by D. N. Hoxa
More trees.
There was nothing else on the roof, except concrete and a few airing tubes, I guessed. The sun shone brightly, right above our heads, as if it didn’t care just how hot I was feeling.
“It doesn’t matter,” I finally said. If I stopped to think about it all, and started trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I’d never see the light of day again. Figuratively speaking. And I needed my focus undivided. I could deal with it all once Luke was okay.
“Of course, it does. Please, just tell me. In detail,” Nash insisted.
“Why do you even want to know?”
“Because you froze my hand two minutes ago, when all I did was touch you,” he said, a dumbfounded smile on his face. “Don’t worry, nobody can hear us up here, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
But I wasn’t. Everybody already knew what had happened. Most had seen it with their own eyes. The problem was, every time I spoke the words out loud, they became more real, just like they did when I told Luke what had happened.
But Nash’s eyes were full of hope and excitement. Aside from Terrin, he was the only one who didn’t want to run away from me yet. So, I indulged him, because I figured I owed him since he was training me.
I sat down on the ground right next to a large air pipe and hid from the scorching sun under its shadow. Nash decided to stand as I began to tell him everything that had happened. About how Palmer’s procedure had felt to me, and how I’d woken up to find myself and the room frozen.
I told him about the devamp servants, too. How they attacked, and how the yellow ball of light had stopped in front of me, only to return where it had come from, and to kill all three of the remaining servants.
And I told him about Miles and his healing spell. That one was a bit hazy, because the pain hadn’t let me remember all that much, I found, but I did tell him everything I could remember.
Silence fell on the roof when I finished the story. Looking up at Nash meant exposing myself to the sun, so I stayed put and waited for him to say something.
He took his sweet time, unlike in the training room, where he’d been way too eager to attack me every chance he got, without even warning me.
“It’s strange,” he finally said, then he sat down on the ground in front of me. He didn’t seem to mind the sun falling on his eyes at all. “It’s almost like…” but instead of finishing his sentence, he smiled and shook his head.
“Like what?”
When he looked at me, it felt like he wanted to strip off my skin and analyze me all the way to my bones.
“Give me your hand,” he said, and offered me his.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I didn’t want to end up freezing him again.
“Trust me, Nova. Just give me your hand,” he said.
I didn’t trust people. I didn’t trust anyone but Luke, but trust wasn’t why I put my hand in his. It was because it almost felt like he wanted to make a point, and anything—even a useless theory—was better than having no idea at all about yourself. Whatever was on his mind, I wanted to hear it.
His hand felt warm, warmer than mine, though I kept sweating from the heat. I kept my eyes open without even blinking, and I looked at our hands holding each other, waiting for ice to start pouring out of me any second now.
But it didn’t.
Nash smiled.
“Why are you smiling?” My heart beat picked up even before he spoke.
“Don’t be afraid, but…” Nash let go of my hand, and put his right in front of my face. I didn’t get what he was doing at first, but it wasn’t long before I figured it out. Before a bright flame the size of my fist appeared on the palm of his hand.
I jumped back, completely terrified as the smell filled my nostrils and formed a lump in my throat.
“What the hell are you—” but I never got to finish the sentence.
The bright flame on Nash’s hand burned brightly, right before it began to freeze. It started at the tip of the fire, and the ice turned it solid. Then, it moved downward until it consumed every inch of it, and the frozen flame fell on Nash’s hand in less than three seconds.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, looking at the piece of ice like it was from another world. Nash laughed but he was right to laugh, because, “I didn’t do it.”
Holy cow, I didn’t do it!
“I think you did,” Nash said, still chuckling.
“Did you not see me? I didn’t touch you!” I sure as hell saw it. I bathed in an ocean of relief, and for a second, the sun didn’t even bother me anymore.
“You didn’t need to. Your magic did,” Nash said, still holding the piece of ice in his hand.
My breath caught in my throat. “I have no magic. I took the tests and they even checked out my blood. I’m human, through and through.”
But Nash shook his head. “I don’t think you are.”
Double the heat from the sun crawled up to my cheeks. “Whatever is happening around me, it is not my fault,” I insisted halfheartedly.
“I’m not saying that it is, but think about it, Nova. I touched you, and you covered my hand in ice,” he said excitedly, as if this was something good.
“You touched me in the training room, too, remember?” He did. A lot of times. My face was enough proof of that, and let’s not even talk about the rest of my body. It had been a Nash-beats-Nova day for three long hours.
Nash thought about it for a second. I waited for him to speak like a little girl, hoping he’d say yes to buying me ice cream.
“But my magic wasn’t active then,” he whispered, looking at the flame-turned-to-ice. “And it wasn’t when we left the training room, either, but sometimes, when I’m angry, it spirals out of control.” He met my eyes. “You must have felt it. Your magic must have sensed mine.”
I shook my head, my head an even bigger mess now. “I don’t understand.”
“Nova, you’re turning it around,” Nash said. “Your magic is turning magic around.”
