“Remember the prophecy,” she whispered. “The magic seeks you. Join it, and you’ll find your path.”
I blinked, her face swimming in front of me. For a moment, it seemed as if her eyes had gone milky again, but then everything around me snapped into focus, and her gaze was clear and sightless once again.
“He can’t stay,” Orla was saying, thumping her cane in outrage. “It’s ... it’s ...”
“It’s settled,” Luc said.
I leaned heavily on Colin’s arm. He looked at the Quartoren. “What’s wrong with her?”
Luc answered. “Her body can’t handle the magic.”
“Damn it, heal her,” Colin ordered.
“No.” With an effort, I came back to myself. He and Marguerite helped me to my feet. “I’ll be okay.”
“You knew?” Colin asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What would you have done? I told you before ... you can’t protect me from everything.” I wiped a trickle of blood away from my nose and looked around. The edge of the stage was crumbling away. The lush green pathways surrounding it had been churned up, resembling a construction site, and tree branches littered the ground.
“Was this from the magic?”
“The Darklings helped,” said Orla. “All of that magic set free, and they swarmed the Allée. They won’t come back here, though. The four lines bordering the Allée are weakened, not worthy of their attention.”
“Can we use one of them now?” I asked Pascal. “I don’t need all four, but I do need a way in.”
“They should suffice, yes. Remember to draw on Luc’s talent so you’re attuned to all four elements,” he answered.
Luc approached me. I nodded as Colin escorted Marguerite to the other side of the stage. “This doesn’t change anything,” I told him.
“Never wanted you to be more wrong,” he replied, pressing his palm against mine. “Ready?”
I put on the bravest face I could, for Colin’s sake. “Ready.”
As the others looked on, Luc called up one of the lines bordering the Allée. Fire, crackling to life, and our bond pulled taut. Closing my eyes, I felt my way toward the keening energy, bracing myself for the shock of contact, expecting to feel Luc’s presence supporting me as I dove in. Instead, he brushed past me, blocking my way.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, lip caught between his teeth in concentration as he reached into the blazing line. I felt him drawing on our connection, my energy pouring into him as he took the magic inside himself, body convulsing.
Now I knew what he went through every time I touched raw magic. I watched, terrified, as the magic started breaking him down in order to build him back up.
“Luc! It’s not supposed to be this way!”
It was supposed to be me.
I was the one the magic had bonded with. I was the one in the prophecy. He was trying to take my place, in some misguided, chivalrous attempt to let me go.
Sweat poured off him, his skin drawn so tightly against the bones I could see the veins standing out on his temple. The tendons in his neck strained, and I could feel his pulse alongside mine, speeding past the point of endurance, faster and fainter with every second.
“Stop!” He hadn’t thought it through. Whenever I dealt with the lines, his powers bolstered me. He’d assumed we could reverse the process, but I had no magic to give him. It would never work.
His eyes rolled back in his head. I yanked on his hand, trying to break his contact with the line, but I lacked the strength. Through our binding, I felt the magic reach out to me, hungrily, and I nearly let go. The magic didn’t want Luc. It would burn through him, leaving nothing behind, in order to get to me.
Across the stage, the Quartoren huddled together, Dominic’s face betraying his own hunger. Colin stood with Marguerite, talking urgently. He must be describing the scene to her, and she was explaining what he saw.
“Colin! Get Luc out!”
He didn’t question me or hesitate. He sprinted toward us, tackling Luc low, the force of the hit ripping both of them away from the flaring line.
They bounced and skidded along the marble stage. Dominic shouted something, grabbing Pascal’s arm, but I didn’t wait to find out what it was.
I pushed my way into the magic, and they were gone.
C
HAPTER
43
H
ere is what I know:
I know that the truth is a hard and bitter thing. I know that love comes in as many forms as people do, and not all of them are good. I know that secrets are lies that haven’t been told yet. I know that for every action there is a cost, and that accepting your fate is only the first step in fulfilling it. I know that people have paid for my life with their own, too many times, and the time had come to return the favor.
And as soon as I stepped into the magic, with no shield except my intentions, I knew one more thing: The magic was
alive
.
It had been alive all along. I just hadn’t recognized it. What I’d thought was hunger was loneliness, a craving for connection, and its rage was panic turned violent. It had no one to speak with, to ask for help. And now it had me, which seemed like the cruelest possible joke. The magic needed a voice, and it had chosen a girl who’d spent her whole life afraid to speak.
In biology, you learn how a cell works. You learn about the cell membrane, and cytoplasm, and the nucleolus, all the microscopic interconnected workings that make life possible. But they’re only labels on a picture, meaningless, until they’ve been taken apart, bit by bit, which is exactly what the magic did to me. Last time, when I’d opened myself up to the magic, it had made me omnipotent, at least for a time. I’d known everything, seen the whole world laid out before me like a vast and beautiful map I could traverse at will. I had it again, a flash of understanding that illuminated the universe. But as I struggled to make sense of the magic, it did the same to me—invading every cell wall, every strand of DNA, fusing to me, and I choked as the pressure increased, like there wasn’t enough room for both of us inside my body.
Just like in my dream, I slipped under the surface of the magic, drowning on dry land, and then Luc was there, buoying me, the crush of my lungs easing enough to gasp a single lungful of air. His strength joined with what Verity had passed to me in the alley a lifetime ago, and I remembered Marguerite’s advice:
listen.
I stopped fighting and finally listened to what the magic had been trying to tell me. I couldn’t be the bystander anymore. It wasn’t enough to be the conduit, the neutral party. If I wanted to live, I needed to go all in.
So I did. I gave myself over to the magic, letting it tell me what it needed. Pascal had compared it to a circulatory system, so I felt my way back through the lines, looking for the rip at the very heart of the magic. My body was still at the Allée, but my consciousness had expanded out along the lines, going as far as the magic did.
