Chapter 13
Thirteen
We pass the final row of tents at the outer edge of the kingdom’s caravan where the desert unrolls in an endless carpet of ecru dunes stacked like waves on a sunburned sea. Heat rises in silken sheets, warping the horizon until sand and sky bleed together in glistening golds.
Declan halts beside me, hands on his hips, eyes scanning the landscape. “That’s a lot of nothing,” he mutters.
“Not nothing.” I swallow, throat dry. “This is where Fortune disappeared. Where the world unfroze. There has to be something out here I’m meant to find. A spark of magick I’m supposed to channel.”
If I can just figure out how.
Hot sand bites through the thin fabric of my dress as I kneel and shrug off my purse. Declan leans over my shoulder, his shadow falling across my hands.
“Need anything from your knight-in-training slash extremely supportive sidekick?” he asks, giving my shoulder a nudge.
Despite the heat and the pressure I’ve put on myself and the fact that I’m kneeling in a desert about to attempt fire magick for the very first time, my lips quirk into a grin. “Think happy thoughts.”
“Noted. Less brooding, more believing. It’ll mess with your energy if I stand here cataloging how this could go sideways.” He sobers a beat. “For what it’s worth, I do believe in you. And in this.”
“Then here’s hoping the portal opens gently and we can walk through instead of being dropped from the sky.”
“As long as we don’t land in the Hudson, I’m flexible.” He taps two fingers to the citrine in my palm, giving it a tiny blessing, then steps back to allow me space.
I open my purse and pull out what I packed this morning: a small bag of crushed cinnamon bark I bartered for at the market from a spice seller in a bejeweled vest in exchange for an eighty-dollar impulse buy highlighter brush; the chunk of raw citrine I keep in my bag next to the other crystals I use for emotional stability; and a single strand of red silk thread torn from the hem of our bedsheets.
Symbols of fire, clarity, and intention—anchors to help me draw down whatever magick Towerfall and the Wheel of Fortune are willing to lend, to shape it, to guide it, and maybe, just maybe, to get us home.
From the purse’s depths, the Wheel of Fortune pulses against my fingertips. A slow, steady throb. A heartbeat that’s not my own.
I slide my fingers along the worn edges, pulse hammering, anticipation building in my chest. The card hums against my skin, heat gathering. It’s alive, expectant.
I draw it out.
My breath stalls in my lungs.
It’s blank.
The tarot card is blank.
The wheel, the figures, the shifting spokes—they’re gone. Wiped clean. It’s just a sheet of glossy cardstock catching the sun, smeared with my fingerprints.
“What the—” The words rasp, dry and cracked, sticking to the back of my throat.
Panic spikes. I’m dizzy, ribs locked tight around my lungs. Heat flashes down my arms, then cold, leaving my fingers trembling around the useless slab of cardstock.
This was my proof, my tether. This was the one thing in this world I could hold on to. The one thing that could get us home.
And now it’s nothing.
My stomach lurches, hollow and heavy at once.
Breathe.
I squeeze my eyes shut, drag air into my lungs until it hurts, and force it out slowly.
Maybe blank isn’t empty. Maybe it’s a door.
The thought steadies me, calms the frantic flutter in my chest. I’ve read enough books about the tarot to know that the cards speak in riddles, not direct answers.
Maybe whatever magick dragged me here isn’t finished yet.
Maybe the wheel is still turning, waiting for me to remember what Fortune said I’ve forgotten.
I press my thumb against the slick white face of the card.
“I hear you,” I whisper. “I’m listening. But you have to give me a little more.”
I glance over my shoulder, hoping Declan didn’t notice the stampede of dread that just barreled through me. He gives me two very enthusiastic thumbs up.
I respond with a crooked smile and turn back to the spell that is not going to plan.
I close my eyes. Let the sand warm my shins. Let cinnamon sting my senses. Let the dry air catch in my lungs.
“I’m not asking for much,” I whisper to the fire that’s claimed dominion over this realm. “Just a nudge. A flicker. A sign.”
I’ve never cast a spell before. I’ve never believed in this type of magick enough to try. But, ever since I’ve been here, things have been different. There’s real magick here. At times, I can feel it smoldering in my chest. This world is not mine. Towerfall is truly magickal.
I draw a breath, open my eyes, and blend my writing skills with what I’ve learned about spellcasting.
“Fire that cleanses, fire that knows…”
Slowly, I wind the red silk thread around the chunk of citrine, knotting it tight, anchoring the energy like muscle to bone.
“Spark the truth this desert shows.”
