Shame just nodded.
As soon as the last Void stone was off of him, the glow around Terric flared and that otherworldly beauty infused him.
Zayvion dug a disk out of the messenger bag and handed it to Terric, then handed another one to me. I was worried about touching it at first, but it wasn’t a problem. It held magic locked and ready for my dad to release just like Collins had released it. The disk itself was just metal.
I noted he didn’t give a disk to Shame yet.
Terric walked out into the middle of the room. He took a deep breath, then began whispering while he very carefully traced one finger over the disk in the palm of his hand.
Shame, beside me, shifted slightly, maybe getting ready to use magic.
I glanced at him. The laughter that had always seemed to be leashed just beneath his surface was gone.
He wasn’t standing like he was getting ready to use magic. He was standing like he was trying hard not to turn and walk away. Eleanor was pacing, well, floating, at a distance behind him, glancing over at Shame and Terric with a worried look on her face.
“You okay?” I asked Shame quietly.
“On a scale from one to ten?” he said. “No.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little. That sounded more like the Shame I knew.
“Going to get through this?”
“You mean am I going to try not to kill anyone?”
“No,” I said, pressing my fingers gently against his sleeve. He jerked at the contact, looked over at me.
“Are you ready to use magic?”
He was breathing a little hard and sweat slicked his forehead, sticking his bangs into points. He pulled his arm away. “Don’t. Just…” He shook his head, then looked back out at Terric. “You don’t want to be holding on to me if I fall, Beckstrom.”
“So don’t fall,” I said.
Terric said one last word and flicked his fingers. An Open spell spread out at his feet, glowing in soft orchid light. The wooden floor shifted and slid, pulling away from the well.
Terric paced away from the ever-growing hole in the floor, the disk in his hand dark and empty of magic. He strode over to where Shame and I were standing and nodded.
“It wasn’t impossible to control,” he said to Shame. “But it took…effort.”
Shame handed Terric the Void stones and Terric put them on with a look of relief.
“Allie?” Zay said.
Right. I was up. Dad?
He seemed to draw himself forward from a far corner of my mind. He was tired.
Can you do this? I asked him.
Don’t be ridiculous, Allison. Of course I can. Step aside.
Think you can do it with a little less pain this time? I asked.
I didn’t expect the…amount of effort required to tap into the magic in the Animate. If I’d been in my own body, it wouldn’t have been as difficult. But in yours? He paused, and I knew what he was thinking. That my body, my skills, and my mind were inferior for the task he could have carried out just fine on his own.
Say it, you egotistical jerk, I thought.
In your body, with the damage to your mind, he said with something that hinted at fatigue, or, I don’t know, kindness, there are variables I hadn’t taken into account.
Had he just called me brain-damaged?
“Allie?” Zayvion said again. “Can he do it?”
“He can do it,” I snarled. “Come on, Stone.” I marched over to the edge of the well. The white and crystal light of magic was muddied with black tar that lapped at the edges like cooling lava. And just like at the last well, there was only a center of pure magic left.
Stone paced up next to me, keeping a wise distance from the edge of the well even though the tar didn’t seem to be lapping over onto the floor this time.
I patted his head. “Good, Stoney. We’ll make this quick.”
Collins stepped up beside me. “Shall I draw from the disk?”
“I don’t know. Ask my dad.”
“I was,” he said.
Oh.
I mentally moved aside so that Dad could see through my eyes, use my hands and mouth. I wanted to be as far away from him using magic as possible. He’d told me the thing he’d done so I could use magic would hurt me. No, he’d said every time I used magic it would do me permanent harm.
Maybe staying out of his way while he accessed the magic in Stone would keep the damage down to a minimum.
“You will need to tap into the disk via Life magic, Eli,” Dad said through me. “Can you do that?”
“Certainly,” Eli said.
“Let us begin.”
Collins pulled the magic from the disk, holding it steady over his palm.
Dad once again chanted, strange tonal shifts in a nonlanguage as he drew a glyph in the style of Life magic over Stone. Magic flowed through the glyphs carved in Stone, rippling with green light like a stroke of wind crossing a grassy field.
It hurt. The longer Dad used magic, the harder magic stretched my veins and burned my bones, like a beast trying to claw its way out of my body.
I didn’t moan, but only because Dad had my mouth clamped tight as he concentrated on bringing the spell to completion.
It was not quite an Open spell, not quite a Clarify. It resembled Confluence, which didn’t make a lot of sense. Confluence was usually used to connect two spells, like putting a Refresh on a Relax spell at a dentist’s office. Confluence made the spells join into a seamless harmony. Not exactly what I would have expected him to use, and I’m pretty sure not what he used on the Blood well.
Stone opened his mouth again, standing very still except for the twitch of his wings.
My arms shook with fatigue, but Dad kept my hands steady enough to guide the magic pouring out of Stone to wrap with the disk magic Collins set free. The spells wove together, then arced in a lazy whirlwind down into the pure liquid crystal center of the well.
The world shuddered beneath my feet. A thousand drums and gongs all struck at once, crashing with physical force through the air. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream.
Then everything stilled. The faintest scent of roses hung in the room.
