Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
“Right,” Thea says, already rummaging in her bag. “I can’t top that.”
She sets out her equipment on the stone floor. “What you did was extraordinary. The moment you stepped into the magic, I saw the helix, the maps—felt every thread you untied. What I want to know is where the magic went. We all felt it build, and then it was simply gone.”
I scratch the back of my neck. “Things happened quickly,” I admit.
My mother’s eyes drill into the side of my face. Judging. Cataloguing. Finding everything wanting, the way she always has.
Cáel shifts smoothly into her line of sight, blocking her view of me entirely. He has already positioned two of his people at the ward’s edge, weapons trained on my parents.
It is a small thing, that step. He probably does not even realise he has done it.
I notice.
Yet I brace for disapproval, for an accusation that I flooded hundreds of thousands of people with magic without warning.
“She gave it back,” Cáel says. He only smiles, his eyes soft. “I knew you’d do the right thing.”
My eyes fill with tears as love and fear surge, loud enough to make my ears ring. What if people who had no magic are overwhelmed by it?
I look at Vivian, then Thea. “Was it the right thing?” I whisper.
“Yes.” Vivian tucks an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “You did the right thing. If you’d kept that power it would have killed you. We’d be picking bits of Elmo out of our hair for years.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Thea answers instead, and she does not soften it. “Some of them will be hurt. The very old, mostly. Anybody whose magic arrives faster than they can hold it. There will be accidents.” She meets my eyes. “I can’t tell you how many, and I shan’t pretend otherwise.”
The solid stone is unsteady beneath me.
“And if you had left it where it was,” she goes on, “every one of those people would die anyway. Slowly.” She shrugs, and there is nothing careless in it. “You have traded a certainty for a risk. That is the whole of what you did. It is still the better trade.”
“Magic doesn’t like being stolen,” Vivian says quietly. “It was never going to end tidily.”
“Thread magic is especially narky,” Thea agrees. “You gave it what it wanted.”
“And the Games stop,” Vivian adds. “No more children performing for television. Other countries have systems for this. We shall build one.”
Thea sits cross-legged and pats the stone beside her. “Now, let’s finish this.”
I sit. Cáel folds my coat and lays it across my lap, shielding me from the chill rising off the floor, and I smile at him.
“I did the borders first,” I whisper.
His hands go still on the coat.
Then he leans in, rests his forehead against my hair for a moment, and lets out a long breath.
He does not say anything. I do not think he can.
Mina arrives before I have finished settling, steps over Thea’s equipment with insulting confidence, nudges Cáel away and lies down against my hip. Nobody attempts to move her.
“The person who connected you to the network,” Thea says, taking my left wrist and drawing my hand towards her, “was nowhere near as talented as whoever built the original grid. It was never meant to hold this long. It was designed to drain you dry—a rapid siphon—and then be done. But there’s no draining that magic. ” She gives a small smile. “Not yours.”
She scrutinises my wrist and turns it towards the white rune’s bright light. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re going to lose the ability to use the government marks.”
“That’s all right,” I reply. “I won’t be returning to bounty hunting.”
I glance at Cáel. He reads me perfectly and nods.
Our world is about to change, and people will need guidance. No doubt there will be countless children to save.
I will do that.
Maybe we both can.
Warmth spreads across my chest. The sigil on my sternum prickles, almost itching, and my hand drifts towards it before I realise what I am doing.
Cáel watches the movement with an expression I cannot quite read. Then he smiles, and the strain of the past week seems to fall from his face.
The sigil heats in response, and my heart stumbles.
“What do you know?” I ask. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Oi.” Thea jabs me in the arm. “I’m about to sever your last connection to the network. I need your attention on me, not on making googly eyes at him.”
“Googly eyes,” I huff.
She shakes her head. “You’ve handled all the grand cosmic-power business. Let this poor thread doctor deal with the rest.”
“Bossy,” I mutter.
“Oh, she’s incredibly bossy,” Vivian confirms.
We grin at each other.
Thea tuts. “Behave. I’d rather not kill you by accident.”
Silence falls, instant and complete.
“Right,” I say.
This part I cannot see, only feel. Thea plucks at and twists the magic around my wrist. Though nothing is visible, her movements produce the same peculiar sensation as a stitch sliding through skin. She begins to hum. The sound is still mildly maddening, but I have made my peace with it.
“Much easier now,” she says between bursts of humming. “Before, every time I touched the link, the network tugged back. So much drag, so much power. Now it’s only this one messy thread.”
She tweaks and pulls. Something snaps, clean and sharp as scissors through cotton, and the magic twangs away across the room.
My gaze follows the recoil. The white rune flickers, then burns brighter, steady and strong.
“Done,” Thea murmurs, satisfied.
As she leans back, the first government mark fades from my wrist, and a new sigil settles in its place: my own magic, finding its shape. I do not yet know what it will do, but my power is mine, and I feel confident enough to wield it.
Thea shifts into a more comfortable position and holds out her hand for my other arm.
I give it to her.
She turns her attention to my second wrist. Tweaking, pulling, loosening. The connection releases, and the magic snaps back towards the suspended rune.
The Immortal Zone drops.
Not physically. Not enough for bodies to sway or stone to groan. The lurch happens in the magic beneath us, a sickening dip only I seem to feel.
The rune steadies, flares brighter, and I breathe again.
“Done,” Thea says, watching the final mark fade. She leans back, exhaustion softening her posture. “We are finished.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She taps my hand, then rests her fingers against my pulse, checking instinctively, as she always does. “You’re my little sister too.”
Her gaze sweeps over me with brisk, professional efficiency. “Your colour is excellent. You look—” She breaks off, her eyes settling on my sternum. “Oh,” she murmurs. “Oh, now, that is interesting.”
She glances from me to Cáel and back again.
“Heart magic. You’re soulbound. It’s related to Thread magic, yet distinct—its own discipline entirely.
” She says it almost to herself, frowning.
“There is a line about it in the old records. Two lines. I always took it for poetry.” She looks up. “Witches have them.”
Vivian appears behind Thea and loops her arms over her wife’s shoulders. “Have what?” she asks.
“Soulbound pairs,” Thea replies. “Old records call them soulmates. Witches are soulbound.”
My chest goes tight. “Bound how? Bound to do what?”
“I’ve no idea.” She says it plainly, which I appreciate a great deal more than comfort. “Two lines, Elmo. I know the thing exists and I know what it is called. That is the whole of it.”
She looks past me, and I don’t need to turn round to know who she is looking at.
“Are they now,” Vivian says, with unmistakable delight.
Inside the ward, my mother is standing very still.
She has spent my whole life deciding what I was worth, and she is watching four people arrive at a different figure, from behind a barrier she cannot cross, with nothing left to say about any of it.
I find that I do not care what her face is doing.
That is new as well.
I look at them both, then turn to Cáel.