Chapter 7 #2
I get on the escalator heading downward and watch him set one foot on the moving step but not the other. The escalator is whisking his right foot away while his left firmly stays on solid ground, making him do the splits.
“You’re doing good. When you feel your ball sac separate, you know you’ve conquered the escalator,” I call as he starts doing some bizarre hop thing with his right foot to try to get it back up with the left foot.
“Stop this cursed thing!” he growls.
“I can’t. It’s unstoppable,” I say, walking up the steps of the escalator just so I can continue to witness this masterpiece. It’s the little joys in life.
“I’m going to destroy this fucking thing.”
There’s a line of very confused people behind him wanting to get on with their day while the god of war and love starts a battle with the escalator.
“Just add your other foot,” I instruct as he keeps hopping and doing the splits with flair. I make sure to pull out my phone and record a little to send to Imani with an “In what shape do I need to return this god?”
Once I feel bad for the other people who just want to get on the subway, I hurry up the escalator and grab his arm, tugging him back down after me.
Torin wobbles and clutches at me while I grin at him.
“What was that?” I ask.
He doesn’t even look a tad bit embarrassed… it’s rather impressive. “It is not my fault everything in this world is so irritating.”
“It’s okay. You still looked really sexy doing it.
I think you even gathered yourself some fans.
” I gesture toward the people behind him who would probably have cursed anyone else into the next year for delaying their day, but instead are just swooning a little when he looks at them and tosses them a smile.
You’d think that stunt would have been enough to dry up any desire someone might have.
We reach the platform, and he stares at the empty spot where the subway will be with trepidation.
“I hate these things.”
“Understandable. But I think you kicked it into submission last time, so it should go better this time.”
He debates that as the subway arrives and I drag him on. There are open seats this time, so I push him into one and he seems quite pleased at the opportunity to sit and not fall on his face—even if it would have brought me even more joy—and we ride the four stops to my apartment before getting out.
“This one was much better behaved. You mentioned lunch earlier. I am hungry.”
“It’s like ten in the morning.”
“Pizza, then?”
“Sure, we’ll have pizza for brunch,” I say.
He looks delighted.
Once back inside my apartment, I lead him into the bathroom. “You know how to work a shower?”
“I know how to have sex in one. I read it in your books. Shower sex. Tub sex. A lot of office sex.”
I sigh and show him how to turn it on and adjust the heat. I still have my gloves on, so I try to feel how hot it is by using my arm but manage to get my glove wet.
“You got your glove all wet,” he says as he reaches for me, but I jerk my trembling hand back.
Torin eyes me, and I realize that my reaction was pretty dramatic. Not as dramatic as him riding that escalator, but it was up there.
“If you need me, I’ll be right outside,” I state.
He nods and watches me go. I can tell because Kit continues to gaze at him instead of looking forward, which means that I have to blindly feel my way through the doorway. When I reach the main room, I sit down at a kitchen chair, not wanting to get the couch dirty, and peel my gloves off.
The black stain that had previously stained my fingertips has spread up to my palms and stretches up the back of my hands. It’s like I’ve dipped my fingers in black ink.
This is the same way my eyes went. At first, it was like I could see a black stain in my eye… and then my vision deteriorated more and more every day. It didn’t take me too long to realize that my magic was doing it, that I was literally blinding myself by simply using my own magic.
So will my hands be the next to go?
I swallow a lump in my throat. I made a fix for my eyes, but what will I do if I lose both hands? And then will it ever stop? Will it just kill me—
“So what’s causing that?”
I jump when Torin speaks, and Kit looks over at him. Neither of us had heard the door open or him quietly moving.
“Nothing.”
“I can see that it’s something. What’s it matter if you tell me? You keep it a secret from your friends because you care what they think. You definitely don’t care what I think. Hell, maybe I can help you.”
“Help? I don’t think there’s any help for this.”
“You’re very smart, Riley, but you don’t know everything.”
And I decide he’s right. I sought help, but every step of the way left me discouraged.
I asked healers and scientists… and when everyone I consulted knew nothing, I just gave up.
Yet this strange man is telling me that I’ve given up too soon?
I scoff. “Fine. All I know is that there’s something about using strong magic that is doing this to me. It started about four years ago.”
“It started with your eyes?” he asks as he comes around and sits in the chair across from me.
“Yes. Just a spot one day… and then it got worse and worse. Weak magic doesn’t affect me, so I did my best to provide help with the weakest magic I could use while working with my unit.
Weak magic, like my witch magic that allows me to have Kit as a familiar, doesn’t affect me.
