Chapter 27
Elio
The fountain was fighting me. No matter how hard I pushed my Water spell against its flow, the water kept coming, a thunderous, unstoppable torrent that hammered into the basin with enough force to shake the stone.
My arms ached. A headache hammered my temples.
Every second that passed, the clock above us ticked down, and I could feel our chances slipping away with each wasted moment.
I needed Talisa. That was the plan—she stabilized the sapling while I handled the water. Simple. Clean.
Except Talisa wasn’t doing anything.
When I risked a glance at her, my stomach dropped.
She stood frozen, her hands still raised toward the listing sapling, but the green glow of her magic had dwindled to almost nothing. Her face was bleached beneath her olive complexion. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, fixed on the drowning little tree as if it were the last thing she’d ever see.
“Talisa.”
She didn’t respond.
I couldn’t let go of my spell throttling the jet of water spouting from the fountain. If I did, the sapling would be knocked over in moments. But I couldn’t leave her like this. The clock read three minutes left. We were running out of time.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I wrapped my left arm around her waist from behind, pulling her back against my chest, and kept my right hand raised toward the fountain, fighting to keep the jet of water contained.
My body bracketed hers, and I bent my head so my mouth was close to her ear.
“Talisa. What’s wrong?”
“I—I.” She trembled against me. Her hands shook. “I’m ruining everything!”
“No, you’re not. Just breathe,” I told her as firmly as I could. “Breathe with me. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Like this.”
I forced my breaths into a slow, deliberate rhythm. After a moment, she matched me. One breath. Two. Her rigid back pressed against my chest, and I felt a continuous tremor running through her.
“I’m right here. We can fix this,” I told her. “Remember Mundise’s lockbox puzzles? Remember how we both thought it was impossible until we tried working together?”
She made a sound—not quite a word, something raw and terrified.
“I know it’s bad,” I admitted. “But we’ve solved worse… and I can’t do this by myself.”
The fountain roared. The alarm blared. Crimson light pulsed across the dome’s interior, staining Talisa’s face the color of fresh blood.
For a long, terrible moment, nothing changed.
Then I felt it—a shift, as if something had released inside her. Her breathing steadied. Her body relaxed against mine. Wood magic glowed brightly around her hands once more.
“That’s it,” I murmured. “That’s my girl. Focus on the sapling. Just the sapling.”
She nodded once, a small, tight movement. Then she took a deep breath and chanted the first verse of a new spell.
Then I felt something reaching deep inside me, past my ribs, past my lungs, to the deep well at my core where my magic lived. That something touched that well, and the power inside it responded eagerly.
I flinched. My concentration on the Water spell constraining the fountain wavered, and the jet swelled, slamming into the basin with renewed force.
Then the strange tug on my powers returned, stronger this time, and with it came the realization that I could feel her.
Not just the warmth of her back against my chest, or her deep breaths. I could feel her thoughts. They weren’t words, but more like her feelings and her reactions to what was happening.
A clear, focused determination cut like a razor-sharp knife through the lingering haze of panic, followed by a surge of relief so powerful it made my eyes sting. And underneath it all, a current of something ancient and green and alive, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
It was the strangest sensation I’d ever experienced. Like someone had reached inside my soul and rearranged the furniture.
“Elio.” Her voice was steady. Calm. “Let me—”
“You’re in my head,” I said, my voice thick with wonder.
“I know.” A pause. “Is that okay?”
The question hung between us. She was afraid. I could feel that too, a faint shimmer of anxiety beneath the solid bedrock of her determination.
The fountain raged. The sapling listed. The clock ticked down.
And I had a choice to make.
Talisa needed this. I trusted her. So I let go.
I stopped fighting the pull of whatever-it-was she was doing, and opened myself to it instead, consciously relaxing the barriers I’d spent months building around my power. It was like unclenching a fist I hadn’t known I was making.
I felt my Water magic respond—not to my commands, but to hers. The power that had been fighting me, that I’d been struggling to control, suddenly slid toward her call with the ease of water finding its level.
A key turning in a lock. That was what it felt like. A gentle, soundless click, and suddenly our magics weren’t two separate streams anymore. They were one.