My mouth opened but words seemed to erase themselves from my mind, so instead of speaking, I just shook my head. Nope. You still lost me.
“The fire spirit procedure,” Nash said, dragging himself closer to me until I was within his reach. “They literally fill you with magical fire. I know because I’ve gone through it myself. The second the fire was in you, you turned it to ice.”
“What if that wasn’t me? What if it was the machines?” I was more than willing to believe that, but he shook his head.
“With the devamp servants. They attacked you with a spell. You took it, spun it around, and killed them with it.” I flinched. It was exactly what had happened, but it wasn’t nice to hear about it. “And with Miles! Holy shit, Nova. He tried to heal you, but instead your magic turned it around and…and…” He threw the piece of ice to the ground and grabbed me by the shoulders. “You’re reversing it.” Nash shook me a few times, as if to will me to understand. “You’re reversing any active magic that comes into contact with you.” The huge smile on his face made me want to throw up.
Pushing him away, I jumped to my feet and rushed for the door. I’d already heard enough. Just because he was training me, it didn’t mean that I had to sit there and listen to whatever crazy idea popped into his head.
Reversing. Ha! Even I knew that magic didn’t work that way.
“Nova, wait!” Nash called, and came running after me.
I ran down the corridor until I reached the elevator, and I pressed the button too many times to get it to open already. Unfortunately, Nash reached me before it did.
“Look, I’m not judging you or anything. It’s just common sense. This isn’t anything bad, by any means. It’s just…”
God, I hated it when he didn’t finish his sentences like that.
“Just what?” I hissed.
“Just unheard of,” he said. “By me.”
“I’m going to talk to Ross.” If anybody knew something about Nash’s theory, it was him—or the Senior Or
der of Magic, which he could easily reach.
I was wrong when I thought that any theory would be better than nothing. This was worse.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Nash said, and when the elevator doors opened, he stepped in front of me.
“Move,” I warned him. I might not have known much about fighting, but I sure knew how to push a guy blocking my way, even one as muscular as he was.
“Listen to me, Nova. If the Senior Order finds out about this, they’re not going to just let it go.”
The doors were about to close, so without a second thought, I put my hands on Nash’s chest and pushed him as hard as my body allowed me. To my surprise, he fell back inside the car. Having no other choice, I got in, too, and pressed -2 to get us to the training halls and Ross’s office again.
“I know how those people work. You want to save your cousin, but if they find out about you, they’re going to want to study you.”
“Bullshit!” I shouted, though Pixie, Lucian and Aiden were in the training room not twenty feet away from me, but they didn’t look like they even noticed we were there.
“They’re going to take you away, whether you like it or not—and they can do that. I’ve seen them do that countless times. Nova, you don’t fool around with these people. I promise you, if they find out, you’re going to be gone before you know it.”
The elevator doors opened. I walked out into the hallways. The door to Ross’s office called my name. It begged me to just open it and go tell the guy everything just to get it off my chest.
But I couldn’t.
I hadn’t known Nash for long. Not nearly long enough to know what he sounded like when he was angry, or sad, or happy, but something in my chest was telling me that this was what he sounded like when he was honest. I couldn’t argue with that. Nobody could.
“You could be wrong,” I said, my voice breaking. He could be wrong and I had no magic in me at all.
“I could be, but do you want to take that risk?”
Luke’s face was all over my mind. It wasn’t even a question. I never wanted to take any risks when it came to his life, and if there was even the smallest chance that somebody would stop me from trying to save him, I’d keep myself hidden until the end of time.
Pissed off and panicked, I turned around and walked back inside the elevator before it had the chance to close. “Take me to the old training room,” I said to Nash, and with a nod, he pressed a number on the panel.
Chapter Seventeen
The old training room was nothing like the new one. The walls were made of wood, scratched in some places, broken in others. No wave of light passed through them when I looked, and there were no weapons that I could see. No windows, either, and the lighting was pretty bad. No wonder they’d changed it.
“I’ll get everything we need up here for tomorrow,” Nash said when he saw I wasn’t impressed with the room. It was less than half the size of the other one, too.
“Nobody else trains here?” I asked, just to make sure. I didn’t want to think about who was going to come and crash the party while I trained.
“Not that I know of,” Nash said. “The dust agrees.”
He was right. The wooden floor was covered in a fine layer of dust. Nobody had even been in there in a long time, it seemed. It made me feel a lot better.
“Nova, I think we should train your magic, too,” Nash said. He caught me completely off guard. Just when I’d gotten the thing that happened out of my mind…
“There is no magic to train,” I insisted. “Just do what you were doing before. Teach me how to kick ass.”
“That, too, but your magic is your strongest asset. You have to learn how to use it.” I really didn’t understand why he was so excited about this when I wanted nothing more than to never talk about it again.
“Can we just continue to train so we don’t waste even more time? Please? All I have is one week.” And in one week, if Ross deemed me worthy of joining his team, I’d have a whole other ocean of troubles to cross, starting with explaining why I’d lied about knowing where Red Tie is.