It’s only strong magic that causes issues.
I honestly don’t know how you could help.
I went to a healer and sought help outside of the department, knowing that if the higher-ups found out, I would be removed from my position.
“But no one I spoke to knew what was causing it. So I was careful. I took smaller jobs even though they always wanted to throw me right at the hardest shit because I’d always been able to deal with it.
Then, about three years ago, a woman who’d fallen deep into the world of blood magic attacked the department.
The problem with dark, illegal magic is that the power it gives the user is well beyond something a regular magic user can deal with.
So when the woman attacked my unit and killed multiple people, using their blood in an attempt to grow stronger, I knew we had to stop her…
“And so I did.The cost was the rest of my eyesight. I was determined not to tell anyone. I was hurt and ended up in the hospital, but… suddenly being in a dark world was so disorienting. I had been using illusions on my eyes for a while at that point, so they had no idea what was going on with me. They thought I’d hit my head and they ran all of these tests on me.
I just let them believe that because I didn’t know what else to do.
Once I left that bed, I’d have to tell everyone my secret—that I couldn’t see anymore.
My whole world was crashing around me. Being a part of that unit was my whole life.
They were my family. But the guidelines for being an agent in the Magical Interference Unit are so strict.
Any sort of medical condition or disability immediately gets you removed for ‘safety reasons.’ It’s an old practice that hasn’t changed.
And this… this would instantly get me knocked down to a different department. ”
I sigh and rub my face before continuing.
“A nurse in the hospital had a familiar, and I noticed that she could tell things while busy working on her computer, things she couldn’t see when clacking away on her keys.
And when I touched her, I discovered she was a seer…
but she didn’t see into the future or any of that.
She could see the ‘here and now’… but through another’s eyes.
“I spent days trying to learn how to connect it to Kit, and when I finally did, I was so relieved. My shoulder was already her favorite spot. She already went everywhere with me and watched everything I did. I thought everything was going to be fine, that I was going to fool everyone… but it wasn’t enough. ”
Torin shakes his head. “I can’t imagine how hard it’d be to suddenly see everything from off center. Judging distances to things alone would be hard,” he says as he squints his eyes, like he’s trying to envision this.
I nod, not surprised that he immediately understood something I thought I could breeze through.
“My dream of being back in the unit was quickly destroyed when I nearly got Vinny killed because he was relying on me when Kit had fallen off my shoulder. I’d spent so much time trying to learn how to understand the world when it was shifted mere inches to my left through eyes that are so different than a human’s.
Her color perception, how close and far she can see, and how well she can see in the dark are all so different.
But nothing prepared me for when she was ten feet away and looking at things from a distance.
I nearly got us both killed, and it was at that moment that I realized it was best for me to leave…
that maybe when I learned how to function better, I could return. And then this started.”
I hold up my hands.
Torin reaches across the table and picks up my hands to examine my fingers. “This gets worse when you use your magic?”
“Just strong magic.”
“Like today.”
“Yes.”
“My world is quite different from yours, but the magic is very similar. And the power of the magic you had within your body today exceeded what someone who isn’t relying on blood magic or other dark magic should be able to do.”
“But it’s not like I can turn it off. Just like today, if someone touches me, I’m stuck with the magic until I find another magic user.
It doesn’t matter how many clothes I wear; their magic grabs me the second they touch any part of me, clothed or not.
Or hell, today I gained the magic simply by standing there, which has never happened before. ”
“Do your hands hurt? That’s a silly question; I saw the way your hands were shaking earlier.”
“Right after I’ve used strong magic, the pain is extremely sharp. But it’s more tolerable now. Do you know anything about it? Have you ever seen anything like this?” I ask, feeling like a god who has probably lived for hundreds of years would have seen it all.
“No. You’re quite special.”
I glare at the man just because it makes me feel better about my hopes being dashed. “Lovely.”
Torin gazes at me intently, his fingers still on mine. “I knew someone who might have known more…”
“Back in your realm?”
“Yes. But she’s no longer… able.”
At first, I assumed she was dead, but now I’m not quite sure what that means. “Go get your shower.”
For a few seconds, his fingers continue sliding over the inky black stains on my hands, his expression showing his fixation on them. Then he lets go and gives me one of his charming smiles. “Let me think on that.”
“You do that,” I mutter. “Also think about how to ride an escalator because I work in the morning, and I’m supposed to babysit you, which means you’re going with me.”
I’m not quite sure why I told Torin everything. Was it out of hope that he might have an answer that no one else has?
Either way, I feel like I’m no closer and really do need to stick to my desk job at the library.