Chapter Twenty-Seven
Miles
Once I made it inside, Chaos was back, sitting on the floor with his duffel bag open beside him and a few bowls and herbs or something already out and waiting.
He patted the couch pillow in front of him. “For your old butt.”
I snorted and sat on the designated pillow. “Gee, thanks, kid.”
He smirked. “Anytime.” I noticed that he wasn’t sitting on a cushion.
“You can sit on one too, you know.”
He glanced up. “You sure? I was joking about the old butt thing, and I figured you’d put it back on the couch if you didn’t want it on the floor.”
I rolled my eyes and held my hand out toward Winter, who was sitting on the couch.
He obliged and threw me another pillow, and I held it out to Chaos.
“Here. I don’t care what you guys do with the pillows and stuff.
This living room is meant to be comfortable, so you can sit or lay to put your feet up wherever and however you want.
” There. That should be clear enough, right?
Chaos stared at me for a moment before he plucked the pillow from my hands, stood, set it down, and plopped back down on top of it. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Winter didn’t waste any time finding another pillow to throw to Aeson since he was still sitting on the floor. I’d offered them pillows before, but maybe they’d been too shy or polite to take them earlier.
Hopefully, they wouldn’t hesitate from now on.
Chaos pushed his hair out of his face, and I was glad to see that his bruise was already healed. “Do you have the object we’re turning into an artifact?”
Winter held the statue out to him.
Chaos took it, then squinted at me. “Why would you, of all people, have a gnome statue?”
I sighed. “It’s a long story, but mostly, it was a… practical joke.” It was more like some assholes at my old job bullying me, but I didn’t want to go there. Not only did I not want to talk about it, I also didn’t want to make him and Aeson sad at all.
They both seemed so content right now, and I wasn’t going to be the one to disrupt that.
Chaos nodded, accepting my answer, luckily, and set the statue on the floor between us.
“Okay, so we’re going to use sage to get rid of negative energy to clear the way for our magic, rosemary and dandelion to help guide our magics, and eucalyptus and thyme to strengthen our power.
Basically, we’re going to call on our magics and push them into the statue.
The herbs are just there to offer a little help and guidance.
But that’s the easy part. The hard part is making sure we put enough magic inside and making sure it stays there. ”
He went on to explain what all we needed to do, and I took a breath and asked, “You’re doing it with me?”
He nodded. “I… figured it would be easier to guide you that way, but if you don’t want necromancer magic mixing with yours, I don’t have to.”
“No!” Everyone startled at my outburst, and I cringed a little but rallied. “No, Chaos, that’s not what I meant at all. I was just checking because I’m actually a lot more comfortable having you do it with me since I have no idea what I’m doing.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes searching my face and likely trying to figure out if I was being truthful. I let him look because I had nothing to hide. I’d meant every word.
Finally, after nearly a full minute, he nodded slowly. “Okay. Let’s do this then.”
I blew out a relieved breath, and Winter caught my eye. He shot me a fond smile and a wink before I looked at Chaos for direction.
He waved both our familiars over, and they both leapt off the perch they were on—Sola had very reluctantly let Clucky on it—and they curled around our necks, balancing on our shoulders.
I was surprised they’d both seemed to know what to do when Chaos signaled them.
I’d thought I’d have to call Sola over myself.
It seemed that when it came to magic, everyone, including the familiars, knew more than me.
I supposed that was what happened when you weren’t allowed to attend practitioner school as a kid, even though you had magic. And could even apparently perform spells.
Like… who the hell knew an empath could do that? Or any of the other things Chaos had taught me?
I sure as hell hadn’t known it.
Chaos said, “It’ll be easier if we’re both touching the statue… uh, with our skin. I’m only going to push a little bit of my magic into it since it’s not really needed for what we’re using it for. But you need to push a lot into it, okay?”
“Got it. I’ll push as much as I can.”
“Good.”
I carefully removed my gloves and set them on the floor beside me. It made me nervous since there were other people in my house right now, but I tried to keep those feelings to myself.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the twins. I knew they wouldn’t touch me without asking. It was just… not a typical thing I did, so it was going to take some time to adjust to the idea.
I put the fingers of both hands on the statue, and Chaos did the same, careful not to touch me, which I was grateful for. I was nervous enough about this without being bombarded by his emotions.
