Chapter 6 #2
“You don’t have to live in your nightmare either.” I pretended to hold out a drink, knowing Alex followed my thoughts.
Alex’s eyes twinkled. I couldn’t see his mouth under his beard, but I’d bet he smiled.
The ground shook. The smell of roses became so thick it made me cough.
His gaze filled with regret. The scent hit harder, thick as syrup.
My vision wavered, Alex’s older and younger faces flickering in and out like mismatched slides.
What had to be a younger version of him, still strikingly similar to Xan, stepped forward and took my imaginary glass, though his older self didn’t move.
The young man flashed me a grin, somehow flirty and innocent at the same time.
The world fractured.
A dizzying concoction of emotions that didn’t belong to me swirled. Anger, hate, love, loss, and loneliness overwhelmed me.
Like safety glass shattering, the fracture split. For a brief moment, I saw Alex’s broken face between the thousands of tiny lines. Then I fell.
A roar split the air, followed by my screams.
You only die in dreams if you hit the ground.
I jerked awake, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling made of weathered wood and magically smoothed metal. Magic didn’t flow around me; it thrashed like a churning river.
“Quinn.” Ezra wrapped me in his grip.
For a heartbeat, I just stared, afraid he’d vanish like everything else. Then I grabbed him and kissed him like it was the last thing I’d ever do. Emotions slammed into me—scalding heat, choking grief, a whip-crack of fury—until I thought my skin would split and pour them out.
Another roar split the air, and the ground trembled.
I broke our kiss. “I heard you. You never left me.”
Ezra gripped the back of my head and pulled me into his chest. “I’m yours. I’ll never leave you again.”
I gripped his waist and pressed myself into him as if I could merge us into one. Love I didn’t know I could feel squeezed my heart so hard it hurt.
The thick, oily, rose-scented air finally cut through my emotions, pulling me back into my complicated “reality.” A not-so-sane giggle slipped into the power-laden air.
My hand flew to my stomach without my asking, and I pressed my belly button ring into my skin.
The smell of scorched skin jolted me into another memory, Cayden’s runes liquefying and running down his arms. I’d helped my best friend destroy his Prophet.
I didn’t know what I was doing, but I’d taken everything I could reach and shoved, which included Ezra and Alex’s cerulean-blue magic.
When I thought Alex’s name, his attention brushed mine—no voice, no image, just the unmistakable awareness of being seen. My shoulders locked before I could stop them. A heartbeat later, the pressure eased, like he’d deliberately looked away.
Questions crowded in, sharp and insistent, but only one mattered.
A cauldron bubbled with Ezra’s plum purple in the far corner. With a thought, I replaced it with my magic. It responded instantly. Clean. Effortless. My power was whole again; the collar no longer blocked it.
Relief came first. Then elation, bright and tightly contained. I forced it down before it could spill.
I closed my eyes, feeling Alex’s weight in my mind, seated like a Buddhist monk—peaceful for now, silent, but capable of anything.
“Are you helping me?” I asked quietly.
Alex didn’t answer.
Ezra gripped my shoulders. “Quinn, who are you talking to?”
My eyes snapped open. Wrongness shimmered in the air, warping light, bending sound, pulling at my bones like a tide I couldn’t fight. I scampered backward and off the cot, only to bump into a hard desk. It took me a moment to recognize Horax’s office.
Of all the places to be, why here?
Another hot roll of wrongness washed across my skin. The same tug that made me move my hands from Brit’s chest to her abdomen pulled at me. When I didn’t move, the feeling urging me forward turned into a driving need. I stood and took an involuntary step toward the door.
Ezra put his hand out. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t touch me!” I froze, not wanting my destructive Majekah anywhere near him.
Pain flashed across Ezra’s gaze, but he lowered his hand.
Magic. Majekah. Pure power flowed along my back, begging me to go to something—or someone. The wrongness called to me like a siren. I took a step toward the door, and Ezra slid in front of me.
“You just woke up,” Ezra stated reasonably. “You’ve been unconscious for days. At least let Xan examine you first.”
I began to vibrate. I could actually see the small waves of crystal magic emanating from my skin as the world engulfed me with need.
“I have to go. I can’t wait.” I put my hand in front of my face. The room folded in on itself, colors bleeding inward until only my hand remained, and then the world snapped open somewhere else.
My heart raced. I’d teleported… by choice? By design? I didn’t know, but I would find out, later.
Professor Holiday’s sticky rose magic, the source of the wrongness, filled my nose and coated my skin. The late afternoon sun rode low in the drizzly sky. The energies of the world swirled past my hand. Despite every instinct telling me to drop it and keep moving forward, my logical mind froze.
Professor Holiday’s massive monster filled my memory. The knots of tangled wires, animal muscle, and lumpy, almost human appendages made my bones rattle.
Another boom shook the ground.
I didn’t want to find out what drew me to Professor Holiday. But it didn’t look like I was getting a choice. My throat locked, my heartbeat thundered in my ears, and every nerve screamed for me to run. Instead, I took one step forward.
Internally, I screamed.