I drew in a harsh breath, heard the others doing the same.
Blood, hot and thick, ran from my nose. I wiped it away with the back of my hand, and blinked until the white stars stopped swimming around in the fuzzy gray mess of my vision. I wanted to puke, but even that would take more energy than I had to spare. At least I was still on my feet.
Is that it? I asked Dad. Dad?
There was no response. No sense of him at all.
For the first time in a long, long time, I suddenly wondered if he could die. I mean, I knew he was dead already, but could working magic at this level, through me, kill him?
Dad? I cast out my awareness, searching for the feel of him, the sense of him in my mind.
Finally, a flicker, a slight stirring. He was there, still with me. But not conscious.
“…out of the way, now.” Someone had a hard grip on my arm and was dragging me backward.
That someone was Eli Collins, and we were headed to the base of the stairs where Stone was already rubbing his head against the railing post and grumbling.
“What?” I managed. My throat felt like I’d just gargled with gravel.
“We’re getting out of the way. In case.”
“In case of what?”
He nodded toward the well.
In case of Shame.
Shame stood at the edge of the well. His back was toward me, but turned just enough that I could see his profile. Terric stood next to him, wearing the Void stones, several more hanging from leather cords in his left hand. His right hand was on Shame’s shoulder.
Shame didn’t have any Void stones on him. The darkness of magic roiled around him like a storm cloud.
Zayvion stood at Shame’s other side, both hands gripping the edges of a Ground spell. He hadn’t drawn any magic into the glyph yet, but the interconne
cting glyphs of Ground hung quiescent in the air like a woven blanket he could throw on Shame if needed.
Shame visibly took a deep breath, then lifted his chin and held the disk in his left hand as if he were looking into a mirror.
His fingers sliced through a clean, strong Lock spell. The magic from the disk crawled out across the fingers of his left hand, then skipped into his right and filled the glyph he had drawn there.
The well responded, shuttering like a camera lens, the wood floor once again just a wooden floor. The well was closed. Now someone needed to cast the combined spells of Tangle, Rebound, and Refresh.
Terric reached across Shame and took the disk out of his hand, and pressed another disk into it.
Shame hesitated.
Eleanor, who stood right behind both Shame and Terric, put her hand on Shame’s other shoulder. I couldn’t see what she said, but I saw her nod.
Shame drew the blended glyphs for Rebound, Tangle, and Refresh in quick, sure strokes that fell across the entire room like deep blue tendrils of fog covering the floor with tiny spots of candle flames flickering.
It was beautiful, really, and very well done.
Shame handed Zayvion the spent disk. Zay took it and shook the Grounding spell free, letting it unravel and fade away.
Terric held out the Void stones and Shame put them all back on with the rhythm of a man sliding prayer beads through his fingers.
They all turned toward me.
Shame was sweating, his color a little high as if he’d just come off a hard workout. Still, he gave me just the slightest quirk of a smile, his eyes burning green.
That boy had not fallen.
Terric looked calm, and incredibly pleased. Maybe even a little relieved.
Shame had always been a hell of a magic user. My dad had once said he was a master of Death magic. Without control, he was also very dangerous. But he’d proven to us, to himself maybe most of all, that he could still make magic his bitch.
And not kill everyone within a three-block radius.
Go, team.
Zayvion met my gaze. Accusing. Angry. A wall of grim and pissed off.
Whoa. Wait. What had I done to make him so angry?
“Let’s go,” he said.
Collins took one last look around the room as if trying to fix it in his memory, which was probably exactly what he was doing, and then headed up the stairs. Stone was already out of sight.
The thought of hauling up all those damn stairs made me nauseous. No choice. I got moving.
After a dozen steps, Zay jogged up next to me. “You’re bleeding.”
“Backlash. The spell Dad used wasn’t exactly a walk in the park.”
“Is your dad making you pay the brunt of the price?”
“I don’t think so. He’s unconscious, I’m not. I wasn’t even sure if he’d survived that last spell.”
We walked and I counted stairs by ten, then ten again, then ten again. My thighs were burning. And not in a sexy way.
“I watched you cast the spell,” he said.
“Dad…cast it.”
“Doesn’t matter. Magic tore through you.”
“Tear seems a little—”
“It’s killing you.”
And that faint knowledge, that awareness the moment my dad had so very painfully “fixed” me whispered: yes.
A chill washed over my skin. Permanent harm. I knew he was right.
“When you cast magic, it’s killing you.” Zay’s voice was so very, very calm. “It’s draining you. Draining your life.”
“I know. Now. Maybe if I don’t do much…”
“Two more wells,” he said.
“We can do it. Dad can.” That was all the breath I had. If air were plentiful I might add that I’d watched Dad pulling the magic out of Stone. It was the blend of light and dark magic inside Stone that was kicking our respective mental and physical asses. Back when Dad had first combined the samples from the wells into Stone, he’d also added a little dark magic. I’d never been very tolerant of dark magic. Hell, no one was.
“Maybe Dad can find a way…to use magic through me without it having to…to harm me.”
“No. You’re done.”
