, I know immediately which one.
He’s not performing the unbonding ceremony. He’s performing something else. This can’t be right.
Just as quickly as he appeared, Cedric’s face swims out of view. I see shadowy figures hovering just out of my field of vision all around me. I blink several times again. I feel like my wits are coming back to me slowly, but my vision is not.
My glasses. I need my glasses to see.
But when I part my lips again, all that comes forth is another groan. I can’t speak. I can’t see them. Concrete presses up against my back. It is cold against the burning of my skin, but the texture rough enough to pull against the hairs plastered to the back of my head.
All I can do is lie here and watch, my heart thumping in my own ears. I’m not immune to fear, but I am lucky enough to have only experienced it on a few occasions in my life.
Today, right now, is one of them.
They are stripping me of my powers and there is nothing I can do to stop them.
And then, once again, Octavia’s face swims into view. At first I think something is wrong with the shape of her eyes. They, like everything else, qu
iver and move unnaturally. Then I see it. Tears cling to her long, dark lashes. The smooth, pale color of her skin is blotchy from the emotions she is unable to hold back.
This time her hands are cool against the fire that I my skin. Her fingers make my heart beat faster, make the skin beneath it come alive.
It is with this touch that my fear subsides.
If she’s doing this, if she is feeling this, then it must be the only way. I know she’d do nothing to harm me. If Octavia believes this is right, then I trust her.
Somehow, this time I am able to make words.
“Just do it,” I say, the voice croaking from my throat not my own. “It’s time.”
Octavia’s eyes meet mine. A single tear spills over, trailing down the soft curve of her cheek. She nods and draws away, her hand lingering a moment longer.
And then, in her place, is something new.
My heart does not stop racing. It beats faster, faster, faster until it is a hummingbird’s wings. Breath becomes difficult to draw. My vision, already blurred and fading, becomes suddenly overwhelmed.
The lines of a ritual circle light all around me, the soft blue glow of magic brightening until I have to stare straight up at the ceiling to keep from being temporarily blinded by it. I think Draven is speaking, but by the time he has finished with the first line it is no longer the thing I concentrate on.
Rather than dulling the pain, each word of his incantation makes the tendrils inside me tighten their grip. I feel them reaching further, deeper, inside me; digging like claws into the veins and tissue of my body. Whatever this spell is, it is not going out without a fight.
I gasp for breath as the ink spills into my lungs—filling them with vile, fiery pain. They reach like greedy fingers into my throat, down my esophagus, up into my mouth—making it impossible for that breath to draw. My chest deflates with a final attempt to push it out of me, but it does not rise again.
There is some debate amongst sailors about the peacefulness of drowning. I can verify firsthand that, at least in the circumstances of drowning in the aftermath of a powerful spell, it is not a peaceful death.
Abandon: Book Three of the Forgotten Affinities Series Page 14