He quietly said, “Alright, take a deep breath, and as you breathe it out, let your magic flow out of you and into the gnome.”
When he inhaled, I mimicked him. And then we were breathing out and releasing our magics.
When my magic met his, his emotions—anxiety, fear, doubt, and worry—came flooding in, making me suck in a breath. But then other emotions came through too—curiosity, eagerness, and… hope.
Oh, Chaos. He was worried about me not wanting to be near his necromancy magic. As much as people were afraid of my own magic, they were just as scared or even more terrified of Chaos’s. He’d had as much trouble with people as I had, and that… that hit hard.
I didn’t want him to feel all the loneliness, anxiety, and depression that came with powers like ours. I didn’t want him to feel like an outsider. I didn’t want him to be afraid to touch people because of how they might react.
I didn’t want any of that for him.
But it didn’t matter what I wanted.
The world could be cruel, and unfortunately, Chaos had already seen that for himself, hadn’t he?
God, I really wanted to wrap him and Aeson in a giant bubble and protect them from the outside world. I wanted to stop them from getting hurt. I wanted to help them.
Is he really okay with this?
Is he going to be disgusted by my magic?
He seems okay. Maybe… maybe this will work out.
His voice floated into my mind, and without thinking, I pushed my magic toward him. I pushed the care I felt, the fondness, the protectiveness toward him, and he sucked in a breath.
He’d felt that. And hopefully, he’d know that was how I felt about him and his brother.
They were such good kids. They needed an adult or two who would protect them, who’d keep them safe, and I was hoping Win and I could be that for them since their current guardians were doing a shit job of it.
Surprise. Fear. Hopefulness.
Friendship.
I smiled at the new set of emotions coming through.
After a few seconds, he whispered, “I… thanks.” He cleared his throat. “But… push calmness into it, okay?”
Oh. Right. That would probably help.
The last thing we needed was the pixies feeling even more protective of that damn dragon egg fossil.
I took another deep breath, blocked out Chaos’s feelings, and concentrated on my own.
Calm.
Calm.
I was calm. So, so, so calm.
I took another breath and tried again.
Caaaaalllmmm.
After a third try, I finally felt calm enough to push that correct emotion into the statue, so I sent as much as I could into it. Sola’s power filled my veins, and the amount of magic that passed from me into the statue doubled.
Chaos and Clucky were enhancing my magic, adding their own and making it even stronger. More powerful.
Another minute passed by with us pushing our magic inside, and finally, Chaos said, “Okay, stop.”
I cut my magic off, and the second I did, Chaos put a clump of sage and a large piece of black obsidian on top of the statue, locking the magic in. I took a breath and stared at it.
“How do we get it to stay in there?”
He grinned. “We just have to let it sit like that for a few hours and let it sorta soak into the statue. The sage and black obsidian will help keep it in until it settles.”
“How will you be able to tell that it’s set?”
He shrugged. “I don’t really know how to explain it. Right now, it still feels like your magic is kind of connected to you, right?”
I thought about it and gave my magic a little nudge, and oh yeah. He was right. It felt like the statue was an extension of my magic. Like there was a small rope connecting it to me.
“Oh wow, yeah. Like a rope connects it to me.”
“Exactly!” Chaos looked excited, and it took me aback for a second until I thought about all of our interactions.
He pretty much always seemed happy or at least content when he was doing magic.
This was something he truly cared about.
“It’ll start feeling thinner and thinner until that connection disappears completely.
That’s when we’ll know we can remove the sage and black obsidian, and the artifact will be good to go. ”
I nodded in understanding. “Awesome.” I offered him a fond smile. “Thank you for helping me with that.”
He nodded. “No problem. It should be good to go by the morning.”
“Alright, I’ll take it over to the museum after I wake up. Do you guys work tomorrow?”
He nodded. “We do… I could, um, take it there, if you don’t want to make the trip?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you have pixie gear to protect yourself while you’re placing it out there?”
He sighed. “No. Obviously.”
“Then I’ll take it. But thanks anyway.”
He nodded, and when I looked at Win, he was staring at me with this look of… affection on his face. Like, so much affection. More than I’d ever seen aimed at me. Probably more than all the affection that’d come my way in my life added all together.