My magic rose and surged toward her call with the force of a river finding its bed, and for a dizzying moment I felt myself tipping forward, as if I might physically fall into that current.
Then her magic caught mine, and the world steadied.
It felt like a heartbeat. Strong and regular and impossibly alive, pulsing through both of us in perfect sync.
Her Wood spell, which felt like green and growing things, twined around my Water spell like ivy climbing a trellis.
I could feel every strand of our magic weaving together—the earthy warmth of her spell anchoring the sapling’s roots, the delicate touch of her Wood spell coaxing life back into the sapling’s roots, trunk, and leaves.
And beneath it all, the steady, unwavering column of her will.
I stopped trying to control the fountain directly. Instead, I opened the focus of my spell and let her draw it into her unified working. She shaped it effortlessly.
The raging torrent slowed to a trickle, and the thunder of water hitting stone softened to a gentle patter. A fine mist rose from the basin’s surface and hung above the sapling like morning dew before settling in a gentle, soaking rain onto the hard-packed soil surrounding the little tree’s roots.
The change was immediate. Under the combined influence of Talisa’s Earth spell and my Water spell, the mud around the roots solidified as the cracked clay softened and melded. Then, her Wood spell urged the sapling to correct its precarious lean over the basin.
I saw the slender trunk straightening as the roots beneath reached down and grasped the basin’s narrow rim with the tenacity of fingers finding purchase on a cliff face.
Meanwhile, green buds swelled along the twigs, tiny at first, then fattening rapidly as the Wood magic poured into them.
One by one, silver-green leaves unfurled, delicate and perfect.
I’d worked dozens of practice spells with Talisa over the past weeks. Together, we’d solved every puzzle Mage-Instructor Mundise had given us.
But this was nothing like those sessions. This felt like dancing with someone who knew the steps as well as I did. Every time I shifted my focus, she was already there. Every change she made, I felt coming before she executed it.
Our spells and the flow of our combined power moved together with the effortless coordination of two people who had been dance partners for decades.
And Talisa—Twelve Gods, Talisa.
She stood straight-backed against me, her face radiant now. Power streamed from her in visible waves, green-gold light spilling from her fingertips and washing over the little tree in pulses that matched our shared heartbeat.
Her expression was calm but fierce as she chanted the words of the spell in a clear, steady voice. I joined my voice to hers, our chants blending into a single incantation that resonated through my bones.
I’d been attracted to her since the first day I saw her, confronting that aristocratic prick Lukhan in the dining hall with her chin up and her eyes bright with defiance.
I’d admired her courage, her kindness to the homesick first-years, and the way she cared for her sisters with a ferocity that made my chest ache.
And when she looked at you, you knew you had her complete attention.
That at that moment, you were the most important thing in the world to her.
The younger students all adored her for it.
So did I.
And more than that, I wanted her. I’d felt that way for months. I wanted to feel her lips against mine, her arms around my neck as she pressed herself against me…
But this—
This was something else entirely. This was watching the person you love become exactly who she was meant to be. I was hers now, body and soul, and I would follow her anywhere.
The sapling thickened and its branches lengthened, reaching toward the sky beyond the glowing dome of protective wards. Its leaves multiplied, and the air around the little tree smelled suddenly of fresh growth and clean water and life.
The crimson alarm-light stopped abruptly, and the completion chime sounded.
I looked up. The clock above us read 0:07.
We’d done it. With only seconds to spare.
The bell rang, signaling the end of the round, and the dome’s wards dissolved. The noise of the amphitheater crashed back in.
I was still holding her, my left arm wrapped around her waist. Her back was pressed against my chest, and I felt her panting for air. Her hair smelled like lavender and the faint ozone tang of worked magic.
I forced myself to let go of her, when what I really wanted was to turn her in my arms and kiss her for a long, long time.
Stepping back to put a discreet distance between us, the sudden absence of her body against mine felt like stepping out of warm sunlight into shadow.
She turned to face me. Her cheeks were flushed now. Her eyes were bright, a little dazed, but clear. And she was beaming. It brightened her hazel eyes and lit her face from within.
“That was…” I started, and then stopped because there weren’t words. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”