“Promise me you’ll think about it,” he said with a sigh, as if he were disappointed. “And I really think you should take the day off because Miles isn’t going to be able to heal you.”
“No,” I said, terrified to even think about it. “No day off.”
“As you wish,” Nash said, and stepped in front of me. “Take your position.”
I did as he asked, and he didn’t give me a single second to prepare myself. He hit me hard on my jaw and made me fall back. A string of curse words waited at the tip of my tongue, but I held them. This was what I needed.
He didn’t need to tell me to take my position again. I did that all by myself, and this time, I expected him to attack me as soon as I blinked—so I didn’t. It was why I was able to dodge his fist.
“Move with me,” he said and began to move his feet, only an inch at a time. I mimicked him as well as I knew how, and before long, we were circling each other.
“How does it work?” I asked despite myself. Curiosity was an all consuming monster in me.
“How does what work?”
“Magic.” The word tasted bitter in my mouth.
Nash looked surprised. Somehow, my brain took that as an opportunity, and I swung my arm to hit him in the face. Needless to say he blocked me—easily—and my wrist hurt like hell when it fell on his forearm, but attacking had at least occurred to me. It was a first and I was proud of it.
“Like everything else, I guess. A source of energy that can be tapped into, is what they say. Maybe a mage would be better suited to answer that question,” he said. Not exactly the answer I’d been hoping for.
“What does it feel like to you?” There’s no way he couldn’t answer that.
“Since I was made, not born, there’s a difference between my fire and that of a born salamander.” Something hard hit me in my gut and I fell back. I hadn’t even seen Nash move his feet and he’d kicked the air out of my lungs like it was nothing. Angry at myself for allowing my focus to slip, I took my position again, completely aware of Nash’s every move. We continued to slowly walk around each other, arms in front of our faces, both our bodies on high alert, and he spoke like nothing at all had happened. “I’ve never really had to explain it to anyone, but if I had to, I’d say the fire feels like a guest in my body, one I constantly have to invite to come out.”
Fuck if that wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever heard said about fire.
“What about you?” he asked and the question sounded so ridiculous that I forgot myself again, and the next thing I knew, my right cheek met the top of his sneaker.
Pain sliced through my brain as one or more of my teeth began to move. A quick check with my tongue and they were all still there, thank God. I returned to my positing, shaking with anger. How stupid did I have to be to fall for the same thing over and over again?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Nash said when we fell into step again.
“Because there is no answer.”
“Yes, there is. You froze my hand on your shoulder, not to mention an entire room.” And he smiled as if that was something to be happy about. Shivers washed down my back at the reminders. “C’mon, you can at least try to think of it.” Just as he finished the sentence, he aimed for my shoulder with his fist. Jumping back and turning slightly like I’d seen him do, I missed him by a hair—but he didn’t stop there. He came at me with his other hand, too, and when I dodged that, he swung his feet, one after the other real fast, aiming for my chest. I missed the first tip of his sneaker, but not the second.
“Like an animal,” I said and I swung my arm, knowing he’d block me, then my left foot. I was hoping to get in a good kick, but he blocked that too.
“How so?”
“Like a…like an animal growling inside me.” I realized how stupid that sounded only after I said it out loud. “I don’t know.”
“Well, how do you
reverse it?” I tried to hit him again, even before he finished speaking. I almost got him. Almost.
“We don’t know that I’m reversing anything. I told you, I have no clue.”
“But you must feel the magic when it gets close to you. It’s common sense,” he said. I was already regretting having asked him about it at all.
“My common sense says that none of this is even possible, yet I’m living it.” And I was sure that if I’d had time to allow myself to soak it all in, I’d have been damn near losing my mind at that point. As it was, Luke’s life was my top priority. I didn’t need to understand anything just yet. What I needed was to learn how to fight.
Nash grinned. I saw his arms move even before he swung one back, but I still couldn’t stop them. His fist connected with my right temple and made me spin in half a circle. I lost balance and nearly hit the ground, but he grabbed me by my wrists and pulled me. I landed with my face on his chest.
Breathing heavily, I held onto his shirt while I convinced my legs that they could still hold me. Nash had his arms around my shoulders, and after I failed to get my legs to stop shaking, he slowly lowered me to the floor.
Letting go of my body was like lifting the weight of the world from my shoulders. I breathed deeply a few times—until I realized that Nash still had his arms wrapped around me. When I looked up, his face was right above mine. His eyes, full of autumn leaves, sparkled, and the corners of his lips turned upward just slightly. My breath caught in my throat. My head was yelling for me to get away, but I couldn’t move. There was something about him, about being close to his skin, pressed to his chest. He was warm, but a different kind of warm, and the way he smiled at me, it made me forget about everything for a second.
And that was dangerous.
I put my hands on his chest to push myself away, when he chuckled.
“Wha—” But I didn’t even have to ask. I could see what he was laughing about already, and it made me want to puke my guts out.
“You’re freezing me again,” Nash said, looking down at his chest where my hands were, and where small pieces of ice surrounding my fingers were slowly growing onto his shirt.