I stopped right there in the middle of the climb. “That’s not your call, Zayvion.”
He walked back down two stairs toward me and stood so close I could feel the brush of his coat against mine as he leaned down over me. “It is now.”
“Really? And who are you going to get to pull the magic out of Stone? You’ve heard that weird language Dad’s using. It isn’t even real words. It’s something he’s made up to trigger magic in a certain way. I’ve never heard it before. I don’t think anyone else has either. There isn’t anyone except him who can do this.”
“I do not give a single damn,” he said. “You are done.”
“I’m done when the wells are closed. I’m done when this city is safe. I’m done when I say I’m done.”
“That’s not how this is going down,” he said. “Not this time.”
My phone rang. I pulled the phone from my pocket and glared at it. Victor.
“What?”
“Are you safe?” He sounded concerned.
“Yes. The Blood and Life wells are closed.” Then to Zayvion, “Walk.”
We started up the stairs again.
“Where are you now?” Victor asked.
“Done with Life well. Going to…”
“Faith,” Zay said.
“…Faith well next. Ran into Seattle crew outside the Blood well. They didn’t survive.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
Eleanor’s ghost was floating just ahead of Shame, who kept his gaze doggedly on his feet.
“There’s one body, um…Eleanor Roth’s body is in one of the rooms at the inn and needs to be taken care of.”
“Oh,” Victor said, a little of the air taken out of him. “That is so unfortunate.”
That’s right. Zay had told me she trained with Maeve. Victor might have known her too. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“We will take care of it. I want you all to return to Kevin’s place immediately. Do you understand me, Allison?”
Wow. It had been a while since Victor had ordered me around. Since Zayvion had also decided it was suddenly time to tell me what to do, I found myself not liking it much.
“Why?”
“We just received a report from London. Leander and Isabelle are on the move.”
“Where are they?”
“They’ve left England. They’ve killed George and Lorraine in Wales, John and Cherie in France, and Alessandro and Anna in Italy.”
“Who are those people?”
“Soul Complements. Allie, they’re all Soul Complements. Leander and Isabelle are taking out every known Soul Complement pair in the world.”
Holy shit. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Get back here, now. All of you.”
“I’ll call you…when we are on the road.”
I turned off the phone.
“What?” Zay asked. He wasn’t even out of breath.
Unfair.
“Victor,” I said. “Hold on.” I kept my air to myself until we got to the platform at the top of the stairs. I leaned on the railing for a good thirty seconds, trying to reacquaint myself with oxygen.
Sure, I’d been running pretty hard lately and paying more than one price for magic, but Zayvion was right. Whatever spells Dad was working through Stone were murder on me. Literally.
“He said Leander and Isabelle are on the move. Said they’re killing Soul Complements. Just like they killed Chase and Greyson.”
Shame and Terric stepped up on the platform.
“Who else is dead?” Zay asked. “Where?”
I repeated the names Victor had told me. Zay swore softly and tipped his head down, shaking it. He knew those people, the happy faces I’d seen in my dad’s memories.
“God,” I said, realizing I hadn’t handled that announcement wit
h much compassion. “I’m sorry, Zay. Were you friends of theirs?”
He nodded. “I’ve met them all. They…they made me think there was a chance, a life together for Soul Complements. A good life, you know?” He looked up at me, sorrow and pain tugging at his mouth and eyes.
There was no happily ever after for Soul Complements. I’d been told that many times. And these deaths just proved, once again, our future. Shame and Terric’s future too.
“Victor wants us to return to Kevin’s. Do we go?”
“No,” Terric said. “We finish this. We get to the other two wells before anyone can access them. We cleanse magic and close the wells. We make these sacrifices…all of them…worth it.”
“If Victor knows Soul Complements are being killed by the Overseer, so does everyone else in the Authority,” Shame said. “Zay, you and Allie are walking targets.”
“So are you and Terric,” I said.
Shame just shrugged, his gaze on Zayvion alone. “Best way to survive this is to step down, mate,” he said. “Keep Allie off the battlefield, keep her safe.”
“There is no way I’m staying out of this fight,” I said. “I can’t, remember? Dad is the only one who can access the magic in Stone.”
The Zen mask slipped and Zay looked like he wanted to pull someone’s spine out of their skin. He took a deep breath and composed himself. Calm on the outside, raging in the inside.
“We know all the Soul Complements too,” he said. “We have the same list the Overseer has—the same list Leander and Isabelle have. We could get to the Soul Complements before the Overseer. I can open a gate. They wouldn’t expect that. We could save them.”
“No,” Shame and Terric said at the same time.
“When Roman Grimshaw died,” Terric said, “Allie said his spirit stepped into a gate to lock down that system of travel, so the Overseer couldn’t just open a gate and appear on our doorstep. Even if you can undo what Grimshaw did and open a gate, all it will do is tip our hand. You might be able to save one pair of Soul Complements, but as soon as you opened the next gate, there would be an army of magic users under orders to kill, waiting for you to walk through.”
“I agree,” I said. “Leaving Portland right now only plays into their hands.”
Zay glared at me. “So you think we should hide while Soul Complements, good people, are killed?”