I press the stone into the sand.
“Find the path—the place to start.”
I empty the cinnamon into my palm, inhale its spicy heat, then draw a circle around the stone.
“Reveal the way…” I lower my hand, pressing it to the stone. “Send it straight to my heart.”
The sand beneath my palm trembles. Then buckles.
The ring of cinnamon spits and flares, a lit fuse racing around my hand.
The red thread writhes as it lengthens, slithering out from the citrine to coil around my fingers.
The stone pulses, its glow swelling until it burns like a miniature sun.
Jagged seams of light crack through the sand, splitting outward in lightning-fast veins.
I try to yank my hand back, but the thread has already tightened, binding me to the stone. The citrine is locked fast in the sand, immovable no matter how hard I tug.
“Okay,” I breathe, my muscles tensing. My voice comes out high, panicked. “Okay, I’m listening. What do you want me to know?”
The sand beneath me shudders, then softens. Heat rises in waves. The surface bubbles, simmers, then gives way.
“Declan!” My scream rips out as the sand grabs my thighs, swallowing my legs.
The thread surges higher, twisting up my arm, tightening around my wrist, and with a violent yank it drags my hand beneath the surface.
He’s there in a heartbeat, grabbing my arms just as I sink deeper, sand gurgling around my waist. “Can you stand?”
I try to kick my legs, to wiggle free, but every movement drags me deeper and tightens the thread’s grip around my arm. “This isn’t normal quicksand, Declan. This is magick murder sand! Do something!”
He plants his feet in the soft slope around the sudden pool of quicksand and crouches low. He leans in and slides his arms under mine like we’re about to hug. “Stop thrashing,” he grunts. “You’re making it worse.”
“Shut up and pull!”
His arms tighten around me, trying to keep me from sinking deeper, from going under. Despite Declan’s best efforts, I continue to sink deeper. Liquid sand sloshes around my chest like wet cement.
“While I love that the magick is finally trying to communicate with me,” I gasp, sand sucking at my ribs, “we are not on the same page right now! Use your words and let me fucking go!”
The dune convulses. With a violent lurch, Declan yanks me free. We tumble backward, momentum sending us crashing through a nearby tent.
The door explodes, splinters of wood spinning as we slam through. Dust billows. We hit cool stone in a heap of limbs and grit and frantic breathing.
Beneath me, Declan groans, arms still cinched around my waist. “Well,” he pants, “that escalated quickly.”
“You think?” I wheeze.
His mouth tilts into that barely there smirk I’m starting to recognize as a hazard to my mental health. “For the record, I not only saved you, but I managed to save your purse.”
He tilts his chin in the direction of my sand-crusted purse.
I try to sit up, but his arms stay very firmly around my waist, his thumbs tracing idle circles along my sides.
One hand slides higher, heat trailing over my waist, the ridge of my ribs, the slope of my shoulder and arm resting against his chest. He sweeps a line of grit from my jaw, then brushes sand from my temple.
“You’ve got a little…” His voice is quiet as he continues to clean the sand from my cheek. “Everywhere.”
“I’m a mess,” I mumble, cheeks blazing for reasons unrelated to the desert heat.
His hand lingers, thumb ghosting the curve of my mouth. “No,” he whispers. “Not a mess.” His gaze drops, settles on my mouth, and stays there—heavy, hungry, pulling the air from my lungs.
My throat tightens. I swallow, and without thinking, I flick my tongue across my lips.
Declan’s body goes rigid beneath me. His chest rises sharply against mine, breath catching in his chest.
I hold the moment, aware of every racing pulse in my body. Then I decide. Slowly, deliberately, I drag my tongue over my lower lip.
His fingers flex at my waist, beneath my jaw, gripping me tighter. A groan escapes him. The vibration rumbles through his chest into mine like we’re strung together.
My hands twitch on his thick shoulders, desperate to move. To chart the hard lines hidden under his soaked shirt, to memorize the muscle, the heat, the feel of him.
His palm cups my cheek, callused and hot, thumb glossing over my damp lips. My world funnels down to his touch. His breath. The thick, sparking current tethering us closer with every heartbeat.
My hips shift and suddenly I feel him. All of him.
The hard press of his body against mine, sliding into place so easily, so perfectly it steals my breath.
My skirt has ridden high, bunched at my waist, and the red silk panties tied at my hips may as well not exist. Every rigid line, every stuttered inhale, every inch of aching want between us burns through the thin barrier.
When his eyes finally lift from my mouth, they carry a storm—dark, unguarded, flashing with a question I don’t know how to answer.