It bled power, a billowing, opalescent glow. My own strength ebbed as I watched, and I drew on Luc to sustain myself, relying equally on his talent and resolve. This deep inside the source, intention was the same as action, so I spoke to the magic, coaxing it back into the pulsating heart, into
my
heart. I sealed the fissure with the words of power that Luc used so easily, foreign and silvery on my tongue, and knew as I did they weren’t mine to keep.
Despite the power flowing through me, my body was exhausted. The magic wavered slightly, as the strain of what I’d done hit me full force. I pulled back into myself, feeling the magic thrum through the lines in time with my heartbeat, a perfect connection.
“Mouse?” Luc said as I opened my eyes and blinked at him. “You in there?”
“Mostly,” I said, and Colin came running toward us. I only had time to smile at him before I passed out.
C
HAPTER
44
S
omeone was shining a light in my eyes. I batted it away and squinched up my face.
“I think she’s recovered,” someone said.
“She needs a doctor,” said Colin, in a voice that suggested if one didn’t appear very quickly, I wouldn’t be the only one needing medical attention.
“Did you want to see my medical license?” Pascal asked.
“She ain’t hurt,” Luc said. “She’s tired, that’s all.” Colin’s fingers threaded through mine. “You’re sure?” The bond with Luc hummed slightly against my skin as he checked. “Guaranteed. Wake up, Sleepin’ Beauty, ’less you’re looking to be kissed.” He fed an extra jolt into our connection, and I opened my eyes.
“Jerk.”
“See?” he said to Colin. “Ornery as ever.”
Colin ignored him. “You’re really all right?”
“Just wiped out. Three or four days of sleep ought to cure it.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes, and I knew there was more to talk about, but I didn’t want to—not when I was exhausted and exhilarated all at once, and there was still the Quartoren to deal with. They hung back, watching us closely, coming forward only when Colin demanded Luc take us home.
“I fulfilled the Covenant,” I said, facing them. They didn’t intimidate me anymore. We were on equal footing. “You need to help Constance now, no matter what.”
“And we shall,” said Dominic. “Tell us what happened, if you don’t mind.”
“You lied. That’s what happened,” I said pleasantly. Of the three, Pascal was the only one who looked at me with anything like approval.
“You never wanted me to make new lines. That was just a way to get me to step inside the magic, so it would bond with me. Pascal’s test at the country club proved I couldn’t stop the process on my own, so yesterday, you told Luc to leave me trapped in the nexus. But it was never necessary for the Covenant. The three of you were trying to hold on to your positions.”
Luc’s voice was like knives. “What?”
“You must have freaked out when you realized a Flat was the only person who could manipulate the lines. What if you couldn’t control me? What if the word got out to the rest of the Arcs? They might believe Anton was right, that the Quartoren’s time had passed. If I was locked inside the heart of the magic, you wouldn’t have to worry. Everything would go back to the way it was.
“You brought me to the mourning ceremony because you hoped it would trigger a breach—with so many people using their powers, the magic was bound to try for me. When Anton stopped the ceremony, you decided to force me into the magic anyway. No sense abandoning a perfectly good plan. You must have been thrilled when Constance lost it and the raw magic broke loose.” God, it made me sick to think of how easily I’d been manipulated. Twice in one day—first Billy, then Dominic.
Never again.
Dominic’s face hardened. “Hadn’t planned on you turning tail.”
“Really? I think you did. That’s why you ordered Luc to leave me there. You told him the prophecy showed we’d survive, so it was okay for him to abandon me. You played into his belief in fate because you knew it was the one thing he couldn’t argue. Quite a shock for you, when he turned out to be a decent human being.”
“You agreed to the Covenant,” Dominic said. “Argue all you want, but we were simply assuring you fulfilled the terms.”
“The terms of the Covenant were to fix the magic. There was nothing in there about helping you.”
He shrugged. “Down here, we call that a
lagniappe.
A little something extra.”
“I call it dishonest. The Covenant’s over now, Dominic. I don’t owe you anything. New game. New rules.”
Orla sputtered. “But ... Anton. The Seraphim. Surely you won’t let them succeed!”
Marguerite came forward, clinging to Luc. “Enough. All of you. She’s been through plenty and she’s right. Leave her be.
“You did a brave thing, Mo. And you saved my son.” She lowered her voice. “You’ve changed, I think.”
“Yes.”
“I told you once that fate wouldn’t call someone who wasn’t capable. That’s truer now than it ever was.”
“Thanks. I think.” I looked out over the ruins of the Allée, wondering how much magic it would take to repair the damage. Orla would probably lead that project, I figured, making sure protocol was followed, traditions upheld. At the farthest end of the path, something moved in the trees, and I craned my neck to see better.
Anton. Instead of his robe, he wore a dark suit, hands stuffed carelessly in his pockets. I wondered how much he’d witnessed, and how much he’d understood. He waited until he was sure I’d seen him and then threw a hand in the air, a casual farewell—it was a “see you soon,” not “good-bye.” I knew the difference.
“Can you please take us home?” I asked Luc.
He did, wordlessly, returning us to the parking lot behind The Slice.
“I’ll get the truck,” Colin said.
When we were alone, Luc asked tentatively, “You’re not sick?”
“No.” Now that the magic had found its place in me, going Between didn’t wrench me apart. “I’m good. Different, but good.”
“Different’s a bit of an understatement,” he said. “Even my mother could see it.”
I glanced at what remained of the restaurant. I might have fixed the magic, but there was plenty left to do. “Another time, Luc.”
He looked disappointed, especially when Colin came back and took my hand. And then his eyes met mine, challenging. “Bet on it.”